INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – With budgets tight and needs high, urban school districts, including Indianapolis Public Schools, say deferred maintenance costs are piling up. Now, the Obama administration is touting its proposed American Jobs Act as the solution to those needs at IPS and other schools.

In a recent survey by the Council of the Great City Schools – a national organization representing the needs of urban public schools – IPS reported it has $8.4 million in deferred school maintenance needs, in addition to $20.3 million in renovation, repair and modernization costs. That would be nearly 10 percent of the school system’s entire proposed budget for 2012 , according to the IPS website.

“Our children only get one shot at a good education. They deserve better than crumbling school buildings and half-century-old science labs,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a news release. “This report is further proof that Indianapolis’s schools critically need the funds proposed by the president in the American Jobs Act,”

Under President Barack Obama’s proposal, the administration estimates, Indiana could receive $443.4 million for modernization efforts to rebuild crumbling buildings and classes, which could help IPS and other schools around the state begin work on long overdue upgrades.

The proposal would invest $30 billion in schools nationwide, with $25 billion going to K-12 schools for repair, renovation and modernization – and putting hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work along the way, the administration said in a news release.

CGCS estimates the 65 school systems represented by the organization have racked up $19 billion in deferred maintenance costs alone – and that number doesn’t take into consideration smaller or rural schools not represented by the organization.

When it comes to renovation, repairs and modernization, the 65 school systems need an estimated $61.3 billion.