EXCERPT: Last year, a 5th District Court of Appeal ruling put millions of dollars in payments to contractors who worked on school construction projects under no-bid contracts in jeopardy.      Unlike typical public-works projects, so-called lease-leaseback projects have allowed schools to forgo competitive bidding and merely choose the contractor they want. The district then leases property to the contractor for $1 a year, while the contractor builds improvements. The contractor then collects lease payments from the school district for up to 40 years until the project is paid off.
     But school districts haven't been treating the deals like true leases. Instead, they've paid contractors in full upon completion of a project like a normal construction job. That's illegal, the 5th District decided in Davis v. Fresno Unified School District.