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Frontier green lights moves to save energy

There seems to be a bright future for the Frontier Local school district as it is revamping its energy efficiency by doing away with the old lights and HVAC systems and installing a new system that will bring the district thousands in savings.

“What will basically happen is, there are two components, which will be retro-fitting all the lighting in the district and upgrading the HVAC systems here,” said former Interim Superintendent Dan Doyle, who is staying on to help with certain projects such as this one.

Part of the money for the project will come from a fund established when three new school buildings were constructed in the district. The rest of the funds will come from a loan which will be paid off from the savings made with the new energy efficient lights and HVAC systems.

Essentially, when the construction of new schools in the district was completed in 2002, it was poorly executed and many parts of the schools had to be fixed within just a couple of years, said Doyle.

“Since these buildings have been opened, there have been numerous issues,” he said. “This district was pretty much a poster child for school facility projects gone bad. I believe within three years after they opened these buildings, they had to totally redo the roofs.”

Many of the external issues have been repaired, but the internal issues — such as the lighting and HVAC — are continually causing headaches for the district.

“That’s the problem — the things that you visibly saw were fixed right away, but the things that you don’t see, but you feel them, you don’t see them right away,” said Doyle. “And when you look back and see the excess dollars spent on the utilities…”

After the last construction phase in 2002, $995,000 was left over in the construction budget that was supposed to be closed out, but never was. Recently, the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) claimed that the budget belongs to the state and that the district owed an additional $67,000.

“The past administrators and school board members have been outraged at the quality of construction at Frontier Local (School District), and due to that, they never closed out the construction fund,” said Superintendent Brian Rentsch. “We’re going to fight to get what we can get.”

The OFCC has agreed to return approximately $200,000 back to the district to help fix the problems from the previous construction.

“We believe that the money should stay here and it should fix these things,” said Doyle. “That’s what we’re fighting for on this end.”

At the special meeting on Monday, the board voted to approve a contract with Brewer-Garrett, based in the Cleveland and Akron/Canton area, to update the facilities in terms of LED lighting and HVAC.

The project itself will cost $834,272 that is set to be paid over a period of 15 years at $70,000 a year, accruing $213,990 in interest, setting the total cost at $1,048,262.

However, according to Doyle, the amounts of savings per year guaranteed by Brewer-Garrett will be $98,000 to $121,000, which is a conservative number as the company will pay the difference if the district does not save what they are guaranteed.

Basically, the project pays for itself and more, and when it is paid off, the savings will allow the district to channel the extra money into other areas of the district.

With the extra savings, Rentsch noted that they plan to pay the loan off in about eight years.

Additionally, Brewer-Garrett also offers more than savings as there is an educational aspect to the project.

“One of the reasons we went with Brewer-Garrett is the Green Apple Project,” said Rentsch. “It’s making students and teachers conscientious of energy savings.”

The program educates the students and the staff on how to be energy efficient so that they can save even more money by just turning lights off when rooms are not in use and dressing appropriately for the school’s temperature set points.

“It comes with curriculum materials to put in various areas of curriculum,” said Doyle, also noting that they will be having an energy coach come in with a paid stipend to lead seminars. “It’s changing behavior that will go beyond the schools. It will go into the home and business places.”

 

About the project

¯ At Monday’s special meeting, the Frontier Local Board of Education approved a contract with Brewer-Garrett to update the school’s lighting and HVAC systems.

¯ Additionally, they will be providing the Green Apple Project that will educate students and staff on energy efficiency.

¯ The cost of the project is $834,272 that is set to be paid over 15 years at $70,000 a year.

¯ This will accrue $213,990 in interest, setting the total cost at $1,048,262.

¯ They are guaranteed at least $98,000 to $121,000 in savings each year by Brewer-Garrett.

¯ The district plans to put the additional savings toward the loan to pay it off in about eight years, reducing the amount of interest paid.

Source: Dan Doyle and Brian Rentsch.

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