By Brittany Hanson/Garden Grove Journal
Schools in Garden Grove need maintenance and the public says it would be willing to pay for it, according to a survey performed by George K. Baum and Company for the Garden Grove Unified School District.
On Dec. 1, the school board discussed the idea of proposing a bond for potentially $200 million to fund modernization repairs in school across the district.
Modernization includes repairs to roofing, plumbing updates, making buildings accessible in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and even door and door hardware replacement.
George K. Baum and Company conducted a survey of voters most likely to vote in a June election across Garden Grove. Of a list of 4,000, there were 400 completed surveys.
Ann Nock of George K. Baum presented the survey findings to the school board Tuesday at a study session preceding the regularly scheduled meeting.
Of those surveyed, 65 percent said that they would be in favor of a paying bond to help the school district. The bond would act like a trust between the public and school district, with the state giving the school district bond money and the public paying it off in taxes over a the course of a few years.
Surveys were conducted in English, Vietnamese, Spanish and Korean.
At least a 55 percent of voters would have to approve in order to move forward with a bond issue to have it be acted on by the school district. The margin of error on the survey was plus or minus five percent. That would mean that the same survey could be conducted 100 times and the only difference would be about a 5 percent change in answers.
The range of money that surveyed voters said that they would comfortable paying would $30 to $40 per every $100,000 of property value that they had. Of those surveys used, 74 percent of contributors recognized a need in the district for repairs.
Nock said that according to their findings, voters agreed at 67 percent that it important for students to fully prepared for college as well as jobs.
Nock said that although the numbers are very promising for a bond measure, that although there might be verbal agreement to support, the hard part is making sure people actually get out and vote in the measure.
The next step in this process will be to put the item on an agenda for the next meeting, March 2, so that the school board will vote to either move forward or cancel the future promotion of a bond.
“We will need to be very clear that although this looks like a lot of money it does not mean everything for everyone,” said Superintendent Laura Schwalm.
