Pennsylvania Legislators Urge Voters to Pass School Construction Bill

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania legislators continue to fight for a better way to reimburse school construction costs in the state. Rep. Seth Grove of York recently sponsored House Bill 2124, which would help update the PlanCon (or Planning and Construction Workbook) process to be more efficient for schools.

The House already passed the bill, which involves organizing the antiquated and time-consuming reporting system that school districts are required to follow in order to receive reimbursement from the Pennsylvania Department of Education for a portion of their construction costs.

The process dates back to a 1973 law meant to discourage costly, elaborate school design plans, and provided for partial reimbursements for new construction only. The poorer the district was the higher the reimbursement it would receive from the state. It’s so old that it even requires for documentation to be submitted in microfilm form.

The new bill would eliminate that requirement, as well as reduce the number of steps required for reimbursement from 11 to five steps. The new automated-reporting system would be called the Accountability and Reducing Costs in Construction Process or ArcCon, according to the Lebanon Daily News.

The system would encourage renovating over rebuilding because of its cost-benefit analysis feature. Plus, it would give the public access to school construction and reconstruction project information via a database on the department of education’s website.

The bill would also initiate reimbursements for PlanCon-eligible projects after a three-year moratorium on funding. That hold has deprived schools across the state from receiving millions of dollars in construction funding. As a result, school boards have had to raise taxes for the money that the state owes them, reported the Lebanon Daily News.

The moratorium was already officially lifted, as $306 million was allocated in the 2014-2015 budget to begin paying back the money owed to specific districts. However, the reimbursement list is quite long. The legislation is currently with the Senate Education Committee. As such, an exact date for whether or not the bill will be passed is still undetermined.