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Hawaii lawmakers want to develop underutilized school lands to raise money so the state can fix its aging inventory of educational facilities.

But they haven’t agreed on how many projects should be allowed under a pilot program or who should have ultimate oversight.

The House and Senate versions of the legislation to realize the concept are expected to meet in conference committee next month. It’s there that the differences between the two bills will either be ironed out or the whole plan will be scrapped for the session.

House Education Chair Roy Takumi said Thursday that there’s agreement on about 80 percent of the legislation, but some of the finer points remain in contention.

“It’s not dramatically different, so there’s a basis for agreement,” he said. “But we’ll see.”

Lawmakers had an opportunity to compromise this week. But instead, each chamber stuck to its own version of the bill, doing a simultaneous gut-and-replace in separate committee meetings Wednesday.

House members took the Senate bill, which crossed over to them earlier this month, and inserted their version. Senators, in turn, did the same thing.

Both bills create a three-year pilot program to generate revenue through the lease of school lands for public purposes. They differ in terms of control, scope and public input.

The puts the Board of Education in charge of identifying up to two sites for the program, but gives the lieutenant governor ultimate oversight.

The lets the board pick up to five sites. It gives the development authority to the Department of Education, as authorized by the board.

Sen. Jill Tokuda, who chairs the Education Committee, said running the program through the LG’s office would open up access to all the executive agencies at its disposal.

Department officials have said they may not have the in-house expertise necessary to carry out the program. But board members argue that the department could hire people who have whatever skills are needed.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie has urged lawmakers to amend the legislation to identify the governor’s office as the facilitator for the project.

The school lands development push is part of the governor’s 21st Century Schools initiative, which the governor’s office says is critical to exploring the opportunity to supplement the state’s resources to modernize public schools.

“Public schools are on average 65 years old, and many facilities have been ignored due to limited budgets,” the administration said in its . “With the Legislature’s support, the Hawaii Department of Education has made significant progress on reducing the repair and maintenance backlog in our schools. However, the DOE reported prioritized capital improvement needs of $620,975,000 for the biennium, and identified the need for 11 new schools in growing communities.”

Public Input and the PLDC

Lawmakers will also have to decide how strong they want the language to be about requiring community involvement in the development of the projects.

The House version requires the board to “integrate a community engagement process” in its redevelopment activities, whereas the Senate bill says the board shall “foster community participation.”

Cheri Nakamura, the director of the Hui for Excellence in Education, called on lawmakers this week to adopt the stronger House language. She said community engagement should be a required component.

“The good news is we all realize there can be no sale of lands,” Takumi said. “The House version has a clearer community involvement piece. But the Senate has language around that too to basically say, ‘This is not PLDC. You’re not exempt from anything. This is not about selling land.’”

Concerns over the Public Land Development Corporation have come up in the hearings on the school lands legislation, as well as other efforts to let the state make money off public land through private partnerships.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee on Thursday deferred until Monday its decision on a House bill to repeal the PLDC, an agency created two years ago that came under fire this session for its broad environmental exemptions.

But minutes earlier, the committee passed , which creates a public-private partnership authority on a pilot program basis. The so-called PPPA would operate within the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism under an appointed board of directors.

The projects proposed in the legislation include a film production facility on Maui, a main-street project in Wahiawa and one county-initiated project.

Sen. Russell Ruderman, who voted against HB 70 along with Sen. Laura Thielen, said he couldn’t support creating another development agency given the Legislature’s troubled past with the PLDC and plan to move forward with a bill to develop school lands.