A recent report on Maryland’s public school construction efforts lays out the deepest evaluation of this priority effort in decades. The bottom line seems clear: Maryland’s structure to support new and renovated school buildings is effective overall, but the total commitment has been dwarfed by cost increases, and we have fallen behind on this essential commitment to education.

The report from Comptroller Brooke Lierman’s office, “State Spending Series: School Construction,” offers a timely look at a longstanding state priority, maintaining the educational infrastructure supporting public school students statewide.

A Conduit Street article this week, Comptroller’s Report Suggests Dedicated State Revenue for School Construction, identifies several findings from the report, noting the overwhelming pressures on counties to compensate for inadequate State support for needed facility improvements.

Here, we will focus more closely on the cost factors that could be used to calibrate the actual costs of building and renovating school buildings, as a means to put current State capital funding levels into a more useful context, effectively “how much school space is State support buying us today, and is it enough?”

Maryland’s Unique System

Maryland has developed a one-of-a-kind system to fund public school construction, alongside its similarly unique method of funding school operating costs through county budgets. A few facets of this system are quickly noted here as context for the larger funding discussion:

• • The State provides support for school construction projects, on a wealth-adjusted basis — meaning the share of state funding is connected to the relative ability of the local jurisdiction to pay toward the project
  • The “State share” ranges from 50% to nearly 100%, but applies only to a formula-driven set of “eligible costs” that falls short of the actual project costs of virtually all projects actually completed; counties bear the full weight of those remaining costs
  • The most recent analysis shows that the effective cost split is roughly $3 of county funding for every $1 of State funds
  • The spending constraints of the State’s overall capital program have meant that in each year, a wide swath of projects submitted are deemed worthy of funding, but cannot be supported due to the budgeted amount available
  • The State’s limited-time program “Built to Learn” targeted funds to larger jurisdictions, leveraging a special fund resource for that purpose, has wound down its effort, and overall funding has returned to “historic” levels in nominal terms

The Big Cost Shock: Pandemic Era

The stark change in school construction costs is clearly illustrated by the figure below, from the Comptroller’s report:

For most of the time measured, the cost of school construction essentially followed the prevailing trend in the American economy – fairly modest and predictable inflation, leading to a smooth, slight incline moving left to right. Around 2021, along with shocks to the labor and materials markets, the rate of increase spiked and remained highly elevated into 2023. From there, a new plateau was reached, and the more stable pattern has seemingly prevailed since.

The data above is national data, but carries over effectively into the figures seen in Maryland specifically.

The Comptroller’s report lays out a series of cost drivers that affect the actual cost of a given facility in Maryland – including some factors that are internal but many that are outside the control of school administrators (referenced here, and commonly in the education world, as “Local Education Agencies” or LEAs) and facility planners:

When it comes to new construction, there is a range of factors and preferences that determine overall costs, including:

• Site availability and cost: LEAs often have to compete with commercial developers if a new site is needed, which requires paying high market rates. In cases that require negotiating with developers for land they own, LEAs can be saddled with costly site work to make the tract school-suitable.

• Existing site conditions: Construction on a site occupied by an existing school that has to be replaced can be even more costly than acquiring and building on a new site. This is not uncommon; according to a consultant interviewed for this report, adequate sites for new and replacement schools are difficult to obtain, even in rural jurisdictions.

• Location and site complexity: School construction can require significant land modification and site preparation, including soil amendment, remediation, deep foundations, grading to level elevation change, and retaining walls. Some necessitate underground stormwater management or underground parking, which require excavation, waterproofing and structural support.

• School structure: Material selection (concrete, structural steel, etc.), building height, number of stairwells, and/or elevators are key cost factors.

• School interior: The size and complexity of spaces within the school (auditoriums, pools, gyms, cafeterias, STEM spaces, art/music classrooms, etc.).

• Fit/finish: The number of lockers, the amount of interior glass, the type of flooring (tile, terrazzo, carpet, vinyl composition tile, etc.), and furniture choices.

• Exterior programs: The size and types of spaces provided for sports and playgrounds, such as tracks and fields, and the type of lighting required.

• Sustainability features: High-efficiency mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems; geothermal energy; energy-efficient roofs and insulation; exterior skin systems/building envelopes; and solar power systems, and other high performance or net-zero infrastructure.

Overall, the clearest rule-of-thumb analysis on capital funding adequacy was a call-back to the Kopp Commission, whose detailed work on similar topics resulted in a 2004 Final Report, with recommendations that actively guided the State commitment through subsequent years. From that report:

Addressing the facility needs identified by the Facility Assessment Survey, at a minimum, over the next eight years should be a goal of the State and local governments. The State would need to allocate at least $250 million annually for the next eight years to achieve the goal.

The 2025 report references that work and looks at the funding levels provided by the State today. Their grim summary:

A similar effort took place 20 years ago as part of the Kopp Commission, which estimated the cost of bringing all schools up to basic, minimum facility standards at $4 billion in 2004, which represents about $12 billion in today’s dollars.

And the simplest synthesis, again from the Comptroller’s 2025 report, is here:

The state has increased funding for school capital intermittently over time, but not enough to meet LEA needs. Over the past 10 years, state funding to the CIP, the IAC’s largest grant program, has hovered around $300 million annually (with a short-term increase in FY24), not keeping up with inflation or the myriad other cost increases discussed in section IV. Between FY21 and FY26, only about half (56%) of LEA requests to the CIP have been awarded.

Bottom Line: Not Enough

The State feels fiscal pressures, arising from multiple factors — weakness in revenue growth, cost drivers for services and employees, federal uncertainty, and its own policy priorities for education and other targeted commitments. The terrain for an increased commitment to school facilities is challenging.

However, the argument that the State needs to provide more support for school buildings is not based on aspirations for a higher tier or a desire for improvement—it’s merely the arithmetic of keeping pace with families’ and school systems’ reasonable expectations of the learning environment. Maryland is simply not keeping up with School Construction, and this situation demands attention as a policy priority.

This article is part of MACo’s Policy Deep Dive series, where expert policy analysts unpack complex policy questions with precise, county-focused analysis. Read all of MACo’s Policy Deep Dives.