ICYMI:Terry L. Stoops: Addressing school facilities needs requires fresh ideas

By Terry L. Stoops—Wednesday February 20, 2019

On Feb. 12, Sharon Contreras, superintendent of Guilford County Schools, appeared before the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor to discuss teacher compensation and school facilities.

She offered sobering statistics on the age and condition of school buildings and the investment needed to address longstanding school renovation and maintenance needs.

While all agreed that massive school capital needs exist, there was little consensus on how to address them.

In 2016, the Statewide Facility Needs Survey indicated that North Carolina had $8.1 billion in immediate school capital needs. In her testimony, Dr. Contreras pointed out that a comprehensive facility study showed Guilford County Schools alone requires more than $1.5 billion to renovate or rebuild nearly half of the district’s 126 schools that were rated as unsatisfactory or in poor condition due to age and an $800 million deferred maintenance backlog.

These needs exist despite a $457 million bond approved by voters in 2008, an infusion of $44 million in recession-era federal funds, and annual allocations from the N.C. Education Lottery and Guilford County taxpayers.

In fact, district spending on capital expenditures is relatively high compared to other North Carolina districts. Over the last five years, Guilford County spent an average of $603 per student per year on capital outlay, the 22nd highest average capital expenditure in the state during that period.

Dr. Contreras urged Congress to support the Rebuild America’s Schools Act of 2017, a bill introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, chair of the Committee on Education and Labor. The legislation would create a $70 billion grant program and $30 billion tax credit bond program to be used for physical and digital infrastructure needs in high-poverty schools.

While $100 billion sounds sizeable, the United States has more than 100,000 public school facilities and at least $200 billion in facility needs.

N.C. Rep. Virginia Foxx, the committee’s ranking Republican, highlighted the promising idea of using opportunity zones to generate economic growth in underserved communities. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included a provision that gives tax benefits to entrepreneurs who invest in small businesses and economic development projects in one of 252 economically distressed areas in North Carolina. Public schools would be direct and indirect beneficiaries of these capital investments.

Given the limited role of the federal government in such matters, addressing school facility needs will require solutions from state legislatures and the private sector.

Senate Republicans propose using the State Capital and Infrastructure Fund to provide $2 billion in pay-as-you-go funding.

They would give the state an even larger role in financing school facilities. For decades, school facilities had been the statutory responsibility of localities. Further centralizing control of the distribution of capital funds at the state level would subject distribution to the whims of politicians and special interest groups.

Moreover, our state needs to think about ways to renovate and build schools in response to enrollment and demographic changes. Enrollment is dropping in most school districts, so any infusion of funds must require districts to streamline operations through school mergers and closures. On the other hand, charter school enrollment is booming. It may be time to consider including charters, which currently do not receive capital funding from counties or the state, in the conversation.

Finally, North Carolina school districts will not address school facility needs unless they work closely with the private sector to explore new ways of financing and building schools.

Given the tremendous demands on limited state and local taxpayer dollars, school districts may need to make public-private partnerships the rule, rather than the exception.

I commend Dr. Contreras, Rep. Foxx and the Committee on Education and Labor for highlighting a problem that has been overshadowed by countless other education policy concerns.

The challenge is to keep the conversation going and to find long-term solutions to a long-neglected problem.


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