As City College of San Francisco slashes hundreds of classes and sheds instructors to try and balance its books, college leaders are asking the city’s taxpayers for help shoring up the school’s aged and decaying buildings — and even its newer ones.

On March 3, San Francisco voters will consider Proposition A, a bond measure that would let City College borrow up to $845 million to repair its buildings, make earthquake safety upgrades, install solar panels, buy equipment and add communications systems, among other improvements.

Students say it can’t happen soon enough.

“The facilities at CCSF are pretty awful,” said Jess Nguyen, who studies floristry. “There’s been lots of problems with leaky roofs, large holes in ceilings in the Creative Arts buildings — where bathrooms had to be closed for over a year, and rat problems. The heating doesn’t work, and students sometimes are left freezing in classrooms and can’t even concentrate on their classwork.”

Nguyen, who majored in metal arts until November when classes she needed for spring were eliminated, visited the facilities department in 2018 to ask someone to fix an air compressor the arts students needed. Other students sent emails.

“The person who worked there told us there were over 40,000 maintenance-related tickets across all CCSF campuses,” she said, adding that it took weeks to get the item fixed.

About 70% of buildings on City College’s main campus at Ocean Avenue and Frida Kahlo Way are in poor condition, college trustees wrote in their ballot argument in favor of Prop. A, which requires 55% voter approval to pass.

The college of 65,000 full- and part-time students has nine other sites around the city, new and old, also in need of maintenance, improvements and equipment, they wrote.

Prop. A is a “tremendous opportunity to repair and retrofit decaying City College facilities,” trustees President Shanell Williams told The Chronicle.

Over three decades, taxpayers will pay off the $845 million bond, plus another 89% in interest, for a total of $1.6 billion.

To achieve that, the city’s property tax could grow by $11 per $100,000 of assessed property value through mid 2053, the city controller estimated.

Through City College, city taxpayers still owe nearly $248 million on two prior facilities bonds — in 2001 and 2005 — for which the college paid more than $19 million in debt service last year.

College leaders’ appeal for voters’ help to shore up the crumbling campuses comes at a striking time in the long relationship between City College and San Francisco residents.

Since fall 2017, no San Franciscan has had to pay for classes. Under a program called Free City, a voter-approved transfer tax on San Francisco properties that sell for at least $5 million has paid for residents’ $46-a-credit fee.

At the same time, the number of available classes has shrunk by 20% since 2017, as college officials have eliminated 634 classes, including 345 this spring alone.

Last month, an auditor hired by City College determined that school finances were in such bad shape that he had “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.” The auditor said the college has been deficit spending for three years, has lost 58% of its unrestricted general fund, and has dipped into its reserves so often that it is below the state-required 5%.

Williams, the trustee president and a former student at City College, said that despite the money woes, investing in the college’s facilities is a good deal for San Franciscans.

“Without adequate funds to build new buildings and upgrade our learning spaces, we will not be a competitive college,” Williams said. “We have an action plan to take care of our budget and get our financial house in order — and with Prop. A, we will get the funds needed to get our facilities in order as well.”

The San Francisco Republican Party disagrees, and is listed as the sole opponent of Prop. A in the city’s ballot book. The party argued against the proposition on grounds of fairness.

“It is not fair to make only property owners responsible for paying for the deferred repairs and renovations necessitated by not performing the maintenance and renovations in a timely manner,” the party wrote in its unsigned opposition statement in the ballot book.

“All residents and businesses should pay their fair share of the needed improvements,” the statement said.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov