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Beverly Hills High School Science & Technology Building, Beverly Hills USD.
CHPS Designed, Utilizes Savings by Design.
Photo courtesy LPA, Inc.
A Green Technology Interview with Tom Duffy of CASH
By Racquel Palmese
State funding for school construction programs was frozen in December 2008, with no bonds sold. Now, as the thawing begins, the outlook for school construction funding is, to say the least, complicated. The Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH) has been busy working with legislators and top state officials, advocating to bring clarity and dollars to school building and modernization programs. In a Q & A with Green Technology magazine, CASH Legislative Director Tom Duffy gives an update on school construction funding in this recessionary era.
CASH has been advocating for new schools and school modernization since 1978. Now, with a focus on energy efficiency and sustainability, what is CASH’s connection with the green schools movement?
Several years ago, California Senator Loni Hancock, who was then in the Assembly, authored a bill that would have required CHPS [Collaborative for High Performance Schools] standards to be incorporated into the [state’s school construction funding] program. During the energy crisis earlier in the decade CASH began sharing information about saving energy and about what CHPS meant and what high performance [schools] meant. We’d been working closely with Steve Castellanos, who was State Architect at the time, and who was very much a supporter of CHPS and LEED (US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards). People were gaining information through our organization and we were learning as well.
We were also dealing with a meteoric escalation of costs in school construction, both for modernization and new construction, beginning in 2003 and into 2004, and we were anxious about the growing disparity between state construction funding support and the high cost of construction . We approached the Senator and told her we were going to have to oppose her bill because she was saying districts needed to do this within the grants for their building programs, but the grants weren’t enough to do everything that would be required. We were told that it wouldn’t cost more money [to build green]. We got everyone who was saying that to a meeting and asked them if any of them had actually ever built a [high performance] school. Nobody had, so we offered our expertise and experience to the Senator.
Loni asked what we proposed. I said it was simple. We'll add additional funding to the grant that would be for high performance aspects. Districts will have to match that, of course, 50-50 for new construction and 60-40 [with government paying 60 percent] for modernization. She amended her bill, and although it did not become law, It did influence AB127, the bond bill that we refer to as Proposition 1-D. This established $100 million for high performance schools, and about $90 million of it is still left. We credit Senator Hancock for helping us in attaining this goal.
I was just in the Capital building this morning, and I was carrying with me information on the implementation of the high performance school standards. We're asking for a review of how the law has been implemented. Loni and her staff are aware of this and concerned about it. It's in the law that the Division of the State Architect (DSA) determines that districts have met those standards and the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC) funds them through the State Allocation Board. We're hearing from districts that it's not cost effective – that they can’t get enough money to pay to implement these standards.
Cesar Chavez Elementary School, Long Beach Unified School District, Long Beach, California. CHPS Certified rating. Utilizes Savings by Design
Photo courtesy LPA, Inc.
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Ninety Million dollars is a lot of money. Why do you think there's so much 1-D money still left?
That's what we want to explore. We hear from districts and their architects that the incentives aren't enough, that you end up having to spend too much money to get to that money. We want to review those standards and how they're being applied and how they're funded. We think this is important.
How Else is CASH Involved in Green Schools?
We participated in the green schools conference [the Green California Schools Summit] the past two years. We've been on the Green Schools Summit Advisory Board from the very beginning. We were asked by the Schwarzenegger Administration to be involved, and we have been. We made two presentations at the last conference and one at the prior conference.
We also do workshops the fourth week of every month, except for the months of November and February, and those workshops can be on anything from auditing and accounting or construction methodology, to financing options and the meltdown of the bonds.
The theme of your Spring Conference this year has to do with addressing “the fiscal and other programmatic challenges that are facing school districts in these unprecedented times of state budget cuts, federal stimulus funding, and severe local school district fiscal constraints and reductions.” How do you assess the state of school building right now?
You just asked a very complicated question. The bond freeze [in December 2008] basically stifled state funded projects, unless districts had their own money to continue projects. A lot of them did, but there are projects that have basically stopped and some that have even been dismantled. There are a number of districts that have been very anxious over the last couple of months, because they are under construction, waiting for their state funding, and the money is dwindling at the local level.
