Long Beach High School's $29-million renovation and expansion project was made possible thanks to the school district's ability to get voter approval of a $92.7-million bond referendum in 2009. But getting school bond approval during the recession was—and still is—a difficult feat for most schools, finance and construction industry experts say.
With the economy still stressed and the unemployment rate still high, "it's a difficult time to go to voters to ask them to approve a program that's eventually going to raise their taxes," says Robert Kerr, chairman of New York Municipal Advisors Corp., Syosset, N.Y.