RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, many school districts including Hawaii are undertaking major development to build new, and renovate existing, educational facilities to accommodate new population growth, aging facilities, and population displacement; and

WHEREAS, the need for capital improvement projects must compete with other necessities for limited state resources, including the large school repair and maintenance backlog; and

WHEREAS, the determination by which projects receive funding is presently based on the Department of Education's Hawaii Capital Improvement Project Priority System matrix which, for the most part, assigns the highest priority to projects based first on serious health and safety concerns, then classroom construction and support facilities projects, and finally, to state and district facilities projects; and

WHEREAS, the age of facilities should also be a required key indicator for maintenance, repair, renovation, and construction since aging facilities experience more wear and tear, begin to break down, and end up requiring progressively more maintenance and resources to keep them operational, making them increasingly uneconomical to maintain; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2006, the House of Representatives concurring, that, going forward, the Department of Education is urged to develop and implement two capital improvement project priority lists, one which addresses the needs of schools twenty-five years and older, and the other which addresses the needs of schools less than twenty-five years old, to correct any unfair distribution of funding in favor of newer schools; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to Superintendent of Education and the Chair of the Board of Education.

Report Title:

DOE; CIP Prioritization Lists