Last month, voters in the Los Angeles Community College District approved a $980-million bond measure, just two years after agreeing to a $1.245-billion bond for the 130,000-student, nine-college district.

The money will be used mostly for improving technology centers and renovating buildings, said the district's chancellor, Mark Drummond. The district will now be able to save some $8-million, he added, because the bond money will allow the colleges to purchase property rather than continue to lease it, and to pay off loans for energy improvements.

"With the state budget the way it is, this comes at just the right time for us," he said.

Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, has suggested cuts of $285-million, or 5.6 percent, for community colleges statewide.

Although some local news media questioned the decision to ask voters to increase their property taxes again so soon after the 2001 bond, Mr. Drummond said the long-term uncertainty of the budget had swayed the district's Board of Trustees to act sooner.

"Californians are frustrated with their inability to do a lot about this state-budget crisis," he said. "This is a way the average citizen could actually go to the polls, vote yes or no, and do something locally."