The Ohio School Facilities Commission

Randy Fischer received his Master of Architecture in 1982 from Ohio State University in Columbus and, before entering politics, worked for several architecture firms in the fields of retail and mixed-use projects. In 1991 he took the position of special assistant to Ohio Governor George Voinovich, traveling with the governor and maintaining his activities schedule. In 1997, he was appointed to the Ohio School Facilities Commission where he now serves as executive director.

Joe De Patta: Could you tell our readers a little about your background?

Randy Fischer: I have a Masters Degree in Architecture from Ohio State University. I practiced for eight years before I got the bug to enter politics. The urge came to a boiling point and I finally acted on it in 1990, getting involved in George Voinovich’s successful campaign for governor of Ohio. I actually left the architecture profession and for the first four years I was on staff in the governor’s office-I was the governor’s Aide for three of those four years-I didn’t practice architecture at all. In the beginning of the governor’s second term, I was appointed State Architect; in Ohio, that position oversees all non-K-through-12 construction, including universities, state facilities, and prisons. I also oversaw the restoration of our state house.

In May of 1997, when the Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) was created, the governor asked me to head it up. I’ve been here ever since.

JD: You say you had a “bug” to get into politics. Can you tell us about that?

RF: Government has always been one of my favorite classes, ever since high school. I’ve always had a keen interest in politics and would find that when I came home from work I’d rather read a publication about politics than architecture. I really wanted to get involved. I had some frustrations with the actual practice of architecture, but more importantly, I wanted to get involved in politics, so I made the jump and basically started from scratch. I was single at the time and could afford to do that.

JD: Can you tell us about the formation, background, and history of the OSFC?

RF: Back in 1990, a group of 500 school districts filed a suit against the state, claiming that the way the state was funding schools was unconstitutional. The suit made its way through all the lower courts and finally, in March of 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that, in fact, it was unconstitutional the way the state was funding their schools. The Court said that from that point on, school facilities-that is, the condition of the schools-are the responsibility of the state of Ohio. The ruling was a major departure from the way it was before; facilities had always been a local issue, a school districts’ job.

The idea of the commission had already been in the minds of state leaders, but the Court’s decision in March of 1997 really sped up the need to establish the OSFC. Governor George Voinovich appropriated about $300 million since the early ’90’s for school repairs and there were some folks working on it over at the Department of Education. A proposition was made to create a separate, distinct state agency. The governor said he wanted a group of people who, when they wake up in the morning, all they think about is school facilities. He asked me to head this program so I took the four or five people who were working in the department and we started OSFC in the summer of 1997.

We have, since our inception, received $2.7 billion in appropriations. We had a change of governors and in September of 1999 Governor Bob Taft unveiled his “Rebuild Ohio” program and asked us to put together a plan that would address the needs of all of the state’s 612 school districts. We announced a plan that would provide $10.2 billion in funding over the next 12 years to address the school needs; that amount would be matched by about another $12 billion in local funds. That’s what we are working on now.

JD: Are the funds based on the wealth of a particular school district?

RF: That’s correct. We rate the districts and fund accordingly.

JD: Can you give us a general idea of how the commission works?

RF: We oversee all funding, design, and construction of state-financed K-12 facilities. We bring in the school districts about 14 to 15 months ahead of the time they are scheduled to go to the ballot to raise the matching funds. We conduct a facilities assessment, we do an enrollment projection, work with the district to develop a master plan for their facilities, determine the total cost, and we establish the state and local shares. The district then takes the proposal to the ballot.

To date, 94 percent of the districts have been successful with their ballots to match state funds. The average state share has been 81 percent of those projects. Once the project starts, even though we are running a statewide program, we try to allow the school districts to have as much local control as possible in the design of their facilities. Once the design phase begins, we have a series of design guidelines that we hope achieve a balance of local control over how the buildings are designed and placed, yet still be assured that dollars are spent where they should be-in the classrooms and on educational programs. We also must assure a consistent quality level throughout the state and make sure we are administering the program consistently to all school districts.

JD: It also sounds like you are working as consultants for the school districts the way you help them get successful bond measures on the ballot. True?

RF: If they want our help, we told them that, short of going door to door for them, we will help in anyway we can. We send speakers out to talk at community meetings and we try to help wherever we can.

JD: Seems as though you’ve been pretty successful.

RF: We have. It’s a big plus when we are funding 80 to 90 percent of the project costs. It is hard for voters to turn down that kind of assistance.

JD: How is the commission structured?

RF: We are a separate and distinct state agency. I, as the director, am responsible for day-to-day operations, but we report to a commission consisting of the Office of Budget Management, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Administrative Services which is the agency overseeing all other public construction. Those are the three voting members.

As far as our organization, we now have a staff of about 48 people and oversee just under $3.5 billion worth of construction. It’s a lean staff. We outsource and look to the private sector to do whatever they can. All the assessments are done through private sector architects and engineers. We have more than 100 school district projects going at one time and we hire construction managers who manage individual projects and groups of projects. Perhaps four or five districts will be grouped together geographically under one manager. We achieve economy of scale in this way.

JD: What kind of criteria do you use to fund projects?

