JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

My friend and neighbor, Beth Darling, came home angry and distressed last

week from a family work day at Mariners Elementary School, where her two

daughters, Cory and Jamie, will be spending the next half-dozen years.

The work day is an organized effort by Mariners parents to at least put

Band-Aids on some of the problems that the upcoming bond issue will

hopefully correct.

Beth used the facilities her daughters use daily and was appalled. In one

bathroom, the water came out in a trickle so tiny that washing hands was

a major project. In another bathroom, a different type of faucet was so

antiquated that it defeated the efforts of the children to turn it on.

And all day long, Beth heard a chorus of “One, two, three, four, five”

from the bathroom Jamie and her kindergarten classmates use. They were

learning math the hard way -- by following instructions to hold the

flushing device down while they counted aloud to five. Otherwise, the

toilet wouldn’t flush.

It didn’t help when Beth came home that night to find a story in the

Pilot about residents in Newport Coast who feel they are overburdened

with taxes and have decided that withholding modest and desperately

needed support for their local schools is the place to draw the line.

We’ll be voting on the Newport-Mesa Unified School District school bond

in several weeks, and the opposition has grown up around people who

oppose new taxes -- however small the bite or worthy the cause -- and

citizens who don’t trust the school board to administer the bond money

efficiently or in the manner for which it is intended.

The school board has taken some real hits during this period, in my view

unfairly. Board member Jim Ferryman told me: “Sometimes restraint is hard

to come by, but it avoids fights we can’t win.”

Having said that, he issued an open invitation to discuss the bond issue

one-on-one with anyone who cares to call him.

“I’m eager to talk about this need and why it should pass -- or any other

school matters, and I’ll talk about them to anyone for as long as

necessary,” he said.

Ferryman’s phone number is (714) 751-2787, Ext. 214, and I would urge

people who are uncertain or opposed to the bond issue to call him.

I got a two-hour short course in public school financing from Ferryman

and Newport-Mesa school board president Dana Black the other day, and I

was boggled by its complexity -- and maybe enlightened a little.

I’m not going to try to explain it to you or to myself in the short space

left here. But I would strongly recommend that before you come down on

the current board for what it has or hasn’t done, you seek a little

background in this area.

Ferryman and Black pointed out, for example, three common misconceptions

about school financing:

* Lottery money is no windfall. Newport-Mesa gets about $2 million a

year, which is only a dent in a $120-million budget.

* About 85% of the school budget goes to salaries and benefits -- and

Newport-Mesa is understaffed administratively by state standards and only

recently up to average for Orange County in teacher salaries. Said

Ferryman wryly: “Only 15% of our budget is disposable, and much of that

is controlled by the state. So we really don’t have much to mismanage.”

* Mandated requirements eat up a great deal of the disposable money.

State funding for special education, for example, is $5 million short of

local needs and has to be made up from the general fund. So does a

growing shortage of funds for required transportation.

This Newport-Mesa school board, which actually came together less than

four years ago, has been steadily working its way out of the embezzlement

hit an earlier board took, the county bankruptcy (some 98 cents on the

dollar has been returned), and the need to put its own administrative

house in order before taking on the meticulous preparation for a bond

issue.

How well the board accomplished this is reflected in the enthusiastic

evaluation of Measure A last week by a very tough and perceptive critic,

Orange County Treasurer John Moorlach.

Along with a small group of conservative, anti-tax residents, Moorlach

developed a system for grading bond measures put before local voters. The

Newport-Mesa school bonds received top marks across the board: four As

and one A-plus -- all on matters questioned by critics, including a

set-aside fund for future maintenance.

Buttoning up these questions so decisively leaves only the overburdened

taxpayer argument against the school bonds.

I would propose a simple test for those putting forth that argument. Ask

yourself if you would be willing to look into the eyes of Jamie and Cory

Darling and their mother and tell them that you can’t afford the price of

an upscale Newport Beach dinner for two once a year to help provide

proper plumbing in their school restrooms.

Oh, yes, there’s one other group who should take that test: the citizens

of this community who don’t bother to vote in what is probably the most

important local election in many years.

Dana Black separated her thumb and forefinger and said, “We have a window

open about this wide.”

On June 6, we have the opportunity -- no, the obligation -- to open it

wider and let in the fresh air of clean and safe schools for our greatest

asset: our young people.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column appears

Thursdays.