Arkansas officials outline $1.46 billion in school facilities funding, propose rule changes to expand safety and reprioritize growth

Lori Bowen of the Bureau of Legislative Research told the Senate Education Committee that Arkansas has allocated roughly $1.468 billion to school facilities programs since 2005 and expended about $1.2 billion through fiscal 2019. The review covered program structure, project categories, prioritization methods and proposed rule changes the facilities commission is considering.

Bowen said the partnership program is limited to academic facilities and imposes a project minimum of $300 per student or $150,000, whichever is less. The program currently groups projects into categories such as space/growth, warm/safe/dry space replacement, warm/safe/dry systems replacement and consolidation/annexation; the 2019-21 cycle placed growth-oriented space projects at the top of the priority list.

The report notes the commission and its advisory committee recommended reorganizing categories into two pots—one for space/growth and one omnibus warm/safe/dry—and establishing a maintenance-composite assessment to inform prioritization. Bowen said the commission has approved many recommendations but that the changes must be promulgated into administrative rules before going into effect for the 2021-23 or 2023-25 cycles.

Bowen outlined that the advisory committee recommended increasing the maximum state-funded construction cost factor from $175 to $200 per square foot; the division said proposed rules reflecting that change are out for public comment. "The $200 will allow most of the actual cost factors to be used," said Murray Britton, division staff, describing vendor cost data that informed the recommendation.

On eligibility and equity, Bowen explained the facility wealth index calculation, which ties a district—s required local share to a value-per-mill denominator set at the 95th cumulative ADM percentile. She described how enrollment swings can sharply change a district—s index and eligibility; Act 1080 (02/2019) requires a phased implementation of a new wealth-index method that uses a 10-year high ADM and a median-income adjustment. Bowen said districts will absorb half of the gain or loss in the 2021-23 cycle and the full change in 2023-25, with high-growth districts able to use the lesser of the two calculations while they meet growth criteria.

The presentation also covered facility condition measurement and inspections. Bowen noted Arkansas lacks a recent, independent statewide facility assessment (the last comprehensive assessment ran in 2004); the division completed about 2,263 inspections in the 2017-18 period, most on-site. The division will begin standardized subsystem reporting next February to improve consistency.

Bowen flagged that safety recommendations from the School Safety Commission include reporting temporary door barricades in master plans and, if adopted, making security projects eligible under the warm/safe/dry systems category. "If those rules are successful then there will be some facility partnership money available to districts for safety and security measures," she said.

Bowen also summarized capacity and backlog: the 2019-21 cycle funded 57 projects at $104.2 million, and roughly $57 million in year-1 projects remained unfunded because of prioritization and category caps. Historically, the report shows 2,544 projects approved, 1,543 completed and 871 rescinded for reasons such as withdrawn local plans or failed millage.

Next steps: several recommendations are in proposed rule text and are out for public comment; final adoption and implementation timing will determine which cycles and projects are affected, and the division indicated it will provide additional data to legislators on cost-factor calculations and rollout timing.