State Split of School Money May Be Unfair, Judge Rules

LOS ANGELES —  A judge said Thursday he believes the state may have unfairly doled out 1998 bond money to build new schools, but he isn’t inclined to set aside any of it for the Los Angeles district.

Civil rights groups suing over the issue have produced some evidence that the neediest school districts are getting short shrift when it comes to school construction funds, Superior Court Judge David P. Yaffe said in a tentative ruling.

But the plaintiffs’ suggested remedies, contained in a request for a preliminary injunction, violate California’s education code, he said.

“I don’t think the statute is unconstitutional, and therefore the statute has to be complied with,” he said in court.

He ordered both sides to submit further declarations and return to court on Aug. 24.

A coalition of civil rights attorneys sued Gov. Gray Davis and other state lawmakers in March alleging that its system for allocating $6.7 billion from a 1998 statewide school construction bond was unfair to large urban districts.

Districts must have the land and state-approved building plans for new schools they want funded. Because urban districts have a harder time getting title to land, more of the bond money has been given to suburbs--a “first-come, first-served” system that opponents called unconstitutional.