by Lance T. Izumi, Fellow in California Studies
Pacific Research Institute
July 28, 1998

Announcer lead: Time for Perspectives. Lance Izumi says that California must reduce the cost of constructing school facilities.

Come November, Californians will likely be asked to approve billions of dollars in state and local bonds to finance the construction of school facilities. No one denies the need for more schools and classrooms, especially in the face of a burgeoning student population. The problem is whether taxpayers are getting the most out of the dollars spent on school construction.

As things stand now, they aren't. Currently, school construction is burdened by a maze of state regulations which the state Little Hoover Commission says "micro-manages school construction projects, delaying the completion of and driving up the costs of school facilities."

At the heart of the problem is the Field Act, the state's stringent school construction law. The Act gives the state the authority to determine structural safety standards, review plans, and oversee the construction process for all public school buildings. The Act effectively prohibits public schools from using vacant commercial buildings, even though under current commercial building codes, new commercial buildings are as safe or safer than many schools built under the Field Act.

The problem, then, is not a question of safety, but rather the state's requirement that school districts get the approval of a byzantine array of state agencies for any school construction. The approval process requires 64 separate steps and involves the Division of State Architect, the California Department of Education, the state Office of Public School Construction and the State Allocation Board. Not only do these bureaucratic approvals take a great deal of time, school districts must also pay substantial fees for the agencies' review.

In addition, the state's prevailing wage law artificially increases the wage rates on government works contracts, including contracts for school construction. The imposition of these artificially high wage rates unnecessarily inflates government project costs by as much as 40 percent according to some studies.

Until politicians are willing get serious about reducing the costs of school construction, taxpayers should be wary of ponying up serious money for school facilities.

With a perspective, I'm Lance Izumi.