to an industrial area, a chemical area. We could have the same kind of chemical area. One dollar of taxes there brings in $500 for each child in the district. One dollar for us because we are complying with this pressure from the Federal Government, brings in $70 or $80. Part of this is also because this town is full of mathematicians, engineers, chemists and so forth, and they all are veterans, and we have $1250 for each house that they do have, there is $1250 deduction from taxes because they are veterans, and this also hurts us. Two other problems affecting local financing of schools arise from contract employees in trailers. In this area we have about 28 contractors who send engineers and highly technical specialists to the area to work with the base. They no longer live on the base but their work is 100 percent for the base. Not one of these 28 contracting companies have their major facilities there. They come on a very, very-well never more than for three years project for a specific project that they can do their work for. We receive P.L. 874 Section (b) money for children of employees of contractors if the work is being done on the base. In the past few years, these same contractors have been asked to move their offices off the base because of space problems on the base. These are office building structures only and in that desert they are not very expensive structures. Because of the short duration of contract with the base, much expensive equipment is leased from the base and is therefore untaxable. Bare office space brings in almost no revenue. Many contract employees live in the 1100 house trailers in our district and these bring in almost no revenue. We have about 1850 children in our school district. 1100 house trailers, they have about 2.8 people in each trailer. These are young people, most of them have elementary children. House trailers do not bring in much in taxes in California especially when they sit on desert land because desert land doesn't bring in much. One house trailer which is about seven years old, the wife whose. husband works as a technical writer does all of his technical writing for work on the base, the trailer is seven years old and she paid $100 into the Department of Motor Vehicles. She called and asked if any of that could go for school taxes because they don't pay taxes on a house trailer. She said, "How much of this will go to educate my four children who are in your district?" I said, "$50 goes to the State of California for roads in California, $16 comes back to the county," and by the way, our county is one of the largest in the United States. We have 48 school districts within that county, $50 of it comes back to the county of which $16 goes for roads in the county. $16 goes to the city of Ridgecrest for roads and services in the city of Ridgecrest. $16 is split three ways, a little over $5 for junior college district, a little over $5 for a huge high school district which covers most of the Kern County and a little over $5 for the whole year for the four children in this trailer who are contract employees. Bare office space brings in almost no revenue. Many contract employees live in 1100 house trailers in our district and this brings in almost no revenue. By moving contractors off the base, their children no longer count as section "B" students and we therefore have lost P.L. 874 funds for more than 200 children each year. This year it was almost 300 children. Not only that, but we have found out that the Corona Naval Base Research Center is moving into our area and before I left I was told we would have 209 civil service research employees living in our district because there was not enough housing on the base and they would be here by the end of December next year. The research base has a backup of contractors on a one to one basis. China Lake has had theirs on a three to one basis. This means that we can expect 418 additional children. Now, let's go into the financial situation of our district. If you will turn to page 6 of this, we have had a terrible housing problem in this district. We had, out of 1,800 children before Christmas, we had 850 on double session. I am a new superintendent there. Our buildings were in terrible shape and before we painted or anything, I might say that there has not been enough money to even paint a building and buildings that were built back before 1950 have never, the district has never had the funds to put a coat of paint on these buildings. Before painting and trying to do some work on them, I had them checked. I found that 14 of our classrooms were declared unfit for children. Eight of these even unfit for storage. Therefore we have moved children out of an additional 14 classrooms and we are double sessioning now up to about 1,200 children out of our 1,850, and school is going from 7:15 in the morning until 6:10 with an hour and 10 minutes busride for many of these children. This school district has a much lower than average assessed valuation, even though they pay $1 more than the average for the county of Kern which has 40 school districts and so they are trying. This is bringing in less money per child and the result is what? The result is that we have to pay our teachers less, we are paying our busdriver less salary, so forth. What happened this year? Out of 80 teachers, 34 were new this year. Out of 8 busdrivers, 7 were new this year. This is the kind of a turnover we have in our district. If you turn to page 6, although our State support for most school districts in California is less than 50 percent because