Report predicts $46B gap in funding for school buildings

Associated Press ^ | Mar 23, 2016 4:41 PM EDT | Carolyn Thompson

[Olog-hai]

The nation is spending about $46 billion less than what it needs to keep up its school buildings, according to a report Wednesday that pointed out disparities in state support for infrastructure.

The report by a trio of school facilities groups said the country needs to keep better track of the state of its schools and find new funding sources for their upkeep so that local districts that now bear the heaviest funding burdens don’t have to divert money from instruction.

“U.S. public school infrastructure is funded through a system that is inequitably affecting our nation’s students and this has to change,” said Rick Fedrizzi, chief executive officer of the U.S. Green Buildings Council, which released the report along with the 21^st Century School Fund and National Council on School Facilities. …

[dware]

S’ok...here in CO, we’re building new, technologically advanced schools with pot tax revenues.

[Cobra64]

Wasn’t Obama’s 1 trillion dollar “Stimulus Package” going to repair our infrastructure: schools, bridges, roads, and provide “shovel ready” jobs? Where did that money go?

[kabar]

Immigration is killing our school systems. In Fairfax County, VA, just a couple of years ago, the costs for 1,000 ESOL teachers was over $100 million a year.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/district-29583-building-new.html

Our local school district spent $38 million (up to $55 million with loan interest) on their headquarters. This overpriced temple to themselves led to a number of people to be recalled. Just one example of the complete waste done by school districts.

[Ignatz]

“You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat do you?” - Julius Levinson

[Da Coyote]

Make the Soros hole pay for all.

Call those of us who do real work after that ass is bankrupt.

[Bubba Gump Shrimp]

Nearly 70% of my local school budget is legacy costs. That is, pensions, disability and retirement benefits.

Factor in that tax revenues are down because our property values have sunk, and our district cannot float any more bonds with any measurable interest, the schools fall apart and spending on students is crushed.

Our state lottery money (25 years ago) was passed with the stipulation that the money went to the schools. Of course it does, but they just cut the same amount out of the school budgets.

Not that it matters, the schools here will go belly up, we cannot reduce our legacy liability, nor cut any of the unions (there are several) wages that rely on school funding. It’s in our state Constitution that those benefits cannot be cut for any reason, and as a matter of fact, must increase a certain percent (based on the union contract) each year.

For our state, the only recourse will be bankruptcy, and a judge changing our Constitution based on restructure.

We are not far from that point.

[Seruzawa]

Schools investigate themselves and discover that they need another 46 billion. Lol!

[kcvl]

Rick Fedrizzi currently chairs the Scaling Sustainable Buildings Action Network of the Clinton Global Initiative.

https://www.clintonfoundation.org/blog/authors/rick-fedrizzi

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by current CEO Rick Fedrizzi, Mike Italiano, and David Gottfried in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in buildings design, construction, and operation.

LEED standards have been criticized for not actually creating energy efficient buildings.

In 2013, The Washington Examiner analyzed energy efficiency data of New York City buildings and found that LEED-certified buildings actually performed worse than buildings in general.[7] An analysis by USA Today found that building makers target LEED’s easiest points—those that don’t necessarily increase the energy efficiency of a building.[8] The USGBC admits that “current information indicates that most buildings do not perform as well as design metrics indicate. As a result, building owners might not obtain the benefits promised.”

Rick Fedrizzi gave a speech comparing the green movement’s challenges to that of past movements, from the vote for women to civil rights to gay rights, each of which there was significant push-back. He says they won because they were right and their detractors are wrong.

“We’re right when we design, build, and operate our buildings so that they reduce energy, keep costs down, and conserve our planet’s resources.”

“e’re right when we witness that green building is a powerful, world-changing force that can create millions of jobs here in the United States and lift people out of degradation and poverty around the world.”

“We’re up against powerful forces who want to accelerate mountaintop coal removal; fast track a Pipeline; or frack the Hell out of every square inch of green-space we have left. Forces who actually don’t want government buildings or college campuses to save energy, save water, and save money - they just want to claim they do: “Trust me...its Green.”

http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/rick-fedrizzi-defends-leed-attacks-naysayers-and-delivers-barn-burner-defense-green-building.html

Svenonia
Strong words coming from a guy who makes $500,000 a year running this “non-profit” USGBC. (did he ever even try to pass his own AP exam?)

[Zeppo]

The nation is spending about $46 billion less than what it needs to keep up its school buildings, according to a report Wednesday that pointed out disparities in state support for infrastructure.

