The city is not as far along in plans for installing air conditioning, but it also isn’t in a position to forward-fund the upgrades, as Baltimore County has been able to do. Despite some increases in local support, it remains heavily reliant on the state school construction and renovation funding process. Not only does it have a wide variety of other needs — last winter’s problems with heating are almost certainly a higher priority to address, for example — but it has often had to wait for the state to dole out full funding for a given project over a number of years. In the past, that has sometimes meant the city has been forced to return funds to the state because it was unable to meet deadlines to start the projects, a problem that was addressed by the General Assembly in the wake of last year’s heat problems.