To create an emergency school repair and renovation grant program to help class two school districts pay for any nonrecurring costs associated with urgent facilities repairs and renovations related to health and safety risks, fire and building code deficiencies, access for disabled students, and asbestos abatement or removal.   Official Text and Analysis.

To require that the State Board of Education adopt rules and guidelines for the program. The Superintendent of Public Instruction will administer the grants. A new account is not created. Technical corrections are made to the common school construction fund language and the bill is restructured for clarity.

By Representative Cox, prime sponsor; Jim Kowalkowski, Pomeroy School District and Rural Education Center; Barbara Mertens, Washington Association of School Administrators; and Steve Floyd, State Board of Education; and others who testified that many small school districts pay for emergency facility repairs out of their reserves, but generally those reserves are not sufficient to pay for expensive emergency building repairs. Many rural schools no longer meet state building codes. They have leaky roofs, obsolete fire safety systems, aging plumbing, and decrepit heating and ventilating systems. If the state were to create a program, it would go a long way to helping small districts meet an urgent need and would help create jobs locally.

Implied that the program should not be limited to second class districts, the initial focus should be health and safety concerns, the priorities should not be included in statute, and OSPI should be provided with enough staff to properly administer the program.

But the bill did not pass the Senate by the cutoff date so it is a “dead bill” and will not be considered further.