SEARCH SITE

VIRGINIA LAW PORTAL

SEARCHABLE DATABASES

ACROSS SESSIONS

Developed and maintained by the Division of Legislative Automated Systems.

1998 SPECIAL SESSION I

  • | print version

SB 4004 Public School Construction Grants Program.

Introduced by: J. Randy Forbes | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY:

Virginia Public School Construction Grants Program. Revises the existing school construction grants program to (i) include renovations, retrofitting, and enlarging of public school buildings, infrastructure, and debt service payments for projects completed during the previous ten years; (ii) limit the amount of the grants to 100 percent of the school division's aggregate annual expenditures for school construction, renovation, infrastructure, and debt service for projects completed during the previous ten years; (iii) require the Board of Education to establish specific eligibility and needs criteria for the disbursement and apportionment of the grant funds; and (iv) provide for the apportionment and disbursement of the funds, prior to the establishment of the Board's eligibility and needs criteria, with 50 percent of the available funds being apportioned equally to each school division and 50 percent of the available funds being apportioned on a pro rata basis according to each school division's average daily membership as adjusted by the locality's composite index. The Board's eligibility and needs criteria must address nine items: (i) obtaining approval by the local governing body of the project; (ii) measuring actual need; (iii) measuring local effort to meet actual need; (iv) measuring local ability to pay for actual need; (v) recognizing local innovations and activities to improve the quality of and options for education, including, but not limited to, efforts to reduce class sizes and establish charter schools; (vi) determining the proper combinations of funding resources, including grant funds, local funds, Literary Fund loans, funding through the Virginia Public School Authority, and any other public or private funding sources; (vii) establishing restrictions on the use of grant funds, if any; (viii) setting requirements for the availability and pledge of local matching funds; and (ix) establishing procedures for determining priority for awarding grants to qualifying school divisions. The current school construction grants program has never operated, as it has not previously been funded. The second enactment requires the Board of Education to conduct public hearings over the year from July 1, 1998, to June 1, 1999; receive public comment; and develop and issue, by June 30, 1999, guidelines for the grants disbursement and apportionment. The third enactment deems the provisions of this act to constitute the plan for school construction funding included in the 1998-2000 Appropriation Act.


FULL TEXT

HISTORY