IAC tells Appropriations Committee Maryland school buildings face widening backlog, $134 million shortfall for high‑priority projects

At a briefing to the Appropriations Committee, Alex Donahue, executive director of the Interagency Commission on School Construction (IAC), told legislators that Maryland’s public school facilities are aging and that available state and local capital funding will not close the resulting repair and replacement gap.

Donahue said Maryland’s PreK–12 system serves nearly 900,000 students in about 1,400 school buildings totaling roughly 142,000,000 gross square feet, and that the statewide average facility age has risen to about 31 years. “The most recent assessment cycle found [a] average depletion level of 52.66%,” Donahue said, using the industry metric known as the facility condition index, or FCI.

The nut graf: the IAC warned that rising construction costs, aging buildings and new program demands — including Pre‑K expansion under the statewide blueprint and state decarbonization goals — are producing a multi‑billion‑dollar need that current annual capital spending will not meet. The IAC cited a statutory fiscal‑year funding target of $450 million for FY26 (set in prior legislation) and said the anticipated capital improvement program portion is about $314 million, leaving roughly $134 million in higher‑priority projects unfunded under that scenario.

Key facts and figures presented to the committee

- Replacement value and backlog: Donahue said the replacement value for Maryland’s school facilities is about $70 billion. He told the committee that, because many buildings were constructed during a…