Montgomery County Public Schools facility managers told the Fiscal Management Committee on Sept. 17 that the district will use a Facility Condition Index (FCI) and additional equity and utilization criteria to prioritize capital projects when the district rolls out its CIP process in October. Andrea Swiatoka, deputy chief of facility management, said the district has posted the first set of FCI reports and will continue assessments for all buildings built before 2023. "As those systems age over time, they'll start to work their way towards 1," she said of the FCI scale that runs from 0 (new) to 1 (depleted).

The FCI will count for 50% of project prioritization, Swiatoka said, and the remaining criteria will include educational adequacy, air quality, access to daylight in learning spaces, classroom size relative to specifications and building utilization. "This is a non-subjective way of evaluating just the conditions," she said, noting that the FCI is weighted by the dollar cost to replace systems so high-cost systems such as HVAC will move a building's FCI score higher.

Why it matters: The district must move from short-term capacity work toward addressing aging infrastructure across its 202-base schools. Swiatoka said roughly 60% of the district’s 137 elementary schools are at least 25 years old and therefore eligible for renovation; about 5% are 50 years or older and eligible for renewal. She framed renewal as a deeper rebuild that replaces five or more major systems — the threshold the district uses to qualify for state renewal funding. "Instead of maybe just doing an HVAC project at a school, can we look at doing an HVAC project, an inlet, flooring and windows and do a little bit more in one year?" she said.

Details and evidence: Using expected useful lives, Swiatoka told the committee the district should be replacing about 10 roofs per year across core schools to keep pace, but has averaged roughly five per year over the last three years; she reported approximately $175 million of roofing replacement needs in today’s construction costs. For HVAC, which carries a higher replacement price, staff estimated roughly $740 million in immediate HVAC replacement needs for systems past their expected 20-year life. Swiatoka said some large high-school projects are phased across multiple summers — "HVAC is typically four or five [summers] for high school currently" — while smaller roofing or HVAC work can be done as single-summer countywide projects.

Staff outreach and transparency: Swiatoka said MCPS has shared the FCI work with cluster leads, union presidents and two public virtual sessions, and that the first 54 facility reports are posted on a new FCI website. She asked the committee to note that an FCI score alone does not dictate project sequencing: "We are using that as 50% of the criteria that we are considering," she said, adding that lived experience and equity-related factors are captured in the other 50% of the prioritization criteria.

Operational constraints and sequencing: Committee members and staff discussed how available holding facilities and the short summer construction window constrain sequencing: staff may phase some high-school HVAC projects over two to four years and need to consider where students will be housed during multiyear work. Swiatoka confirmed the CIP will include a mix of renovations, renewals and replacements and emphasized that cost, site constraints and Americans with Disabilities Act issues will affect whether a renewal (gut-and-replace) is feasible. Swiatoka said the CIP launch is scheduled for October and that staff will continue to update the FCI website as assessments finish.

What’s next: MCPS will present the CIP in October with the new FCI-informed prioritization framework and continue to post FCI reports for remaining facilities. The committee asked staff to continue clarifying on the public FCI landing page that the FCI is one part of a broader prioritization methodology and to consider how to reflect those other criteria for public understanding.