Monday, I spoke at the joint Portland City Council and School Board gathering at City Hall. The discussion focused on the Capital Improvement Project in the City, and I spoke about state funding of schools. The state has two major funding streams for schools– major capital improvement, focused on new schools, and the school revolving renovation fund.
The State of Maine just recently finished a new priority competitive request for proposal for new major capital improvement. Seventy-one schools applied for the opportunity to replace one or more schools in their district (see list here). Five Portland schools applied (Hall, Longfellow, Reiche, Presumpscot, and Lyseth). Hall received the most points based on many catagories and finished 12th overall. The Maine Department of Education identified six schools to be funded in this round. It is very unlikely that Portland will receive any state funding for major capital improvements.
On a brighter side, the State also has a school revolving renovation fund (SRRF). The State is poised to announce that the fund has $10-12 million available and requests for proposals will be open again this spring. Hopefully Portland will submit strong SRRF proposals. The SRRF was created by Maine Legislative action in 1998. SRRF was established in order to provide funding assistance to School Administrative Units (SAUs) to ensure that Maine’s students have a safe, healthy, and appropriate learning environment. The SRRF provides assistance where SAUs have identified needs in the areas of health and safety, building systems, learning space upgrades and small-scale capital improvements.