RF: The decision by the State Supreme Court told us that we needed to take care of the poorer districts first and we are complying with the mandate to help them first. The “Equity List” is updated every year and, based on certain criteria, rates districts on a scale of one to 612, one being the poorest district and 612 being the wealthiest. The criteria is based on the average of the property values in the area, with a slight income factor. The more disadvantaged districts, even if they had the will of the people to pass the ballot, still couldn’t generate enough dollars to rebuild or fund new construction. We’re funding 81 percent of the project costs of the districts at the lower end of the list.

We have another program, the “Exceptional Needs Program,” a facilities-needs-based program aimed at districts higher up on the list, perhaps four or five years from being served by our main program. The program targets certain facilities that need immediate attention so a run-down facility in a wealthier district could receive help. For example, the program helped a school district down in southern Ohio where the income levels aren’t very high, but a power plant in the area raises property values. There are a few imperfections in the system we are trying to address through our other programs.

JD: What are some of the major programs the commission oversees?

RF: The main program is called the “Classroom Facilities Assistance Program.” It is a district-wide program-not just targeting one building or school but the whole district-and so far, about 85 percent of our funds have gone to that program. We have the “Exceptional Needs Program” which I mentioned earlier. We have another program called the “Expedited Local Partnership Program.” A district may not need to be serviced for six or seven years but may want to go ahead with a project now. We will go out, do an assessment, develop a master plan and the district will identify a portion of the plan with which they would immediately like to move on. If they work in compliance with the guidelines, they will get credit for the funds when we reach them later on. This program has been successful and have had more than 200 districts apply for it.

We are now trying to tackle the six biggest urban districts in the state. Ohio is somewhat unique; we are second only to California in the number of urban centers in the state. Agribusiness is the number one industry, but we have six districts that have more than 500 buildings in them and 16 percent of school children in the state go to schools in those six districts.

For instance, Columbus public school district has 140 public buildings. Cleveland has more than 120. Those districts become eligible for state funding in July of 2002. We are speeding up the funding to those districts because they are such huge projects and they will take longer to fix. The governor has said he wants to get started sooner rather than later, so we are working with educational planners, DeJong and Associates, here in Columbus. The rough estimate for those six districts is between $5 to $6 billion in facilities needs. It’s just huge.

JD: I have read about your “Partnering Program” and it sounds unique and effective. Would you talk about it?

RF: We can’t be more pleased with how that’s working. Partnering has been around for a while and I think it has had limited success. Ours is not just a single meeting with all the principles at the beginning of a project, where the executives get together for a half a day and develop a mission statement and then agree to “get along.” Ours is an ongoing process.

Because we have a two-headed owner, if you will-the state and the local school district-it can be confusing for construction managers and architects, so we get representatives from all four entities together at the beginning of a project. These are bigger projects than those in which many school districts have already participated, and in many cases the project may be the single biggest capital building program in the district’s history. It is a great thing, but it is like a ton of bricks that lands on these school districts. We spend time clarifying what everyone’s roll is, we take the district and school board through a process where we lay out the number of decisions that will need to be made-on designs and RFP’s for instance-and they really come to an understanding on the level of involvement they have and will need.

We have more than $3 billion in construction and don’t have any major claims or disputes on our projects. A lot of times on a project you have the feeling that the architects and engineers are the “professionals” and the contractors are just contractors. We bring the contractors in and they are empowered to be part of the process. We put together a “prompt pay” processes because the best thing you can do for a contractor is to pay them on time; we are getting some of them paid in 14 days. We have contractors who say they like the process so much that, not only will they bid the project, but they also will give us a better price. They know they will be treated fairly and equitably.

Jeffrey Applebaum, one of our consultants, is overseeing the program. He headed up construction litigation for a big law firm in Cleveland and he is taking what he learned from that job and applying it here so people get squared away on what they need to do.

JD: Are you getting any response from other states on this process?

RF: We are having conversations with the state of New Jersey. They are starting a $10 to $15 billion program as well and we have hooked up with them. The city of Spokane, Washington and the states of Alaska and Alabama also are looking at our design guidelines.

JD: Has the program attracted more construction firms to Ohio and has competition increased?

RF: Yes. Our project delivery system has attracted virtually all of the big names. Heery, Turner, Gilbane, and Morse Diesel are all here, and we have attracted contractors from out of state. We have been fortunate in that we get good numbers of bidders and their budgets have been holding up. We are seeing a shortage of brick masons, however. The lead-time to order brick is now about 10 to 12 months.

JD: What is the future of the OSFC?

RF: We are administering the largest capital building program in the state of Ohio. We have made great progress but still have a ways to go because we still have a lot of very bad facilities in the state. The largest numbers of new buildings and repairs projects in the state are school construction projects. We are spending money on school facilities at a rate of about $1.25 million per day.

The Supreme Court has pretty much, in the last decision, left facilities alone. They said funding levels seem to be right, they told the legislature to see that the funds continue.

We also are using the Internet to help manage our projects. Each CM has a Web site and one can go in and look at financials, schedules, and project photos. We have developed a Web-based assessment tool; architects can look at schools, electronically input data, and we use the data, helping us become more efficient and consistent in our projects.

This agency is not going to go away. This is the largest capital building effort in the state of Ohio. We are here to stay.