School facilities-disposition moratorium.

WORKING DRAFT
2005
STATE OF WYOMING
05LSO-0578

HOUSE BILL
NO.
HB0226

School facilities-disposition moratorium.

Sponsored by:
Representative(s) Wasserburger

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to school facilities; imposing a moratorium on the demolition of school facilities and buildings rendered surplus under the district facility planning process; providing for maintenance payments; imposing duties upon the school facilities commission; limiting the moratorium to three (3) years; providing an appropriation; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.

W.S. 21
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15
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114(a)(x) and 21
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15
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116(a)(intro) are amended to read:

21
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15
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114.

Powers and duties; school facilities office created; director.

(a)

The school facilities commission shall:

(x)

Except as otherwise specifically prohibited by law, r
eview and approve district plans for the disposition or demolition of buildings and facilities made surplus by an approved construction or renovation project or by changes in school population, including allocation of resulting costs and revenues. Disposition shall include options for use, lease, sale and any other means of disposing of the surplus building or facility. The costs and revenues incurred by the disposition or demolition of the building or facility shall be accounted for in each district's school facility plan and considered in any building or facility remedy for that district, including the allocation of revenues resulting from the disposition of property rendered surplus to offset property demolition costs. The district shall have final authority over the disposition or demolition of any surplus buildings, facilities or land, but the commission may disapprove any plans submitted pursuant to this paragraph to protect the financial interests of the state if the plans are not otherwise in the public interest. Any revenues resulting from property disposition under this paragraph shall not be considered or counted under W.S. 21
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310(a)(xiv) or (xv);

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15
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116.

School district facility plans; filing with commission; commission review; judicial review.

(a)

Each school district shall, in accordance with rules and regulations of the commission, and with the assistance of professional facility planning expertise and a representative of the commission, develop long range comprehensive school building and facility plans for the district which address district wide building and facility needs over a five (5) year period. The plan shall be in a form and format specified by rule and regulation of the commission and shall identify building and facility needs in accordance with the statewide adequacy standards, actions to remediate building and facility inadequacies including construction, renovation and major building and facility repair and replacement expenditures, and any local enhancements to buildings and facilities beyond statewide adequacy standards. The plans shall include a response to each building and facility inadequacy identified by the needs assessment on a building-by-building, space-by-space basis. The plan shall also review and to the extent practical, identify nonconstruction alternatives to building and facility inadequacies such as building closure, modification of school boundaries, modification of school grade configurations and similar approaches.
Except as otherwise specifically prohibited by law, d
emolition or use, lease or other methods of disposition of commission determined surplus buildings and facilities shall be incorporated as part of the district plan. The plan shall also specify identified alternative methods of building disposition, proposed allocation of costs incurred or revenues resulting from disposition and allocation of disposition revenues to offset any costs paid by the commission. In addition, district facility plans shall include:

Section 2.

(a)

Until such time as provided otherwise by the legislature, no school district shall demolish a school building or facility made surplus by an approved construction or renovation project or by changes in school population, nor shall the school facilities commission approve district facility plans for the demolition of any school facility or building, unless the facility or building is rendered surplus on the basis of health, safety or other environmental factors and remediation of any such factor is not feasible or cost effective. This moratorium shall not apply to any commission approved demolition project for a school facility or building funded and initiated in accordance with W.S. 21
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111 through 21
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121 as of the effective date of this act.

(b)

Effective on and after the effective date of this act until otherwise specified by the legislature, any school district with buildings and facilities removed from the district facility planning process in accordance with subsection (a) of this section shall receive an annual maintenance payment from the commission computed as if the facility or building is specified as a closed building pursuant to W.S. 21
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109(c)(iv). Payments shall be made to the district at the time and in the manner major building and facility repair and replacement payments are distributed under W.S. 21
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109(b).

(c)

The purpose of the moratorium imposed by this act is to provide cities, towns and other local governmental entities and community organizations a period of time to assemble plans and generate funding to convert building and facility use to community purposes such as public meeting facilities, community centers and public recreational facilities.

(d)

This section is repealed effective July 1, 2008.

Section 3.

Three hundred twenty-five thousand dollars ($325,000.00) is appropriated from the school capital construction account to the school facilities commission for purposes of making payments to school districts as required under section 2(b) of this act for the period commencing on the effective date of this act and ending June 30, 2008.

Section 4.

This act is effective immediately upon co
m
pletion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constit
u
tion.

(END)

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HB0226