Connecticut Funds School Construction, Security

May 15, 2014 1886 Views Eastern U.S., Garfield High School, high school renovations, Jones Lang Lasalle, Senator Joe Scarnati, The Hon Company, The University of Texas at Dallas

HARTFORD, Conn. — The Connecticut General Assembly recently passed a measure to funnel more than $522 million into statewide school construction and renovation projects. The bill, SB No. 475, was approved almost unanimously, with only two lawmakers opposing.

SB No. 475 authorizes the Department of Administrative Services commissioner to enter into grant commitments for 21 new school construction projects, totaling $180.7 million. It will also reauthorize and change grant commitments, due to cost and scope changes, for nine previously authorized projects.

Though the bill will primarily fund standard expansion and renovation projects, it also mandates that projects integrate the school safety infrastructure standards (SSIS) introduced by the School Safety Infrastructure Council (SSIC). The council, which was formed following the assault on Sandy Hook Elementary in 2013, issued the SSIS in January 2014.

However, under the newly approved bill, the commissioner may waive the requirement to meet the SSIS if it is determined that the applying school made a good-faith effort to address the standards, and that compliance with the standards would be infeasible, unreasonable or excessively expensive. It also authorizes the commissioner to require any town or regional board of education applying for a school construction project grant to conduct a safety assessment of the project to measure compliance with the SSIS. The town or regional board must use either an assessment tool the commissioner designates or an alternative the commissioner determines, which must provide a comparable safety and security assessment.  

The SSIS include surveillance upgrades, improvements to school entry points and the development of emergency notification systems. A panel of police officers, educators, engineers and state leaders collaborated on the new requirements, which will apply to all new school construction approved for funding by the legislature after June 2014.
“If the events of the recent past have taught us anything, it is that state government must use its collective resources more wisely and with greater purpose,” the commission wrote in their February 2014 report. “By tying state school construction investments to local compliance with widely agreed upon security standards, state government can help achieve the goal of more secure schools through the use of preventative infrastructure design techniques.”
State school security funding also received a boost from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy earlier in the year when the governor announced the dedication of $10 million in school security grants, and the expansion of funding eligibility to all public schools.

“Providing safe learning environments for our students and educators is a basic responsibility of state and local governments,” Malloy said in the January funding announcement.

The governor also secured $21 million to support school security projects in 111 schools districts in 2013. However, that first round of funding was open to district-run community and magnet schools only.