LAO seeks conditions on Brown’s surplus property-charter proposal
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The governor’s plan to provide charter schools with more access to surplus property appears to have support within the Legislature – but lawmakers also seem interested in conditioning the proposal.
The plan would extend for five years existing requirements that school districts with surplus land offer the property first to local charter operators before considering bids from other entities. The governor also wants to make permanent, temporary rules that give districts more flexibility in the use of surplus property sale proceeds.
But the non-partisan Legislative Analyst, pointing to the billions of dollars in bond money that the state has provided local communities in recent years for school construction, wants to maintain restrictions on how districts use proceeds from surplus land sales.
Gov. Jerry Brown, who has proved to be a major supporter of the charter movement since taking office, proposed as part of his budget last year a requirement that districts looking to sell or lease property first offer the land to charter schools at no cost. That idea failed to win passage.
Still, the challenge of getting school sites remains a major challenge for many charter organizations even a dozen