The Associated Press reports those "findings" as if they were irrefutable facts, rather than merely being a self-serving report prepared by groups of self-interested rent seekers.

In the AP's spoon-fed story, no contrary opinion need apply. Good propaganda job there, AP. Keep up the good work...

[kcvl]

LEED is managed and overseen by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), which is not a government entity, despite what many think. The USGBC is a private — so-called "nonprofit" — environmental organization led by Rick Fedrizzi, the group's founder and president.

Fedrizzi earns a yearly salary in excess of $500,000 according to publicly available records. The group boasts 13,000 members, most of whom are architects, builders or building suppliers. Many of these members specialize in — and profit from — some of the products and construction designs that USGBC mandates in order for a new building to achieve one of its levels of LEED certification, according to the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

A building achieves LEED certification by earning credits that are spelled out by the USGBC. The credits, however, too often have little or nothing to do with energy efficiency. USA Today recently published a revealing three-part series that examined LEED. In those articles, it was noted that buildings could get a credit simply for having a LEED expert on its design team and that some schools received credits for teaching about green buildings in the classroom.

The Palazzo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas achieved LEED certification partly by installing bike racks in its garage, placing cards in rooms that tell guests when their towels are replaced and by establishing preferred parking for fuel-efficient vehicles. By gaining LEED certification, the owners of the hotel received at $27 million tax break.

The USGBC has quietly established a monopoly on green building construction with the federal and local governments. The General Services Administration, commonly referred to as the "landlord" for federal government buildings, mandates adherence to LEED standards for all new federal buildings.

Press Here

[Mannaggia l'America]

The Davis-Bacon Act should be repealed, at a minimum for school construction. It bloats the cost of school projects.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Wow, 70% legacy costs??? Just unbelievable.

And whenever I hear discussion of school funding, the liberals always say we aren’t spending enough, aren’t devoting enough “resources” to the schools.

I have a stupid question. How is it that schools in past generations produced literate graduates, with far less money spent per capita, adjusted for inflation? Is the issue really lack of money???

How is it that schools in past generations produced literate graduates, before the 1979 creation of the Department of Education? What essential tasks does that department perform, and why does it exist?

[Don Corleone]

The amount of money that has been stolen out of the governments coffers over the last 50 years would probably erase the national debt.

[Bubba Gump Shrimp]

-—How is it that schools in past generations produced literate graduates, before the 1979
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.
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My opinion on this is that educators at that time were mostly housewives and retired individuals who brought experience of the real world to the classroom.

The housewives made up I’d reckon 97% of the teachers when I was growing up. I only had a few male teachers and they were retired chemists, retired machinists, retired carpenters, I had a retired auto mechanic, a retired mathemetician from UIC who worked on the nuclear program.

These guys didn’t get into education for the high pay and bennies, they didn’t have bennies in their old jobs, so they came and taught kids to earn a bit of money, but also they cared about us kids. The housewife teachers especially, they taught because they loved kids (and the hours were conducive to being a housewife, you were home with your kids)

Now, these same people who taught us as kids, couldn’t even find a teaching post as they would be unqualified. We now have a professional class of teachers whose only education is in the teaching field, they have no real life experience in what they teach.

It’s a job with perks, real nice perks, steady raises, and great hours. It is attractive to those who don’t want to hump ass (I’m sorry but I don’t believe current teachers, with some exception of course hump ass).

I sat on our school board for several years, and I was disgusted at that time (20 years ago), I can’t imagine how disgusted I would be now to go to a board meeting or a contract negotiation.

I have very little respect for our current crop of educators, and those who are professional education administrators (yes, that’s really a job and a degree, and quite a fine one at that). Many admins are former teachers, and will get 2 sometimes 3 (if they change admin jobs) pensions upon retirement.

When it comes to budgets, the kids come last. The current role of most school systems is to employ people which secures D votes. Everything else is secondary.

[Bubba Gump Shrimp]

My company is an ASHRAE and Gold Leed member. We have to be to be able to bid on our state jobs and to work with ASHRAE and Leed architectural firms.

It was quite an ordeal to achieve the qualification and it is quite and ordeal to maintain it.

[DAC21]

Wow! It’s gonna take lot of libs screeming “it’s for the children” to come up with that kind of scratch.

[DAC21]

Wow! It’s gonna take lot of libs screeming “it’s for the children” to come up with that kind of scratch.