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 .

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.

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On Jan. 16, about two dozen public school officials and one lawmaker gathered in the Capitol to remind the governor and the legislature about the “unfunded liability” of school construction costs as well. The Pennsylvania Department of Education owes about $1 billion to numerous school districts for about 350 state-approved renovation and construction projects, according to .

In 2011, Corbett’s administration cut reimbursement payments by $20 million to $296 million and put a moratorium on approving new projects for reimbursement as part of the PlanCon process until June 30, 2014, unless the legislature extends it. However, public school officials want the money now that the loss of state funding has caused them to either forfeit their own finances, lay off staff or cut programs. It is now obvious that the state approved far more projects in the PlanCon process than it could afford.

State Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, said he will introduce a bill that requires the state to pay districts the money back plus interest, and that the bill would help modernize the 11-step Plan Con process.

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.

In 2005, Gov. Ed Rendell and the legislature increased that reimbursement rate, also giving extra money for LEED-certified school designs. However, those changes resulted in a backlog of payments to the school districts.

Several other school construction projects are underway in the state after gaining approval for reimbursements in 2011, before the moratorium took effect. The state estimates it would cost $1.2 billion to fund the 350 projects seeing reimbursement before the moratorium took effect in October 2012.

With such a large amount of reimbursements due, the PlanCon process will likely not start up again any time soon. As a result, school districts are looking for other government programs to help with construction projects. For example, the Allentown School District got a $3.75 million state grant through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project, funded through bonds.

Because funding has yet to be issued, citizens are starting to protest Gov. Tom Corbett in a variety of ways. The latest: Protestors boycotted the governor outside Central High in Philadelphia when he was scheduled to present the high school with an academic award for high math and reading scores. As a result, the governor never showed up, according to .

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