School districts located in multiple counties after reorganization will have great difficulty passing a local option sales tax for school infrastructure purposes. He also recommended that surplus state revenues be placed in a fund to provide very low interest loans to districts. State Fire Marshal Roy Marshall stated that the fire codes are in place to prevent fires and protect students and other occupants by providing for early warning, containment, and rapid egress of building occupants. The number of reported school fires has increased five-fold over the past decade, to 100 in the past year. He estimates that more than 50 percent are the result of arson.
All school districts have code violations, but they vary greatly in severity.
In 1994, field inspectors estimated that 10 percent of the school districts in Iowa had serious, longstanding, and expensive fire safety code violations. This estimate may be reduced to 5 to 6 percent in FY 1999-2000 because of school closings and school repairs. Schools have been closed in the past five years due to a tougher stance by the Office of the Fire Marshal. When a school is closed, the Fire Marshal works with administrators to ensure that the students will not be moved to an even more dangerous school site. Repairs have been greatly facilitated by a federal grant to the Department of Education that permitted 63 schools to correct many of the most serious deficiencies.