Project funds are cut off

A state board has frozen matching funds for more than a dozen projects in the Newport-Mesa school district, putting more than $2.6 million of construction and renovation money in limbo.

That’s part of a statewide freeze by the Pooled Money Investment Board, a state institution that voted 3-0 this week not to lend money for roughly 2,000 infrastructure projects statewide, saying the state is too strapped for cash to give it out.

A list of projects released by the board does not describe what the projects were, but Newport-Mesa Deputy Supt. Paul Reed said the dried-up funding wouldn’t stop anything being built right now. All the projects affected are either already finished — in which case the state just wouldn’t hand out a reimbursement — or haven’t begun.

“It’s a matching program to improve facilities and usually expand facilities at school campuses,” Reed said. “None of those projects are underway at the moment. Some of those planned have to do with relocatable classrooms and things of that nature.”

Costa Mesa is also affected, but by much less: $100,000. The city isn’t sure which project is affected, Assistant City Manager Tom Hatch said.

“We’re looking to obtain information about exactly what project they’re talking about,” he said. “Relatively speaking, it’s a small amount of money for a larger capital project.”

The money isn’t lost for sure yet, and the final answer may not be clear until the state government comes to a deal on cutting the current budget, Reed said. Even then, if a project were essential, the district might find another way to fund it, he said.

“It depends on how badly we need the facilities, whether we would try to fund them ourselves,” he said. “It could even extend to our going out and getting our own loan — our credit rating being better than the state’s.”

Still, as financial headaches go, this one ranks far below the bigger problem of a state facing fiscal meltdown, he added.

“I’m not concerned about [the fiscal year of] 2008-09,” he said. “I am definitely concerned about 2009-10.”

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at michael.alexander@latimes. com.