The Impact of State Regulations on the Costs of Public School Construction

Abstract

j o u r na l of e du c at i on f i na n ce against the benefits of the better "product" realized by these regulations; and third, a better understanding of the interactions among regulations within a state's whole regulatory environment is needed. i n troduc tion The public education construction sector has seen significant and unprecedented growth in the last decade (Filardo et al. 2006; Abramson 2007; Agron 2007). A recent analysis reports that the nation's public school districts spent more than $500 billion for capital between 1995 and 2004, building more than 12,000 new schools and managing more than 130,000 renovation and other improvement projects to existing schools (Filardo et al. 2006). Between 2000 and 2007, school construction expenditures across the country consistently exceeded record levels (Abrahamson 2007). Despite this enormous investment, little tracking or analyses of costs and spending have been conducted, though many school districts continually struggle to pay for new schools. Given the extent of public dollars being invested in new public schools across the country, it is no surprise that the cost of school construction is making headlines. Rising capital costs are negatively affecting districts' ability to provide the promised schools. In California, the Orange County Register (June 18, 2006) found that due to cost increases, only six of 19 local school districts that passed construction bonds since 1990 (totaling $1.7 billion) were delivering every project promised in their original bond. Two-thirds of these districts were being forced to scale back. As noted by one superintendent, "You tell me how we can do all the work we needed when construction costs go up by 30% across the board?" Homeowners become reluctant to increase their property taxes to pay for new schools. The Indiana legislature, for example, debated a bill that sought to help taxpayers control school construction costs and reduce debt service payments on new facilities by creating standardized plans-the rationale being that such a strategy would eliminate some significant architectural design fees on each project. Most recently, the Seattle Times reported that their school district has predicted that construction costs will rise 30% over the next three years (January 14, 2008). Despite the dramatic effects costs are having on local school districts and communities, little research has been done on the determinants of school construction costs. School facilities, in addition to being large complex structures, are public and tend to have greater regulatory controls placed upon them compared to other construction projects. As a result, practitioners have argued that this makes them inherently more expensive than building comparable private-owned buildings (Vincent and McKoy 2008). Moreover, evolving trends in educational facility requirements, such as early childhood education, smaller

Assessment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Upon the Department of Energy Weatherization Assistance Program

“…Almost all of the grantees and two‐thirds of the subgrantees reported that overall, Davis‐Bacon lead to wage and other cost increases (see Table ). These findings are in line with other research conducted over many years on the cost implications of Davis‐Bacon (e.g., Bilginsoy & Phillips, ; Dunn, Quigley, & Rosenthal, ; Fraundorf, Farrell, & Mason, ; Vincent & Monkkonen, ) though some studies have found to cost impacts (e.g., Duncan, ). Discussions with over a dozen subgrantees held during case study visits suggest that DoL adopted most of the wage rates that the subgrantees were already paying their in‐house staff but that wage rates for specialty jobs, such as for electricians working in multifamily buildings five floors or higher, rose quite substantially.…”

The Effect of Prevailing Wage Regulations on Contractor Bid Participation and Behavior: A Comparison of Palo Alto, California with Four Nearby Prevailing Wage Municipalities

“…The effects of prevailing wage regulations on the operations of construction labor markets and on the cost of public construction have been the subject of considerable research (Azari‐Rad, Philips, and Prus , , ; Bilginsoy and Philips ; Dunn, Quigley, and Rosenthal ; Fraundorf and Farell ; Keller and Hartman ; Vincent and Mankkonen ). However, this literature has not addressed the question of the effect of prevailing wage regulations on the participation and bidding behavior of contractors.…”

Some pennies are more equal than others: Inequitable school facilities investment in San Antonio, Texas

“…Other recent work has also looked at the impacts of facilities policies across all 50 states, with some attempting to understand the extent to which state policies impact the overall costs of educational facilities (Vincent & Monkkonen, 2010). Duncombe and Wang (2009) used data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data School District Finance Survey, providing summaries of various types of state school building-aid programs.…”

“…Although several studies have taken up facilities inequities across state lines (Filardo, 2016), facilities policy variation between states (Duncombe & Wang, 2009;Vincent & Monkkonen, 2010), and the actions of local school district leaders (Harris & Munley, 2002;Milder, 2011;Stover, 2012), in this study, we examine variation in facilities policy implementation in several districts even in close geographic proximity in the City of San Antonio, Texas.…”