Gov. David Ige vowed Monday in his second State of the State speech to lower the temperatures in 1,000 of Hawaii’s hot public school classrooms by the end of the year by installing air-conditioning units and other improvements in the facilities that need them.

Ige pledged to tap $100 million from the Green Energy Market Securitization program, or GEMS, to help finance the effort by the state Department of Education to install air conditioners and other cooling equipment in classrooms across the state.

Ige’s speech also stressed his initiatives to cope with the state’s ongoing homeless problem, including committing $75 million to the Rental Housing Revolving Fund to subsidize the development of low-income rentals, and dedicating an additional $25 million to install infrastructure such as waterlines and roads to encourage development of public housing and affordable units.

House and Senate lawmakers politely applauded Ige’s speech but reserved judgment on a number of his initiatives until they learn more about the details. Lawmakers have already publicly criticized several of the initiatives Ige offered up in his speech.

Senate President Ron Kouchi (D, Kauai-Niihau) said he had hoped for a commitment by Ige to expand state funding of preschool programs, and said he will be asking the governor about that issue. Ige did include $6 million in his proposed budget to continue the existing Open Doors preschool program but acknowledged his budget does not include money to significantly expand publicly funded preschool programs.

House Speaker Joe Souki (D, Waihee-Waiehu-Wailuku) called the speech “a good beginning, and I think he covered most of the major areas that the community and the state has concerns about, and so basically we’re going to wait and get the details as we move along” through the session.

Probably the most far-reaching of Ige’s initiatives is his plan to install equipment to cool 1,000 classrooms. To speed the installation, the administration plans to do the work under an existing contract between the state Department of Education and a private company called OpTerra Energy Services, which has been auditing schools for the DOE and proposing ways to make them more energy-efficient.

Ige proposed to supercharge that program by using the $100 million in GEMS funding to finance more widespread installation of air-conditioning systems in the classrooms.

The current five-year DOE contract calls for OpTerra to audit each state school and propose fixes such as renewable-energy systems to provide power, or high-efficiency air-conditioning or lighting systems to reduce energy consumption, said Brian Kealoha, regional director for OpTerra.

Education officials then decide whether to fund the improvements directly or allow OpTerra to fund the improvements at each school, with the DOE repaying the cost of the upgrades later. OpTerra solicits bids and awards contracts for the projects that are approved, and the company takes a profit on top of the overall cost of each project, Kealoha said.

OpTerra has completed 30 school audits and completed solar projects at 10 schools so far but has not implemented the top-to-bottom execution of its audit recommendations at any one school, he said.

“Everything has been pretty piecemeal to date,” Kealoha said, but he added that the GEMS funding should change that.

The GEMS program has been billed as a way to make clean-energy improvements more affordable and accessible for Hawaii consumers by financing solar photovoltaic systems and other clean-energy improvements for people who can’t afford them on their own.

The program has been criticized because it has cost taxpayers more than $762,000 in startup costs but has not resulted in installation of any solar equipment yet. Administration officials told lawmakers earlier this year they sold $150 million in bonds so far to launch the program and that borrowed money is to be made available for clean-energy projects.

Ige also highlighted two of his major proposed construction projects, which are to spend $160.5 million to revamp the Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe, which serves the mentally ill, and to move the Oahu Community Correctional Center in Kalihi to Halawa.

Ige said that moving the prison will address the facility’s perpetual overcrowding problem and help make way for the redevelopment of Kalihi. He said he plans to convene a series of community meetings to allow the Kalihi community to offer input into how the OCCC site should be redeveloped.

With intense media attention on Hawaii’s growing homeless problem, Ige also laid out his strategies for creating temporary shelter space and long-term affordable-housing solutions.

The Ige administration is finishing up renovations on a 5,000-square-foot warehouse space in Kakaako, which is expected to house up to 240 people a year. Ige pitched the space as not “just another shelter,” but a Family Assessment Center designed to connect families to more permanent housing.

Ige announced that the state will also be immediately investing $5 million in a public-private partnership with Aloha United Way that will provide direct funding for rapid rehousing, homeless prevention services and the establishment of a statewide referral system.

The program is expected to provide immediate relief to an estimated 1,300 households, said Ige.

Also:

>> Noting estimates that the state will need 66,000 housing units in the coming years, Ige is proposing legislation that would allow the state to use the Dwelling Unit Revolving Fund, a state housing fund, to finance new roads, water systems and other infrastructure that has hamstrung the construction of new housing. He’s seeking to increase the fund by $25 million for the 2017 fiscal year.

>> The governor is looking to diversify some of Oahu’s major public-housing developments, including the North School Street redevelopment project, Kuhio Park Terrace and Mayor Wright Homes. Through public-private partnerships, the state is seeking to shift the public-housing model to include mixed-use and mixed income levels.

Sen. Sam Slom, the Senate’s lone Republican, said he thought Ige delivered a good speech but that it was short on details, especially in regard to how the governor plans to stimulate the business sector.

“I think the problem is a lack of specifics and the lack of call to action,” said Slom (R, Diamond Head-Kahala-Hawaii Kai). “While he alluded to business and economic development, there were really no specifics to diversify our business economy, which we must do.”

Ige did propose in his speech to set aside $30 million over the next six years to support “innovation enterprises” but did not say exactly how that money would be spent.

Rep. Gene Ward, one of seven House Republicans, said that Ige’s speech at times sounded like a “manager’s report.”

“Ige’s an engineer, and he spoke as an engineer speaks,” said Ward (R, Kalama Valley-Queen’s Gate-Hawaii Kai). While Ward praised the creativity of Ige’s plan to cool public school classrooms, he said that there wasn’t much else in the speech that was visionary or inspiring.

Ward also criticized Ige for challenging a court order to boost state funding for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to $28 million. Ige’s speech contained “no idea that there is a direct correlation between homelessness and the Hawaiian community, which is the lead homelessness group, and DHHL funding,” said Ward. “That is a very unfortunate oversight.”