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_ 214 Item Details($) Appropriations($) ITEM 125. First Year Second Year First Year Second Year FY2025 FY2026 FY2025 FY2026 the Lottery Proceeds Fund shall be disbursed to provide support to Accomack and Northampton school divisions for teacher recruitment and retention efforts, including adjustments to salary scales to minimize the misalignment to salary scales of adjacent counties. 42. School Construction Assistance Program. a. Out of this appropriation, $80,000,000$200,000,000 the first year and $80,000,000$110,000,000 the second year from the School Construction Fund and $50,000,000 the first year from the Literary Fund that shall be transferred into the School Construction Fund is provided for the Board of Education to award grants on a competitive basis from the Fund to local school boards that demonstrate poor building conditions, commitment, and need in order for such local school boards to fund the construction, expansion, or modernization of public school buildings. Any unobligated balance for this program on June 30, each year shall be reappropriated for expenditure in the second year for the same purpose. b. The Board of Education shall develop guidelines for the administration of this program, which shall provide at a minimum that: 1. Grants shall be provided only for projects that conform to the Department of Education's “Guidelines for School Facilities in Virginia's Public Schools," as amended. 2. Grant awards shall be based on project costs, including planning, design, site acquisition and construction, the school division's local composite index, and the fiscal stress category as designated by the Virginia Commission on Local Government in its most recent "Report on Comparative Revenue Capacity, Revenue Effort, and Fiscal Stress of Virginia's Counties and Cities" for the locality that contains the school division, as follows: School Division Grant Award Amount School divisions with a local composite index value below .3000, or contained in a locality designated with high fiscal stress 30 percent of project costs School divisions with a local composite index value at or above .3000 and below .4000, or contained in a locality designated with above average fiscal stress 20 percent of project costs All other school divisions 10 percent of project costs 3. A minimum qualifying score shall be met for a project to qualify for a grant award based on Board-developed scoring criteria. The Board shall set such minimum score at a level to ensure funds are reserved for critical school construction projects. Such scoring criteria shall provide appropriate weight to the following categories for the award of grants: a.) Commitment, which may be demonstrated by factors such as: (i) an agreement by the local governing body to maintain or increase the percentage of local revenues dedicated to public education throughout the duration of the financing proposed for the project and (ii) the extent of project design and site acquisition for such project that has been completed prior to application of anticipated grant funds. b.) Need, which may consider factors such as: (i) the percentage of students in the local school division eligible to receive free price meals; (ii) the percentage of residents of the locality in which the local school division is located with incomes at or below the federal poverty guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; (iii) the local composite index of local ability-to-pay for the local school division; (iv) debt capacity of the locality in which the school division is located; and (v) the most recent fiscal stress score of the locality that includes the local school division as designated by the Virginia Commission on Local Government. c.) Poor school building conditions, which may consider factors such as: (i) the condition of the facilities proposed to be replaced or upgraded using these funds, including the current level of compliance of the existing facility with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990