UNION TWP. — Northwest Area School District will get $10,000 at Wednesday’s meeting, thanks to energy efficiency changes completed in 2010. ABM Building Solutions in Pittsburgh plans to make a formal presentation at the monthly school board meeting Wednesday.
The bonus may go into the fund balance of the cash-strapped district, Director of Operations Betsy Ellis said, or into one of many needed purchases, possibly an accessible van.
The money results from a federal tax program known as the 179D Commercial Building Tax Deduction created through a law in 2005. According to the IRS website, it allows a tax deduction “to a taxpayer who owns, or is a lessee of, a commercial building and installs property as part of the commercial building’s interior lighting systems, heating, cooling, ventilation and hot water systems, or building envelope.”
If the changes installed are certified as meeting certain energy-efficiency requirements, the taxpayer gets the tax deduction.
The district does not pay taxes, but the tax deduction can be assigned to the designer of a government-owned building. In this case, the designer, ABM Industries Inc., is providing $10,000 from the tax credit to the district.
Along with the $10,000, the district is expected to save $5 million in energy and operating costs by 2026.
The district could use any help it can get. The school board has furloughed teachers two years in a row in an effort to contain costs, and Ellis said there are classes with larger enrollments than district officials would prefer.
In another cost-saving move, the board ultimately did not replace Superintendent Ron Grevera, who left to take the same post at Greater Nanticoke Area, opting instead to contract Ellis to handle daily operations at $300 a day, and Lake-Lehman Superintendent James McGovern the superintendent of record for $1,000 a month.
School Board President Randy Tomasacci has estimated the arrangement costs roughly half what would be spent on a full-time superintendent, thanks in large part to the fact that neither Ellis nor McGovern get benefits.
When the board voted for the arrangement in March, Tomasacci said he believed the district may have started “turning a corner” in finances. Ellis said Tuesday that, despite having to take out a “tax anticipation note” to cover the shortfall from the lack of state money, things are starting to look up.
The district brought back two teachers furloughed earlier this year, she said, and if the state budget is passed with an increase in education money — something proposed in both Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan and in the counter-offer from the Republican-controlled legislature — a third furloughed teacher may be re-hired, Ellis said.