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OPSC Moves to New Location SAB Hears Good News Regarding New Funding for School Construction Projects The State Allocation Board (SAB) held its regular monthly meeting on March 24 in the Board Room of the CDE Building in Sacramento. Here’s a rundown on the various items discussed and actions taken. Lisa Silverman, Executive Officer of the SAB, announced that, of the $2.5 billion in State bonds sold in the previous week, $376 million would go to school facilities. This allocation was not anticipated. Information from the Department of Finance (DOF) prior to this week had indicated that none of the proceeds from that bond sale would go to schools. It was later announced that there would be an additional sale of $2 billion in State bonds this week and that $975,240,000 would go to school projects. This brings the most recent total to $1,351,240,000 for school projects. Although this puts a major dent in the approximate $2.4 billion funding backlog, there is still a long way to go to get all the approved projects funded. At the February SAB meeting, Blake Fowler from the California Treasurer’s office indicated that, in addition to the two March sales, there would be an additional $3 billion sale of bonds in late April and a projected $7 billion in bond sales this fall. It has not yet been announced what programs the proceeds from those sales would fund. The order in which funds for unfunded projects are allocated was discussed. The current policy is to fund projects based first on the SAB approval date, then by the date on which the projects were accepted by the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC). SAB member Moore expressed concern that financial hardship (FH) projects were not receiving a greater priority. Currently, FH projects are placed at the top of the funding list each month. Moore indicated that the FH projects should go to the top of the list regardless of date. The Chair requested that a sub committee be established to look at this issue. Districts were also reminded that the offices of the Office of Public School Construction have moved. As of March 29 the OPSC offices will be located in West Sacramento in the building referred to as the Ziggurat (which was originally built for The Money Store, a subprime lender). The Department of General Services leased a major portion of this building several years ago and has been trying to consolidate the divisions within the Department to reduce costs. The new address is:
Adjustments to the grant amounts and to the allowable developer fees are made each year at the January SAB meeting. This year, for the first time in recent history, the grants were adjusted down. The adjustment to the developer fees was left at last year’s level. At the February SAB meeting, members asked that these issues be brought back for discussion in March. After discussion, the Board took action to apply the new levels to projects presented for unfunded approval after the March 24, 2010. Projects with unfunded approvals prior to that date will receive the adjustments as they were prior to the January 2010 meeting. No regulations are needed, however, members asked the issue to be referred to the Implementation Committee for discussion. In anticipation of this discussion, the Department of Finance requested that projects ready for unfunded approval be held over until the April meeting. A representative from the Attorney General’s office presented an opinion stating that once the SAB has taken action on an item, that action cannot be reconsidered. The SAB had taken action in January to keep the developer fees at the level of the previous year; however, at the February SAB meeting a member asked that the decision be reconsidered. The AG’s opinion was accepted and no action was taken. Prior to the adoption of the current High Performance Grant Program, Propositions 47 and 55 provided funding for energy efficiency in projects. Over $800,000 from that program has been returned to state government due to projects that were canceled. The SAB took action to keep these funds available for that program for an additional 12 month period and to announce to eligible districts that applications could be filed for funding in that program. The staff presented a proposal to change the Career Technical Educational Facilities Program grants to recover funds in excess of the cost estimate at the time of the final application for funding. Currently, any excess funds cannot be recovered until the time of the final project audit. This may not occur for up to 6 years after the completion of construction. Concerns were expressed at the Implementation Committee that bids received after the adjustment may be high and there would be no mechanism to increase the grants. The Board took no action, indicating that the program should remain as it currently is. The current regulations allow an augmentation to the modernization grant for accessibility and fire code requirements. A district has the option of requesting 60% of the documented cost for those items or requesting an increase of 3% to the basic grant. Previously, districts were required to submit cost documentation for both methods. The Board took action to require documentation for only the 60% option. The amount of $199.5 million was made available in Proposition 55 for seismic upgrade of facilities that are classified as “most vulnerable” under the definition prepared by the Division of the State Architect. Some 77 facilities across the state have been identified as potentially eligible for this funding. However, only three projects have been approved over the past two years. There remains $194,787,261 available in this program. A discussion took place regarding the reasons districts might have for not filing applications in this program. These reasons include the lack of funding for interim housing and the issue of vacating the facilities as soon as they are declared unsafe. The Board accepted this report and asked the OPSC and the Division of State Architect (DSA) to increase their efforts to contact districts to encourage them to file applications. Editor's Note: Dennis L. Dunston, AIA, REFP, LEED AP is the Director of Facilities Planning and Program Management for Total School Solutions (TSS) and can be contacted at ddunston@totalschoolsolutions.net. |
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