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APA review shows Arkansas partnership program helps some lower-wealth districts but prioritization and match requirements limit reach
Summary
APA told the Senate Education Committee that Arkansas’s Academic Facilities Partnership program averages about $92 million annually and funds projects prioritized by facilities-wealth index, condition and enrollment trends; APA noted lower-wealth districts receive differing shares and recommended prioritization changes for 2025 to better address facility-condition disparities.
Justin Silverstein (APA) briefed the committee on capital-funding approaches nationwide and on Arkansas’s Academic Facilities Partnership program. He said most states fall into three broad approaches — funding qualified projects, supporting debt, or flat per-student funding — and that states prioritize projects by health/safety, building condition, enrollment growth and district capacity.
Silverstein said Arkansas’s partnership program has averaged about $92 million annually since FY05 and requires districts to provide local matching based on a facilities-wealth index (FWI). He noted the FWI ties match expectations to property-wealth-per-student measures and that property wealth does not always align with household income; the result can be districts with high property wealth but low household incomes facing high local-match expectations.
APA presented distribution snapshots for 2019–21 that showed variation across wealth quartiles and free/reduced-price-lunch (FRL) bands. In the period presented, the lowest-wealth quartile made up about 30% of students but received roughly 18% of partnership funding; the highest-wealth quartile received a smaller share than its student population. APA cautioned the committee that the chart is a single-window snapshot and that capital funding is project-driven rather than continuous.
Planned changes for the 2025 funding cycle include consolidating "warm, safe and dry" categories and publishing state-priority lists by category so projects can be ranked and prioritized more transparently; projects will continue to be ranked based on FWI, facility condition and enrollment trends.
During questioning Representative Lowry asked whether district fund balances and construction reserves should factor into eligibility or wealth measures. APA said it will consult the capital lead and noted policy trade-offs to changing rules that measure behavior that existed before those rules were in force.
Committee members urged a review of match rules and carryover limits; APA said it will provide additional analysis and historical runs to show multi-year patterns before specific policy recommendations are made.
