Requires the legislative reference bureau to conduct a study on the transfer of all lands and facilities used for public school purposes to the department of education. (SD1)

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that working groups were formed by the department of education advisory council to evaluate the merits of the department's various proposals. One of these working groups was the CIP public private partnership group which explored non-traditional alternatives for building new or redeveloping existing schools.

The proposal for the department of education to own the land under the school facilities is based on the "Common School Fund" or land grant schools on the mainland. Most of the western states manage the fund lands, which are lands that were provided for public schools, either for the schools themselves or to generate revenues for the schools. These school lands were granted by Congress to each of the states at the time each state joined the United States. The land grants were originally made for a single explicitly stated purpose: to support common schools and similar public institutions. The granted lands, in combination with the permanent fund and revenues generated from the land, are generally viewed as a trust. Hence, trust land managers approach their management responsibilities under the same applicable rules and enforcement mechanisms that surround any trustee. The corpus of the trust is determined by its value and comprised of the land and money.

The idea would be that the existing school lands are used to create a trust for the public schools. The lands are then managed as a trust, and the department of education shall have the ability to leverage underutilized land assets for redevelopment, joint venture, revenue production, and other opportunities similar to a real estate company.

The purpose of this Act is to direct the legislative reference bureau to conduct a study on the transfer of all public lands and facilities used for public schools to the department of education.

SECTION 2. The legislative reference bureau shall conduct a study to assess the transfer of all public lands and facilities used for public schools to the department of education. The study shall include the following:

The legislative reference bureau shall submit its findings and recommendations, including any proposed implementing legislation, to the legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular session of 2006.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.