Daily Breeze: LAUSD will get more bond money

DAILY BREEZE ARTICLE
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/10569601.html

LAUSD will get more bond money

Measure by L.A. legislator changes formula to free funding.
By Rick Orlov, Staff Writer

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law a measure designed to provide up to
$640 million to Los Angeles schools from a voter-approved bond.

The governor Sunday signed Assembly Bill 1014, authored by Assemblywoman Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, designed to fill a loophole in Proposition 1D, a school-construction measure approved last November as part of Schwarzenegger's package of bonds aimed at improving California's infrastructure.

A provision in the measure, however, would have placed severe limits on the ability of Los Angeles Unified - the largest school district in the state - from getting its fair share of the funds.

Bass' measure changed the formula for funding from looking at new-student growth to considering traditionally overcrowded school districts, such as LAUSD.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, school board President Monica Garcia and Superintendent
David Brewer III issued a joint statement praising the governor and Bass.

"With the stroke of the governor's pen, the children in Los Angeles' public schools will receive their fair share of statewide funding to help build the safe, clean and new schools they deserve," the statement read.

"Assembly Bill 1014 will help put an end to the decades-old struggle against overcrowding in our schools and send a message to the 200,000 kids in Los Angeles who go to school in temporary classrooms each day that we will no longer shortchange their education."