This week, Gov. Josh Green signed two bills to expand the reach of the recently created School Facilities Authority by giving it what every developer craves — millions of dollars and lots of flexibility.

The action will be a major test for the authority, an independent body created by the Legislature in 2021 to manage capital improvement projects for the state Department of Education (DOE).

The bills Green signed are designed to focus the authority’s construction projects on two of his administration’s key priorities.

>> Senate Bill 941 appropriates $170 million to build housing for teachers, educators and staff, in hopes of making it more affordable for underpaid educators to live and work here.

>> House Bill 960 transfers $200 million to the School Facilities Special Fund and officially adds prekindergarten facilities to the authority’s scope. The ultimate goal is for the authority to create 465 classrooms to provide access to all Hawaii 3- and 4-year-olds by 2032.

By placing school construction projects under an independent agency, lawmakers hope the process will be more efficient and creative than it has been under full DOE control.

That makes some sense: After all, there is a backlog of more than $1 billion in existing construction projects that DOE needs to deal with, and time is money.

The authority has been given the flexibility to allow it to move more quickly. It can team up with other government agencies and private partners, and develop projects with multiple uses that will benefit public schools.

In an interview with the Star-Advertiser last year, the authority’s executive director, Chad Keone Farias, said partnerships could lead to projects with “a commercial interest on the first level, DOE taking up the second to fourth level for education, and HHFDC (Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp.) taking the fifth through the 15th level for low-income housing, teacher housing, whatever it may be,” Farias said. “That is the true test — when we as government can solve two or three issues at once.”

That sounds good. Still, the authority will need close supervision. The public has a right to expect the agency’s projects to be completed efficiently: on schedule and within budget. And while the authority operates independently of the DOE, there needs to be coordination with the DOE and Board of Education to ensure that projects are aligned with the department’s needs — not the pet projects of politicians or private interests.