Carmel Unified will ask voters to approve a $250 million bond to upgrade aging facilities.

Voters in the Carmel Unified School District will decide this Nov. 3 whether to approve a $250 million bond measure to fund upgrading facilities across the district. The measure, approved by the CUSD board on June 17, is asking for less than the nearly $280 million that district officials forecast are needed to upgrade all its facilities, according to a 2019 master plan.

“It’s to ensure students have reliable facilities, ensure teachers have reliable systems and to mitigate missed instructional hours – those moments that kids can’t go to school because a pipe burst,” says CUSD Board President Matt Glazer, the parent of two children attending CUSD schools.

The district sets aside nearly $3 million every year to maintain and complete facilities projects, but it isn’t enough to fulfill the needs across the district.

Glazer has visited all nine school sites and says the need is consistent with the district’s master plan.

Some CUSD campuses were built in the 1940s and ’50s; parts of Carmel High School were built in 1939.

Aging infrastructure is not unique to CUSD. Monterey Peninsula Unified and North Monterey County Unified are facing similar challenges. In 2024, MPUSD voters passed a $340 million bond, which included facilities upgrades. NMCUSD is hoping to pass a relatively modest $40 million bond measure this November for campus renovations.

If approved, property owners within CUSD will pay $36 per $100,000 of assessed property value, generating $17.7 million annually until 2054.

To pass, it needs 55-percent approval. The last time CUSD voters approved a bond measure was in 2005.