SACRAMENTO – The Department of General Services' Office of Public School Construction (OPSC) announced today that regulations have been approved to allow it to begin the process of awarding $100 million in High Performance Incentive Grants to California schools for more energy and resource efficient "green" classrooms.  The funding was approved by California voters last year as part of Proposition 1D.

"The Governor supported Proposition 1D and is committed to taking action to ensure new California schools and existing facilities make the improvements necessary to benefit the environment," said DGS Director Will Bush.  "Greener schools offer a far better environment for California's kids to learn in."

In December 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger signed an Executive Order that ushered in the State's Green Building Initiative and encouraged schools built with State funds to be resource- and energy-efficient, while creating safer and healthier learning environments.

The High Performance Incentive Grant program will promote the use of high performance attributes in new construction and modernization of projects for K-12 schools.  These attributes include using designs and materials that promote energy and water efficiency, maximize the use of natural lighting, improve indoor air quality, use recycled materials and materials that emit a minimum of toxic substances, and feature acoustics that help the teaching and learning process.

"Our children and their teachers spend so much time each day in their classrooms that we must do all we can to make that physical environment the healthiest to learn in," said OPSC Executive Officer Rob Cook.  "We want this program to be smart and focused on providing incentives to build energy-efficient and educationally exceptional facilities.  We are committed to continuing to work closely with school districts to educate them on the benefits of the program and working their applications through the system quickly to get these "green school" projects funded as soon as possible."

The regulations include a High Performance Rating Criteria modeled after the Collaborative for High Performance Schools program.  The criteria will be used to determine the high performance attributes in a project and to assign a score that will directly correlate to the increased amount of funding a project receives. The high performance grants will provide incentives of between 2 - 10 percent of the base grant for high performance facilities.

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