Right now, we know that a lot of bonds were sold by the state; over $13 billion were actually sold. Of that, schools will get about $1.9 billion for already apportioned projects. Apportionment is a promise. Projects go to the State Allocation Board and SAB apportions money. Under the law districts go out to bid for their projects and enter into a contract. The district certifies to the state that it has entered into a contract and the state thereafter releases construction funds as required by law. The district has to have a contract before it can request the money.
We had calculated there is $1.4 billion of work that was going on in California in schools that had requested fund releases but did not receive them. That's a lot of money on the street with the state not backing it up. Again, some districts continued on with the projects because they have local funds. But If they are planning to build something else next year, they might be using those future funds now and then planning to reimburse them when the state money comes through. Districts will do that. Or they'll use some other kind of borrowing.
We are talking to the State Treasurer's office about the state paying for the interest on loans that districts have had to generate in order to continue projects moving on. We've been asking for this since December and have been told it's not legal. We persisted and now we find that indeed it may be legal.
Overall, this has been a difficult time. There are $1.4 billion in projects that have signed contracts. There are $2.4 billion that have been apportioned. The apportionment we see as a promise that you can't just take back. The number of bonds dedicated to K-12 is going to be a little over $1.9 billion, but there are $2.4 billion in allocations. We see the state needing to come up with another $560 million to fund those projects, but there's not going to be any more bonds sold until we get through the month of May, and this election that's going to be difficult. In actuality, we may not have any more bonds sold until next fall, if then.
Your prognosis for school building programs - is it bleak?
For those projects that have had an apportionment, for the most part monies are there for them, shy about a half-billion. So that's a good thing. Four months ago we told districts to be prepared for [the freeze to last for] a quarter, and it could go longer. It has gone past the quarter, but not fully two quarters. We got these projects moving along, and now we have to deal with what we do for new construction, modernization, high performance, seismic funding for other needed projects.
Do you think this is a good time to embark on projects to modernize old school buildings for energy efficiency and sustainability?
I think districts should look at their local resources and whatever federal program funds are available and plan around those. We have a state that has financial problems, and one way to help that is to have lots of construction going on. Jobs spark the economy and generate taxes. That means we need state bonds as well as local bonds to make that happen.
The State made its last apportionments at the Green California Schools Summit Anaheim last December - and by the way, that's the only time I can remember the Allocation Board not meeting in Sacramento. Since that time we've worked with the Board to allow for unfunded approvals, because bond funds were frozen.The State's ability to sell those bonds for next fall is going to depend on the market; it's going to depend on what's going on with the state budget. Then we'll see just how much bond money the state really has .
Cesar Chavez Elementary School, Long Beach Unified School District, Long Beach, California. CHPS Certified rating. Utilizes Savings by Design
Photo courtesy LPA, Inc.
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Fast forward to December and the green schools summit - why do you think people need to stay on top of green school issues?
In the context of everything else going on, should they stay engaged? I was a school district superintendent, and as a superintendent, I really don't get to control my income. The State of California tells me how much money we're going to get, and that's less the property taxes that come in for the general fund.
What I do get to control is the expenditures side of my budget. If I am using technology where I spend capital dollars that diminish my expenditure of general fund dollars, say on energy, then that’s a smart thing for me to be doing. I am also contributing less greenhouse gases as a consumer, and school districts are consumers of lots of energy. If there’s some way for me to diminish how much money I'm spending on energy, then that makes sense. If there’s a way for me to diminish the amount of money I'm spending on what happens with the discards from the school, if there's a recycling program that we can initiate and we get students involved in that, then we build their awareness.
If a school district wanted to consider some sort of modernization or building project or renewable energy project, should they contact CASH?
We have a high performance standards document on our website that guides districts. We are just finalizing one that is on energy, so if districts call we'll direct them to that information. I would suggest that they come to the workshops. We also have a members’ directory categorized by professions that is useful to districts in finding help.
How about federal stimulus money for schools. Is CASH involved in that?
The monies that school districts will receive is money that they can spend on buildings, but the likelihood is that they'll spend it on other things needed to support programs. There's a meeting this week on federal bond funds, and there are federal programs related to energy. We'll be sharing that information with school districts. I'd say to look at the federal programs for sure. The Qualified Zone Academy Bonds program is one that we've seen be very beneficial. It's for old buildings. Basically, districts are able to secure loans, and the federal government pays the interest costs. The districts can pay it back over about 13 years. They have to contribute 10 percent. So a district could use QZAB to create more energy efficient, greener buildings.
Thank you!
You’re welcome.
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