House Education panel hears testimony on bill to create statewide school facilities inventory

The Pennsylvania House Education Committee held an informational hearing in Philadelphia on proposed legislation—House Bill 1701—to create a statewide public school building inventory and condition-assessment program housed at the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE).

Representative Fiedler, the bill sponsor, said the legislation aims to document and prioritize repairs after repeated examples of aging, unsafe school facilities. “The current state of school facilities presents both a crisis of education and a public health crisis for us,” Representative Fiedler said, citing asbestos, lead, warped floors and other hazards that have forced school closures in her district.

Proponents told the committee that the commonwealth lacks uniform, accessible data on building condition and that the absence of such data hamstrings planning and state funding. Jessica Sites, director of the Bureau of Financial Operations at PDE, said the department has no statutory authority to require uniform statewide collection of building-debt and condition information and therefore cannot reliably quantify statewide need. “Over the last two budget cycles, dollars—$250,000,000—have been appropriated and distributed via the public school facilities improvement grant and environmental repair grant programs,” Sites said, adding that…