From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: K-12 School Building Construction and Renovation Needs

Description: Jackie Nowicki is with the Watchdog Report to discuss GAO's
review of K-12 school construction and renovation needs.

Related GAO Work: GAO-20-494, K-12 Education: School Districts
Frequently Identified Multiple Building Systems Needing Updates or
Replacement

Released: June 2020

[ Intro Music ]

[Jackie Nowicki:] Buildings and facilities are an integral part of
community life and a good portion of them really need some serious
attention. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAOs Watchdog Report, your source for
news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm
Holly Hobbs. 
School districts nationwide spend billions of dollars each year to
construct and renovate K through 12 schools. However, a new report by
GAO found that even with this spending, about half of public school
districts need to update or replace multiple buildings or features in
their communities. This issue could be worsened by the economic impacts
of the coronavirus pandemic.
And with me to talk about it is GAOs K-12 expert Jackie Nowicki, a
Director in our Education, Workforce, and Income Security Team. Thank
you for joining me, Jackie. 

[Jackie Nowicki:] My pleasure, Holly. Nice to be here. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So big picture, Jackie, what is the condition of our
public school facilities? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] With 100,000 public schools across the nation, it's
not surprising that we have to get a little creative to even try and
answer that question. 
So what we did was survey school districts so that we could speak to
conditions nationwide. And we also visited schools to see for ourselves.
So we visited 55 schools across six states. What we found was that about
half the school districts need to update or replace multiple building
systems, so things like HVAC, roofing and plumbing, and that's coming
from our nationwide survey. So more specifically we can say that about
36,000 schools need HVAC updates which, obviously, that's the system
when it's not operating properly can affect things like indoor air
quality and lead to exposure to nasty things like mold and asbestos and
can even, you know, cause school to close or adjust their schedule. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So among those things you listed, is there one
construction need that's a top priority for schools? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] Those that we mentioned were the most frequent
mentioned in our survey. For example, we visited one school that had an
original boiler from the 1920s to heat the building and, you know, that
is obviously a pretty old system. It required a building engineer
on-site whenever the boiler was in operation to monitor the pressure and
make sure it didn't explode. So, a pretty big difference between
something like that and some of the newer schools we visited where staff
are monitoring systems electronically and are able to adjust them
remotely were upgraded. 

[Holly Hobbs:] And where does the funding for school construction come
from? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] Well historically, funding for public education, you
know, including school facilities, is a local and state issue. There is
really only a small federal role and a small amount of federal funding
in there and our survey confirms that that's essentially still the case.
So when we surveyed, we found that about half the districts are
primarily relying on local government funding, so things like property
taxes, to pay for school facility projects. And about 1/3 of school
districts relied on state funding for those purposes. There were only
about 1% of districts that primarily said they used federal funding to
address school facility issues. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Do these funding sources create disparities in school
construction projects? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] Well, poverty plays a role in the types of funding
sources that districts have available to pay for construction and also
in their total dollars that they have available to spend. So, high
poverty districts more commonly relied on state funding and use property
taxes less commonly than low poverty districts, but we also looked at
federal data on total school district expenditures for construction. And
when we did that, we found that expenditures were about $300 less per
student in high poverty districts compared to low poverty districts. And
I think that's significant, because there is about 1.5 million more
students that attend school in high poverty districts.

[ Music ]

[Holly Hobbs:] So, it sounds like the burden for construction and
renovations in schools is on the locality, which may not have the
resources to maintain these facilities. 
So, Jackie, we know that the COVID-19 pandemic is putting a strain on
state and local governments. How might the coronavirus impact school
districts' ability to address these school construction needs? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] Well, we completed our data collection for this work
prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But one thing we do know, you know, that
history tells us, and if we look at the recession from a decade ago, we
know that many states reduced or eliminated funding for school
facilities back then and also in some of the years that followed and
that contributed to an increase in deferred maintenance, which can make
repairs and replacements more costly in the long run when you're, you
know, eventually able to get around to them. 
So while we can't say exactly how the pandemic will affect the
situation, I think we can generally, you know, all agree that it
certainly isn't going to make it any better. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Jackie, what's the bottom line of this report? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] Right. When you think about it, schools often serve as
voting places, you know polling places. They serve as shelters if there
is a, you know, for example a hurricane or a significant event in the
community. But school districts nationwide, as we discussed, frequently
identified a need to update or replace multiple building systems, and
building systems that can affect the health and safety of kids that use
those facilities regularly. So you have, you know, buildings and
facilities are an integral part of community life and a good portion of
them really need some serious attention. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Jackie Nowicki was talking about GAOs review of K-12
public school construction needs. Thank you for your time, Jackie. 

[Jackie Nowicki:] My pleasure. Thanks, Holly. 

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To
hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple podcasts and make sure you
leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing.
For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government
Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.

[ Music ]