School facility managers are relieved to learn that Gov. Gavin Newsom appears inclined to provide districts the state’s traditional share of funding for classroom construction and remodeling projects. Under Brown, virtually no new state facility funds were made available after 2012.
As part of Newsom’s January budget, released late last week, the governor is proposing to sell $1.5 billion in bonds approved by voters in 2016 to help clear a backlog of projects estimated to exceed $5 billion. The governor also wants to commit to an ongoing increase of $1.2 million to hire additional staff at the Office of Public School Construction to increase efficiencies for processing grant applications and overall workload.