our local taxes do not bring in enough money, the State support there looks greater. It is greater. As you can see at the far right, this is the average for Kern County which is even worse than it is for the State of California. I might say here that the amount of money per child in our district is $150 less than for the average of the State of California. Mr. PUCINSKI. I think you have made an excellent case concerning the plight of your school district and I think this could be multiplied. Mrs. LEWIS. This is what I am trying to say. There are unique situations but they have not been written into the current bill. They were not written into any of the previous bills and therefore I think that this should also be considered. This is a totally "B" district. About 47 percent of our children are genuine "B" students. I think we have at least another 12 precent that should be considered "B" students. If you will turn to the capital needs, we need $350,000 just to bring our usable buildings up to normal functioning condition. We need a minimum, I had 30 there. Actually that was a misprint. We have 40 classrooms and supporting facilities. We need $2,500,000 for this. We do have a bond election coming up. The most we can possibly raise, if we can sell our bonds and can bond up to maximum, is less than $900,000. It won't even take us off double session. I feel that the Federal Government has never taken the proper responsibility for this district. We need 27 percent over and above what we can possibly raise from local and State sources and therefore, nothing like this is written for this type of district, which could be considered an "A" minus type district. We do have some interesting sidelines here. Because of the nature of our parents we have a higher than average intelligence. There is a program for reading specialist. In California our achievement is too high, too qualified for Miller-Unruh teachers. We can't qualify for any poverty programs because we do not have poor people. However, we have a highly intelligent group of youngsters. We are offering them a good but very narrow kind of program. If you will turn to almost the last page here, you will see what I mean by the information under the curriculum area in this brochure. We were hoping for a new middle school last year and in planning. it, we found that there had never been any counseling provided so Title V program was written last year for 60 percent of one counselor. I had put in a cross-age counseling program in the district for youngsters to help with this. Facilities have been minimal. There are no showers or dressing facilities for 7th and 8th grade youngsters. No prevocational program whatsoever. One library for four schools with five books per child in the district with a higher than average IQ and potential in our district. I think this is one place where the Federal Government has really not taken its responsibility. We did not ask to have a remote school district set up in the middle of the Mojave Desert and I think the town is cooperating because there are not enough houses, and it has developed into a town around the base. Everybody there is either directly connected with this research or they are there on a contract basis or else they are doing the housekeeping activities for these people. Mr. PUCINSKI. How come the assessed valuation is so low in that community? Mrs. LEWIS. Desert land is not worth too much and we have no major industries. In fact, we will probably never have any as long as the base is doing this type of research. Mr. MANWARING. Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt? Mr. PUCINSKI. Yes, Mr. Manwaring. Why don't you proceed. Mr. MANWARING. I would like to because I am due in St. Louis shortly and I just want to make a brief statement. Mrs. MINK. I ask unanimous consent that the report to which the previous witness referred be inserted in the record. Mr. PUCINSKI. The brochure will be inserted in the record at this point. (The brochure referred to follows:) An Analysis of the Impact of Federal Activities The attached analysis of the impact of federal activities upon our District is presented for the Board's use and information. Congressional review of federal policies regarding assistance to impacted school districts may offer this District an opportunity to recommend that the Commissioner of Education be granted discretionary authority to deal with special impact situations such as ours on a case-by-case basis. Indian Wells Valley's need will justify this concern. Here there was no industry, little desert agriculture, and practically no taxable wealth when the site of the Naval Weapons Center was selected. And here today the isolated desert community reflects only that development stimulated by the activities of the government. A progressive deterioration of the financial position of the Indian Wells Valley Joint Union School District in the face of increased government activity is apparent. The importance of the well-being of the community to the facility from which 85 percent of the free-world's weaponry has come should help to alert the federal government to the crisis which faces our schools. It is hoped that a way can be found for this material to help the authorities to become aware of the special characteristics of impaction in this District. Very truly yours, Ruth A. Lewis District Superintendent Postscript; Local officials have advised that the government has requested no heavy industrial growth in Ridgecrest and vicinity because of the necessity of keeping air pollution to a minimum |