Select Committee sponsors bill to make expanded school maintenance funding permanent; moves $31.9M major maintenance, $11.8M routine funding in draft

The Select Committee on School Facilities voted to sponsor 26 LSO 87, a bill that would make permanent an increase in the allowable educational gross square footage used in K‑12 major and routine maintenance funding formulas, committee members decided Wednesday.

The bill—described to the committee as “K‑12 school facilities maintenance and appropriations”—would replace the one‑year change enacted earlier this legislative session and restore the allowance used to compute district and school funding from 115% to 135% of the School Facilities Commission’s adequacy standards. Tanya Heitrich, operations administrator for the Legislative Service Office (LSO), summarized the draft and said Section 2 contains appropriations to implement the change, including $31,900,000 for major maintenance and $11,800,000 for routine maintenance in the bill draft.

Why it matters: Committee staff and the State Construction Department told members that increasing the allowable square footage and maintaining a slightly higher major‑maintenance multiplier is intended to reduce long‑term capital replacement needs by extending building life and addressing unfunded excess square footage that districts currently maintain without state support. Director Dale McComley of the State Construction Department told the committee prior studies showed underfunding major maintenance shortened building life spans and that higher steady funding can avoid larger capital costs decades later.

Committee discussion and staff estimates

Catherine Camarotti of LSO’s budget staff told the committee that making the 135%…