Exactly four years after the Vallejo school district drew $50 million from a $60 million state loan, developer KB Home stopped paying for the 18 acres it bought from the district two years earlier.

The 2006 agreement with KB Home was to be a large step toward repaying the loan, netting the district at least $17 million with the potential to bring in up to $23.5 million through incentives.

Now district officials are hoping pending legislation will give them more time to work out differences with the developer and sell more property when the economy recovers.

State Administrator Richard Damelio is set to testify today before the Assembly Education Committee in favor of legislation giving Vallejo until June 2015 to sell more property.

"It's very important to the school district," Damelio said Tuesday as he traveled to Sacramento. "We really appreciate Assemblywoman (Noreen) Evans helping us carry this legislation."

School districts typically must use property sale proceeds for capital improvements, but some exceptions have been made particularly for districts in dire financial straits like Vallejo's.

Evans last month introduced AB 1874, which would extend from 2010 to 2015 the deadline for Vallejo school district officials to sell property and use the proceeds to repay the loan.

The Vallejo City Unified School District was given a $60 million loan in 2004 amid projections it would have a negative fund balance of $27 million that school year.