Superintendents tell House subcommittee gap funding left several school projects incomplete; they ask for $130 million to finish work
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Summary
Superintendents from Johnson, Harrison and other counties told the committee that inflation and COVID‑era cost escalation created a construction funding gap; presenters cited deferred components (auditorium, gym, greenhouse) and said districts need roughly $130,000,000 more to complete already‑started projects.
Superintendents and local legislators told the House Budget Review Subcommittee that projects begun after local votes and with 'shovels in the ground' were left incomplete by a COVID‑era surge in construction and materials costs and asked the committee to help secure remaining gap funding.
Tom Cochran, Johnson County Schools, described moving an entire high‑school site to higher ground and said the district accepted a base bid to keep its March 2028 opening date but had to defer key elements: "We had to cut out a greenhouse. We cut out a gymnasium, and we cut out an entire fine arts wing of our building," he said, arguing those spaces are essential to students' college and career pathways and to community life.
Harry Burchard, superintendent of Harrison County Schools, described four aging elementary buildings with roughly $45 million in unmet needs and local cash contributions of about $9 million. He said his district's plan would consolidate campuses and produce long‑term savings—an estimated more than $1 million per year in general fund costs once projects are complete—but that completion depends on additional gap funding tied to earlier appropriations (witnesses cited HB 6 from 2024 and HJR 32 from 2025).
When asked how much additional money districts needed, a presenter replied that the gap totals approximately $130,000,000. Representative Bojanowski asked whether the funding appeared as a line item in HB 500; committee staff and presenters said they were working to reconcile the base budget and additional requests and that, as presented in this hearing, the additional gap funding was not fully accounted for in HB 500.
Robert Fletcher, Commissioner of Education, explained the gap arose because many districts had started construction and then faced rapid inflation in materials and labor; he said roughly half of the requested construction funding had been appropriated so far and framed the current requests as completing projects that were already underway.
Committee members accepted testimony for the record; there were no formal votes on additional facility appropriations at this meeting.