Breakout Group Report: Capital Budgeting

21stCenturySchool Fund 10/27/04 Community Mtg on DC Public School Facilities

(Facilitator: Mary Filardo, 21CSF)

Issues/Questions/Concerns

1) How is the demand for a school, including student population trends or demographic variables such as housing construction, factored into capital budget decisions?

Note: birth rates by planning area from 1990 through 1998 (6 year olds entering school now were born in 1998) show that east of the AnacostiaRiver (Facilities Planning Areas A, B, C - - roughly Wards 7 and 8), declines in births were around 40%. Declines were about 35% in wards 1, 5 and 6 (roughly Planning areas F, E and D respectively). Ward 4 (Planning Area H) declined by 25%. Planning Area G, or Ward 3 declined by only .02 %--not even 1%.

2) Whenusing the Facility Condition Index (FCI) to allocate funds to schools that are not scheduled for modernization, the amount allocated per schoolis entirely a function of building size, as opposed to specific needs.For example, a school of 100,000 square feet with 200 students gets the same amount of funds as a school with 800 students.

3) In determining which schools should go forward in a modernization, the criteria for determiningthe order is not clear.

4) How are major design problems --such as open plan schools, like Dunbar - - factored into how funds are allocated? Again, the FCI only looks at building condition, it does not factor in urgent needs to correct design deficiencies.

5) How are factors such as building problems that cause other building problems considered? For instance, windows in the 1909 portion of Ketcham ESare so loose that water damage is a problem on the walls around the windows. This means the principal is constantly requesting painting and plaster repair around windows. If the windows were fixed, it would reduce the need for plaster and paint.

6) How do issues of safety factor into the decisions about which schools get funding? What if there are urgent health or safety requirements? With Ketcham again as an example, in the "newer" portion of the school bars had to be installed in front of the windows so they would not fall into the classroom.Window replacement would have eliminated this stop-gap repair as well.

7)How do public private partnerships or co-locations factor into the allocation of capital funds? With a formulaic distribution of funds among schools, do schools with partnerships get to keep the funds allocated to them and just supplement the DCPS amount? What if a there is a co-location? Does the “host” school get to keep DCPS funds allocated anduse theco-location revenue to supplement DCPS funds?

8) How are operating funds coordinated to support our capital commitments? Schools must have operating funds budgeted for maintenance to support the capital investment. Otherwise, DCPS will need to make substantial repairs in short order.

9) Project estimates and allocations in the budget are just general approximations. How can we plan realistically without more accurate figures?

10) Is there a basic understanding of the need to make changes in the master plan and capital plan? This seems particularly important in redefining how DCPS modernizes schools bylooking at the scope and scale of projects or making changes in design guidelines, for instance.

11) Can a formulaic approach that treats every school the same based on the number of square feet and the Facilities Condition Index (which addresses only building maintenance issues)be sufficient for allocating funds to schools with the greatest need? Because of concerns about meeting the greatest needs, the issue of equity came up: equal may not be equitable.