School Board to Weigh Possible Gap in Funds

For the past few years, city officials have been on a mission to revamp the city’s image, fighting urban blight and decay and luring businesses with cash subsidies.

Despite some success, the growth has not enriched the city’s coffers and the redevelopment agency, which depends upon revenue from the designated redevelopment area, is forecasting a possible $2.2 million deficit in 2000.

Should such a shortfall occur, the agency has asked the Garden Grove Unified School District to defer the agency’s $2 million payment for that year.

The school board is due to address the possible shortfall at its meeting tonight at 7:30 p.m. When the proposed deferment was presented to the board last month, the idea was greeted coolly. Some board members said the money already was slated for use.

The agency pays the district to accommodate the growth in the student population caused by the 1992 redevelopment plan. The money--used for specific expenses such as portable classrooms, building improvements and technology--is first spent by the school board and then reimbursed by the city. Previous payments have ranged from $500,000 to $1 million.

The redevelopment agency reimbursed the district $1 million for 1997-98 school-year expenses and plans to make a payment for this year’s expenses as well.

Garden Grove’s student population has been growing at about 1,000 pupils yearly for the past decade, according to district spokesman Alan Trudell, and resources are thinly stretched.

In the past two years, the district had to reopen two schools. Also, it uses a total of 268 portable classrooms, the equivalent of 15 individual schools, Trudell said.

Community Development Director Matthew Fertal emphasized that whether the agency actually would need to defer payments will remain unclear for months. Should tax revenue rise sufficiently over the next year or two, a deferment would be unnecessary, he said.

“We were trying to look ahead and say that if we don’t see an increase in the tax increment and some other things don’t happen, what are our options,” Fertal said. “We wanted to have some backup scenarios to work with.”