Schools eye stimulus money for energy efficiency

The candy machine at Henry Sibley High School knows when students roam the halls and automatically powers down when they’ve gone home. The basketball court still shines, but under the glow of fluorescent tubes that suck up a fraction of the juice the old lights used.

Thanks to such measures, energy costs across the school district in this Twin Cities suburb already are down by nearly a third. Officials want to trim the expenses even more, but that will require investment in upgrades.

The federal economic stimulus dollars could be just what they need. Some of the billions of dollars trickling down from Washington will be used to make public buildings more energy efficient. School officials hope long-term savings can sprout from those one-time upgrades – the types of projects that get shoved aside when budgets are squeezed and tax levies fail.

“The money we spend on electric, water, gas and oil – those dollars compete with dollars for textbooks and teachers,” said Jay Haugen, superintendent of the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan district.

The economic stimulus package contains $6.3 billion for state and local governments to make energy usage more efficient, including in public buildings. Schools are eligible for some of that – in addition to a $22 billion zero-interest bond program for school construction projects created in the recovery package. Nationwide, there are about 80,000 public school buildings.

While state governments know how much money they’ll receive, details about how the money will get from Washington to Main Street schools haven’t been worked out. Schools in many states will have to compete with other public buildings for energy dollars, and in most cases projects will require local matching funds.

Steve Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, said the conversation about how best to spend the money is just getting started, and it’s likely to play out differently in every state. But he said he expects schools to be in a prime position to snag dollars for simple things, such as new light bulbs and windows, and pricier projects including more efficient furnaces and new roofs.