Energy Grant for School Repairs Lowers Utility Costs

Elementary School Needs Funding (matching or otherwise) to Fix Utilities

Work was completed this month at the Orcas Island High School for the energy conservation upgrades provided by the State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction grant awarded earlier in the year. Now the Orcas School Board must decide how to “match” the awarded grant funds to pay the $150,000 costs.

“This changeover to more efficient [energy] will save us money in [heat] and water costs and have also earned us an energy incentive through OPALCO,” said Orcas Island School District Superintendent Barbara Kline.

Weather-stripping, motion-sensitive lights and water-saving fixtures have been installed. The heating-ventilation-air conditioning (HVAC) system has been retooled.

Unlike the high school, more extensive repair and renovation to the utility systems in the elementary school will require more extensive funding.

The district had applied for a grant to the State Department of Commerce for $1.5 million for HVAC and plumbing replacements in the elementary school. But Orcas did not get that grant “largely due to our inability to do a three-to-one match for the grant funds,” said District Superintendent Barbara Kline late last month.

“This money would have taken some of the pressure off of the bond funds. Now that we do not have bond funds, we cannot write for the energy grants due in late August and then in November. Unless we can find another source for matching money, we will not be able to get these funds.”

At the August 26 OISD board meeting, Kline asked the  board if it wanted to pay the “match” required for the high school energy grant which paid for the high school repairs from OISD’s Capital Projects Fund,  or if it preferred to pursue state loan programs and preserve the capital fund budget

“ Our original plan was to match the energy grant funds for the high school repairs with capital project funds. Our other option is to pursue matching funds through the state loan project. Given that we are not getting bond funds, we may want to preserve our capital project fund and request a state loan.

“The total bill is more than $150,ooo: we either pay that from own funds [capital projects funds]; or take out a loan. The”negative” to any loan is you have to pay it back,” Kline said.

The capital projects fund balance is $352,371, as stated in the August Business Manager’s Report.

Business Manager Keith Whitaker noted that loan rates are currently “very reasonable,” and Kline said that a decision needed to come from the Board soon whether to apply for a loan and “preserve capital projects money for large projects or not.

“What are our next steps? I wanted to put the subject on the table so people can be thinking about it,” Kline said.

The next school board meeting is Sept. 23, and the OISD board will hold an all-day public retreat on Oct. 19.