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Via SI&A Cabinet Report | By Kimberly Beltran

California charter schools operating out of privately-owned buildings may use the public tax dollars generated by a 2012 ballot measure to make energy-efficient upgrades to those facilities, state officials said late last week.

Rules for dispersing the money from Proposition 39 – half of which is dedicated for projects in schools and other public buildings – were recently adjusted to account for charter schools that either lease privately-owned buildings or own their own.

“The guidelines approved in December didn’t make a distinction between leased, publicly-owned [or] leased, privately-owned facilities,” Elizabeth Shirakh, project manager at the California Energy Commission, said at a recent public hearing. “The proposed change will now allow these charter schools and publicly-owned facilities…to apply to the Prop. 39 program.”

The state was struggling on the heels of a five-year economic recession to maintain basic services when in November 2012 Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature put two revenue-generating measures before voters.

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