Connecticut public schools will receive $150 million in state funding to repair and upgrade aging heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, Gov. Ned Lamont announced Wednesday.
The newly formed Connecticut Public Schools HVAC/Indoor Air Quality Grant Program will supplement $165 million in federal COVID relief funds that school districts have set aside to improve air quality.
“COVID woke me up,” Lamont said at a press conference at Phillip R. Smith Elementary School in South Windsor. “Every teacher, every parent was saying, ‘Tell me about the ventilation of my schools. Can I get back to my school safely?’ And it just reinforced in my mind how important it is to make sure you have schools that are safe across the board from a public health point of view.”
State Sen. Saud Anwar, a pulmonary doctor, said that 10% of Connecticut’s teacher and student population has asthma and those respiratory problems are made worse by allergens, inadequate airflow and extreme temperatures.
“Sometimes, rather than being a source of education, a source of wellbeing, a source of happiness, the buildings can be a source of illness,” Anwar said. “This bill is going to start to address this challenge, and this is a priority. We want to make sure that our children and our teachers and all the administrators are protected… It will help many of the children and the teachers and the workforce to feel comfortable and know that their breathing will be better.”
A joint effort by the Connecticut State Department of Education, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and Department of Public Health, the grant program aims to not only improve health but academic performance.
Connecticut Education Association President and Manchester High School math teacher Kate Dias said that improved air quality and temperatures make classrooms conducive for learning.
“Teaching in a classroom that is frequently 95 degrees is incredibly challenging,” Dias said. “When the classrooms heat up, the kids slow down.”
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According to the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services, the deadline for school districts to apply is Dec. 1, 2022. The program requires municipalities to provide matching grants to fund the HVAC projects. The DAS will release grant award notifications in early 2023.
The schools must then complete their state-funded HVAC projects by 2024, according to the program.
But an industry worker shortage could make that timeframe difficult, Stillman Jordan, government affairs chairman of the Connecticut Heating and Cooling Contractors Association, said.
“Who’s going to do the work?” Jordan asked.
Like most other industries, heating and cooling contractors are unable to find enough workers, even with signing bonuses of $5,000 or more, he said. An emphasis on college, rather than trade schools, is hurting efforts to recruit workers who can land jobs starting at $30 an hour, Jordan said.
In addition, state law requiring companies to staff three licensed workers with one apprentice doesn’t help ease the labor shortage, he said.
The industry has advocated for 15 years to allow companies to hire one apprentice for each licensed worker, Jordan said.
Joe Toner, executive director of the Connecticut State Building and Construction Trades Council, said unions insist that workers in the trades be certified and paid no less than the prevailing wage set by the state Department of Labor. Nonunion employers prefer more apprentices he characterized as “cheap labor.”
Jordan called that argument “absolutely insane.”
“Over a decade of state laws artificially restrict apprenticeships,” he said. “You have a problem made significantly worse.”
