On March 2, voters must decide whether the aging, unsafe and overcrowded parts of the state's education infrastructure are critical enough to get a $12.3 billion overhaul, or if the bond just means more debt in the California budget sinkhole.

Prop. 55 is a general obligation bond strictly for facilities; its funds would reach across both K-12 and higher education and target areas that are most crucial, fixing outdated classrooms, repairing leaky roofs and broken bathrooms, building new facilities to relieve overcrowding and providing matching state funds for locally approved school bonds. It has been designed to accomplish this without raising taxes, and its approval would authorize the state to finance bonds.

To allay public fears on bureaucratic waste or misspent money, Prop. 55 comes equipped with stringent accountability provisions, cost controls and independent financial audits. Among the many associations and organizations supporting Prop. 55 is the California Taxpayers Association.

The measure would allocate $5.2 billion toward new construction; $2.2 billion on modernization; $2.4 billion on critically overcrowded schools; $50 million for joint use purposes; $920 million for community colleges, $690 million for California State Universities, and $690 million for University of California system.

Sonoma Valley Unified School District stands to gain $318,812 in facilities funds, while Sonoma County at large would get $60.4 million for K-12 schools, according to www.yeson55.com.

Santa Rosa Junior College would garner $38 million for a project that would triple the size of its Petaluma campus by adding a new library and classrooms and fully equipped science labs, according to news sources; it could serve twice as many students as it does now. But if Prop. 55 does not pass, the school may wait until the 2006 ballot for another bond initiative.

According to a legislative analysis of Prop. 55, the actual cost of the bonds is contingent on interest rates and the duration in which they are paid off. If the interest rate is 5.25 percent and repaid over 30 years, it would cost the state a total of about $24.7 billion for both principal and interest - and an average of about $823 million a year, said the report.

Supporters of Prop. 55 say that the passage of this measure could not come at a better time, when 73 percent of California's classrooms are more than 25 years old, according to a California Department of Education report from 2002. To accommodate population growth and alleviate overcrowding, 22,000 new classrooms are needed in California, according to the Coalition for Adequate School Housing.

"Our kids deserve clean, safe classrooms to succeed," reads the argument in favor of Prop. 55 in voter pamphlets, linking achievement and higher test scores to a safer environment.

Supporters of Prop. 55 also assert that the construction of facilities will generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs and directly invest in the economy.

"We have not reinvested in our facilities on a statewide basis for many years," said Sonoma Valley Unified School District board president Sandra Lowe. "This is actually the second part of school bond Prop. 47 (passed in 2002)."

She added, "Facilities are not just buildings, they're programs. If we ever hope to reduce class size in (classes above K-3) we're going to need more buildings ... We have to have a place to do it."

Prop. 55 could help fuel progress not only toward class size reduction but future programs like public preschool, she said.

Lowe also stressed the importance of local community colleges and the positive effect Prop. 55 would have on the continuing education of local youth.

"Many young people start their (higher) education at Santa Rosa Junior College ... and these facilities are aging," she said.

Critics of Prop. 55 may not deny the state's myriad dilapidated classrooms, but do hold that the $12 billion bond is not the right solution to facilities woes and could not come at a more inopportune moment.

"Next year's estimated budget deficit is already over $10 billion ... Even without new bonds, our crippling debt load will make it much more difficult for government to respond to natural disasters and recessions," said Sen. Rico Oller, R-San Andreas, in an argument against the measure. "Prop. 55 rivals the largest bond in the history of any American state. We simply cannot afford it."

He points out that there is no interest-rate cap included in the bond, so the true costs could be "much higher."

He questioned why bond drafters had "set aside more than a quarter of the bond funds for the Los Angeles Unified School District when only 12 percent of the state's schoolchildren attend school there."

Lowe said that although people may believe a lot of money is going toward Los Angeles, Prop. 55 has a widespread, beneficial reach even in rural and less crowded areas.

According to supporters, every district is guaranteed its fair share of Prop. 55 funding.

Opponents of Prop. 55 also dispute the claim that Prop. 55 will not raise taxes, and believe it will inadvertently do so because "bond funds can only be repaid with tax dollars. We must either cut services or increase taxes to repay this bond."

They proposed a solution to spend "just 5 percent of the next five budgets on school construction" that could raise twice as much money as Prop. 55, thereby saving taxpayers "$12 billion in interest."

California State Treasurer Phil Angelides supports Prop. 55. "California's economy is capable of supporting Prop. 55. It's a sound, prudent, investment that will contribute to our future economic prosperity," he said.

For more information on Prop. 55, visit online www.yeson55.org.