Healthy, High Performance School Facilities:
Developments in State Policy

Pennsylvania

Citation: 24 P.S. Section 25-2574 (c.4)
Effective: July 2005
Available: HERE

This law directs the state Department of Education to provide additional state school construction funding to school building projects that receive a silver, gold or platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system. The law was amended in 2006 ( 2005 PA H.B. 185) to allow funding also for projects that earn two, three or four Globes under the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes Green Building Rating System. Under the law, the department will adjust an eligible project’s approved construction costs by the product of the rated pupil capacity and $470 (for elementary schools) or $620 (for secondary schools). The law directs the department, in consultation with the Governor’s Green Government Council, to issue guidelines for implementing this law.

A separate Pennsylvania initiative is the High Performance Green Schools Planning Grant Program. Through this program the state provides planning grants of up to $50,000 to school districts for construction projects that will achieve at least LEED-silver certification under the LEED rating system. The program is funded by the State Public School Building Authority and administered jointly by the Governor’s Green Government Council and the state Department of Education. The program awarded a total of $200,000 in its first year (2005-2006), and new grant funding is available for 2006-2007. See http://www.gggc.state.pa.us/planninggrants/cwp/
view.asp?a=3&q=155060.