As a way to encourage public schools to replace, upgrade or install heating, ventilation or air conditioning (HVAC) systems, Gov. Ned Lamont signed a law establishing a new grant program with up to $150 million available for reimbursement. School districts, however, are finding the Dec. 1 application deadline difficult to meet.
Noel Petra, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Administrative Services, said during a Sept. 30, webinar about the program that department staff understand it’s a tight deadline.
“But the way the legislation was written, you only get two years to get the work done and by giving this deadline, it will give you two summer windows to get the work finished, completed,” Petra said.
Wallingford school administrators and the Board of Education looked into applying for the grant program, but school board Chair Tammy Raccio and Superintendent Danielle Bellizzi said the district is no longer applying because it could not meet the requirements by Dec. 1.
Those requirements include a facility study and assessment of building conditions, a long-term facility capital plan, securing a local share of funding and preparing and adopting education specifications. A building committee would also need to be established.
Bellizzi said all of the schools’ air quality have been tested, so the district is not in dire need of updating or replacing their HVAC systems.
“Our air quality has been tested at all of our schools to ensure that it meets the state and local guidelines,” Bellizzi said. “The grant was sent to all districts with a short turn time. Should other grants arise in the future, we will certainly review them as to the feasibility of applying.”
Michael Grove, assistant superintendent for finance and operations for Meriden Public Schools, said Meriden is pursuing the HVAC grant program application. However, the December deadline made it tough for school administrators to come up with larger HVAC-related projects that they may want to pursue during the grant program.
The aspect of the program Grove said he was most disappointed about is that the district cannot use American Rescue Plan Act grants to supplement the amount of money the state would be providing.
Grove said Meriden was going to apply for new air conditioning for all of the district’s schools, but without the ARPA funds, the district is now just applying for a new chiller for John Barry Elementary School. The cost is estimated at $290,000, with the state reimbursing about 77% of the funds.
“We thought we could apply for air conditioning for all our schools,” Grove said.
According to the Sept. 30 webinar, “state statute precludes districts from using other state or federal monies exclusively to cover local share — this includes ARPA funds.”
Jenna Padula, DAS legal director, said that districts can, however, use ARPA funds in a specific way. For example, if a district had a $100 project, a 50% reimbursement rate and $20 of ARPA funds, it could use the $20 to reduce the total project cost from $100 to $80.
“And then apply the 50% reimbursement rate so that the town pays $40 and the state will reimburse $40,” Padula said.
Districts, however, cannot take the 50% reimbursement against the $100 and then use the $20 to reduce the $50 municipal share to $30.
Grove said Meriden is aiming to have the HVAC grant application in before Thanksgiving.
For other grant applications, Grove said the district first gets the grant and then goes to the city and Board of Education before starting the project. For this grant, the district reverses that and goes to the city and board before even applying for the grant. With the typical timeline to get the grant approved, Grove said the process is making the Dec. 1 deadline tricky.
“It usually takes a couple months to get it approved by the city and board,” Grove said.
Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association (CEA), the state’s largest teachers’ union, said CEA has been fighting to improve Connecticut schools’ air quality for about 10 years. Poor school air quality can make learning challenging.
“This (application) is a great opportunity to start this process,” Dias said.
The challenging aspect of this application Dias said is that districts may not have had large HVAC project plans in place.
“They update the systems when they can, so many districts had no plans in place,” Dias said.
Dias said CEA would support extending the HVAC grant application deadline, but stressed that districts having trouble completing the application in time should appeal to DAS.
“The more districts that reach out to DAS, the better,” Dias said.
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