Tuesday, April 15, 2014

LAO Report: THE 2014-15 BUDGET - Maintaining Education Facilities in California

While we commend the administration for highlighting deferred maintenance as a problem, the LAO has concerns with the Governor's specific proposals and recommend the Legislature consider various alternatives. …we believe the state should have a long-term strategy for properly maintaining education facilities.

http://bit.ly/QnlJkx

April 11, 2014  ::  The Legislative Analyst's Office has just issued the following report:

  Due to a combination of poor budgeting practices and competing funding priorities, all of the state's education segments currently have a backlog of deferred maintenance projects. The Governor’s budget includes a package of proposals to begin addressing this backlog. While we commend the administration for highlighting deferred maintenance as a problem, we have concerns with the Governor's specific proposals and recommend the Legislature consider various alternatives.

Looking beyond 2014-15, we believe the state should have a long-term strategy for properly maintaining education facilities. While a one-size-fits-all response very likely is not appropriate for such a diverse array of education segments, segment-specific plans likely could be very helpful. To this end, we recommend the Legislature require the education segments to develop plans that detail how much they set aside annually for scheduled maintenance, how they plan to eliminate their existing deferred maintenance backlogs over the next several years, and how they plan to avoid creating new backlogs thereafter. (In contrast to the other segments, we believe the state should not impose additional maintenance requirements on elementary and secondary schools at this time. The different approach for schools acknowledges the state’s recent decision to shift fiscal decision making and accountability for many aspects of schools’ operations—including maintenance—to the local level.)

Maintaining Facilities 041114

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