School facilities: state planning priorities.

(1) Existing law sets forth state planning priorities that are intended to promote equity, strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and promote public health and safety in the state. Those priorities are as follows: (a) to promote infill development and equity by rehabilitating, maintaining, and improving existing infrastructure that supports infill development and appropriate reuse and redevelopment of previously developed, underutilized land, (b) to protect environmental and agricultural resources by protecting, preserving, and enhancing the state's most valuable natural resources, and (c) to encourage efficient development patterns by ensuring that any infrastructure associated with development, other than infill development, supports new development that meets prescribed criteria. Under the Leroy F. Greene School Facilities Act of 1998 (hereafter the Greene Act) , the State Allocation Board is charged with the allocation of state funds to school districts for the acquisition of schoolsites and the construction and modernization of schools. This bill would require the State Allocation Board, on or before July 1, 2012, to review the guidelines, rules, regulations, procedures, and policies for the modernization of school facilities adopted for implementation of the Greene Act to ensure they reflect the state planning priorities referenced above and to revise those guidelines, rules, regulations, procedures, and policies as necessary. (2) Existing law requires the State Department of Education, among other things, to advise the governing board of a school district on the acquisition of new schoolsites, to develop standards for use by a school district in the selection of schoolsites, and to establish standards for use by school districts to ensure that the design and construction of school facilities are educationally appropriate and promote school safety. Existing law requires the governing board of a school district, before commencing the acquisition of real property for a new schoolsite or an addition to an existing schoolsite, to evaluate the property using the standards developed by the department. This bill would require the site selection standards and the design and construction standards developed by the department to reflect the state planning priorities and would require the governing board of a school district to consider whether a new schoolsite or addition reflects the state planning priorities. The bill would require the department to consider, among other things, the state planning priorities in prioritizing the list of recommended school locations provided by the department to the school district. (3) Existing law requires the Governor to submit annually a proposed 5-year infrastructure plan to the Legislature in conjunction with the Governor's Budget. Existing law requires this infrastructure plan to include a proposal for funding the infrastructure that includes criteria and priorities used to identify and select the infrastructure proposed to be funded. This bill would require the infrastructure plan to include information, to be provided to the Governor by the State Department of Education and the State Allocation Board, on the extent to which the department's site selection standards and design and construction standards and the board adopted guidelines, rules, regulations, procedures, and policies for the modernization of school facilities are consistent with the state planning priorities.