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The November 2024 General Election is rapidly approaching, and a slew of measures is set to appear on your ballot. Among them is Proposition 2, which claims to be a bond measure that will help provide funding for schools — but the truth is that the funding will mainly benefit bureaucrats, special interests and politically-connected contractors.
Prop 2, officially titled the “Education finance: school facilities: Kindergarten Through Grade 12 Schools and Local Community College Public Education Facilities Modernization, Repair, and Safety Bond Act of 2024,” would authorize a bond of $10 billion allegedly for K-12 and community college facility improvements.
Bonds are a credit line for the government, allowing them to borrow money for projects that the public has to pay back — with interest. This means bonds are effectively a tax hike on the public.
Carl DeMaio, chairman of the tax-fighting group Reform California and a candidate for State Assembly, says that the idea of a bond is not inherently bad unless it results in wasteful or unnecessary spending.
“Prop 2 is a costly and unfair burden on working families — the spending is unnecessary, and facilities could be improved with existing funds if the government managed its budget better than a drunken sailor,” explained DeMaio.
DeMaio points to California politicians’ current budget plans, which aim to take on $100 billion in debt to pay for new programs — such as the Prop 2 bond — while still leaving current obligations like pensions severely underfunded. This would increase the state’s debt service ratio from 2.8% to 3.2% — and likely mean more tax hikes on the public to help pay down the debt.
Even worse, as DeMaio points out, is that the state does not accurately track and audit its spending. In fact, California authorized over $30 billion in spending to address homelessness — including over $6 billion in funding passed by Prop 1 in the March 2024 Primary Election — and the state has had to admit it doesn’t know how that money has been spent. Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom even vetoed a bill that would have required him to better monitor the distribution of funds.
“Zero accountability for spending — and no results!” said DeMaio. “If the state continues to fail to manage its budget and deliver on what they promise, then why should we authorize more spending?”
DeMaio also says that Prop 2 is purposefully written to lie to and mislead voters.
“The funding in Prop 2 will not go toward education improvements — it benefits the pockets of bureaucrats and greedy special interests,” explained DeMaio.
A majority of Prop 2’s funding goes toward or is able to be diverted toward bureaucratic functions such as salaries, grants, contracts, and more to “investigate,” “assess,” and hold “meetings” about the state of facilities.
And DeMaio says that Prop 2 contains specific language to impose “Project Labor Agreements” so that any contracts awarded under Prop will benefit politically-connected contractors — who in turn donate back to Democrat politicians to encourage them to award more contracts.
Under a “Project Labor Agreement,” only unionized contractors will be able to successfully bid on the contracts to do the work. That means tax dollars will be taken out of the paychecks of every worker on Prop 2 projects and those funds are sent to the political fund of the union – for contributions to Democrat political campaigns.
Project Labor Agreements also price gouge taxpayers. PLA’s spike the cost of a typical project by 30-40% which wastes taxpayer money – and eliminates any ability of veteran-owned and small business contractors to bid on the work.
Finally, DeMaio warns it is quite likely that not a single dollar of the $10 billion in Prop 2 would actually go toward development and making school facility improvements.
And this happens routinely — an independent analysis by former State Senator John Moorlach found that over 80% of revenue collected by the state gas tax goes toward administrative salaries or is diverted to completely unrelated projects rather than fixing roads.
“And if the state is barely tracking its spending, then we may never know if they divert Prop 2’s funds to their own pockets!” explained DeMaio.
“At the end of the day, Prop 2 is a scam that is written to sound like it will help schools — but there is no guarantee that even one penny will help schools and there is zero accountability to make sure that happens — vote NO on Prop 2 and demand better,” concluded DeMaio.
DeMaio and Reform California are opposing Prop 2 and will include their recommendation on the measure and others on the ballot in their annual “Plain English” voter guide, which breaks down your ballot in easy-to-understand terms. The guide will be available in October.
