The following article was reprinted with the permission of School Political Services and School Bond News.

By Jeremy Thorn

One of the most common errors in planning school bond elections is choosing an election date without doing the proper research to determine whether or not the bond measure has a chance of winning. The district's need for the money should never override the community's willingness to support the bond measure. Below are five steps to ensure your bond measure's success.

1. Caution the school board from placing an unfavorable proposal on the ballot. Never assume that if the district needs the money bad enough, voters will approve the bond measure. Often times, the district's "urgent" needs compel a school board to put its bond measure on the ballot without adequate preparation. Serious problems with the district's proposal eliminates its chances of winning.

2. Seek professional help from bond consultants before board members, administrators or the public gets fixated on a particular date to hold the election. Many factors may affect when you should hold your election; let the experts help you evaluate all of your election date options from the very start. Political consultants, facilities planners, financial advisors and attorneys are almost always willing to consult districts free of charge.

3. Design a plan and process driven by the districts need to pass a bond. It's natural to want to set an election date to drive the process. Instead, set dates within your plan and stick to them! Begin a plan with a facilities and financial assessment of the district, followed by voter opinion research. Realize it will take at least four months to a year for a district to property conduct these three studies. Until this is done, any public discussion of a bond measure could come back to haunt you.

4. Use information gleaned through research to make educated decisions. This also means spending the appropriate time to truly understand the research findings and determining further action. For example, if a voter opinion research report tells you that property owners are only willing to pay $45 a year in additional taxes, you may need to return to your facilities committee and discuss changes to your $125 a year bond proposal. These are critical decisions that are very difficult to make. Relationships with the public, staff and school board may be at stake. Rushing these decisions can lead to serious problems. So, make time to build consensus within your organization and with voters. If you are short on time, you may not be able to stick together as a team, or execute a public information plan to adequately inform the community. Either way, poor planning could cost you the election

5. Choose a date that gives a bond campaign the best shot at winning. Political pros can tell whether or not a district can meet the test by analyzing vote history, demographics and public opinion. Don't automatically assume that all special elections are out. In many cases, a well funded, professionally organized campaign can win on a general election ballot. It's a good idea to consider this as an option before committing to a particular election date.

Jeremy Thorn is president of School Political Services in San Francisco.