House subcommittee debates school building aid reform, nonlapsing funds and equity of allocations

The House Education Funding Subcommittee examined two retained bills and broader options for school building aid during a work session that centered on funding mechanics and equity. Subcommittee members discussed HB366, described by the chair as a proposal to increase legislative appropriations for school construction and renovation and to set aside funds for previously approved but unfunded projects, and HB295, which would make any unspent school building aid dollars nonlapsing between biennia.

The matters mattered because the state is operating under a moratorium on new recurring building aid dollars beyond debt service, several lawmakers said, and districts face aging facilities, shifting enrollments and a backlog of capital needs. The session combined technical questions about administration with sharp policy judgments over whether the state should prioritize previously approved local projects, spread funds more evenly across districts, or change the formula used to allocate aid.

Tim Carney, administrator of the Bureau of School Facilities at the Department of Education, briefed the panel on program details and capacity. "I m an administrator of the Bureau of School Facilities," he said in his introduction, and described the department's current role in approving projects, maintaining a ranked list of applications and offering partial payments when available. Carney confirmed that, under current practice, the program fully funds projects in rank order until it reaches a partial payment; that partial amount is then offered to subsequent applicants. He told members there are four previously ranked projects remaining from the prior list and that three new projects would be added when the updated list is issued in November.

On HB295, which would let unspent program dollars roll forward rather than lapse to the general account, committee members generally signaled openness but asked for data. The chair said the change would allow a small leftover balance to be applied to a subsequent smaller project; DOE staff confirmed that in the last biennium there was a partial amount (about $769,000) that went unclaimed and would have been rolled forward under the bill's language. Members asked the department and fiscal staff to report how often and in what amounts the program has lapsed funds under the current rules and whether carrying balances might interact with bond-tail payments and other state obligations.

The larger and more contested conversation involved HB366 and the sponsor's proposal to dedicate additional appropriations to pay projects that local districts completed during the moratorium or that were approved in prior years but not funded. "The state broke the process, and we're we're suffering for it," said Representative Michael Cahill of Newmarket, who argued some districts had to move forward without state aid because they faced accreditation or health-and-safety pressures.

Opponents and cautious members raised two technical and policy concerns. First, DOE and other speakers noted the difficulty of retroactive review: projects completed while the program was suspended were not vetted under the usual DOE approval and maintenance-review processes, and some committee members said the department lacks documentation to retroactively confirm eligibility for state reimbursement. Second, finance-minded members argued that making retroactive payments or large new appropriations would require identifying funding sources and could tie up future legislatures' flexibility; one lawmaker described a frequent fiscal practice of preferring lapsing appropriations to preserve options for the next biennium.

Lawmakers pressed multiple alternative reforms beyond the two bills. Several members proposed moving from a competitive, project-by-project model to a formula that distributes a baseline amount to every district (for example, per-pupil allocations) with additional, need-based adjustments for lower-wealth districts. Representative Almono (first name not stated in the record) and others framed this as an equity issue, saying the current system creates repeated winners and many perennial losers. Other members urged a hybrid approach that would protect districts currently far along in the approval process while creating a fairer long-term distribution.

Career and technical education (CTE) facilities were discussed as a separate funding pressure. Speakers said the state has a rotating capital schedule for 28 CTE centers and that past allocations have been in the mid-$20 million range annually; a working group is studying whether capital support should instead follow programmatic needs (for example, funding particular CTE programs in a given year) rather than rotation by center.

Members also discussed the value and estimated cost of a comprehensive facilities needs assessment. The DOE and other participants cited an estimate of roughly 33,000,000 square feet of school space statewide and presented an approximate per‑square‑foot assessment cost in a range of $0.05 to $0.15 per square foot; using the mid‑range estimate produced an overall survey cost commonly cited in the meeting of about $3 million. Committee members debated whether the state should fund an independent, standardized survey team of architects, engineers and code experts to create a consistent inventory of needs rather than relying on local self-reports.

Representative Michael Cahill, arguing for assistance to districts that built during the moratorium, said retroactive aid was a matter of fairness for towns that had no practical alternative. Other members warned of moral‑hazard risks and urged that any retroactive review confirm maintenance history and statutory eligibility criteria before the state pays. Several lawmakers asked DOE to model the fiscal effects of simple reforms (an 80/20 state/local share, per-pupil allocations, and a 20‑ or 30‑year amortization alternative) against the current ranked-list system, using the current set of ranked projects as a test case.

The subcommittee asked DOE to provide multiple items for the next meeting: a history of lapsing and nonlapsing balances for the school building aid fund under current rules; a modeling exercise that applies alternative allocation formulas to the current ranked list; a cost estimate for an independent statewide facilities survey; and clarification about bond‑tail interest and whether any bond instruments limit early payoff. The chair said the subcommittee would reconvene on the 23rd at 1:00 p.m. to review those materials.

The session recorded no formal motions or votes on HB366 or HB295; members tasked the department with follow-up information and scheduled the next work session to continue the discussion.