Brief Description: Providing for uniform and comprehensive facility inventory and condition data.

Brief Summary of Substitute Bill

• The Office of Financial Management must establish and maintain a system to collect and assemble existing facility data at the various institutions and translate this information into a comparable framework to create a statewide uniform building inventory and condition system.

Majority Report: The substitute bill be substituted therefor and the substitute bill do pass. Signed by 25 members: Representatives Dunshee, Chair; Hunt, Vice Chair; Alexander, Ranking Minority Member; Priest, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Armstrong, Benson, Blake, Bush, Chase, Flannigan, Hankins, Hinkle, Kirby, Lantz, Mastin, McIntire, Morrell, Murray, Newhouse, O'Brien, Orcutt, Schoesler, Simpson, Veloria and Woods.

Capital Budget appropriations for higher education institutions typically fall into one of three categories: 1) providing access for students; 2) facility preservation and renovation; and 3) institutional mission. A recent study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) found there is a significant backlog of facility infrastructure projects throughout higher education institutions. One of the recommendations is to sustain and expand the comparable framework approach used by the JLARC to assemble information on the condition of facilities. The report of the 2002 Capital Budget Interim Workgroup on Higher Education Facilities recommended that a facility inventory and condition data system be developed and maintained.

The Office of Financial Management (OFM), in consultation with the Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) and higher education institutions, must establish and maintain a system to collect and assemble existing facility data at the various institutions and translate this information into a comparable framework to create a statewide uniform building inventory and condition system. The OFM and the HECB are to report to the Legislature in December of each even-numbered year on progress made in establishing the inventory and condition system and progress made in addressing the preservation backlog. The OFM should add infrastructure to the system and incorporate program suitability in prioritizing preservation projects as soon as feasible.

The JLARC and the Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program Committee are to provide technical and system design assistance upon request. The OFM may allow for possible expansion of this detailed uniform statewide facility inventory and condition system for higher education to other areas of state government.

The substitute bill requires the report to be made every other year instead of every year and makes clarifications.

Effective Date of Substitute Bill: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For: This bill will help the Legislature prioritize Capital Budget preservation projects and integrate these projects with the institution's mission and program needs. This is one of the recommendations of the Capital Budget Interim Work Group on Higher Education Facilities and an offshoot of the JLARC's Higher Education Preservation Study. There is a concern regarding the necessity to provide funding to the OFM to establish this data system.