$5.5M in School Upgrades Could be Covered by Grants, Officials Say

An $8.9 million project that will upgrade everything from lighting to boilers across most of Cherry Hill’s 19 schools is taking a bit of a detour—one that could potentially save local taxpayers $5.5 million or more.

Originally billed as an energy savings program, the project, two years in the making, was relabeled an equipment upgrade program and split into two phases Tuesday night, as the school board approved lease-purchase financing for $3.3 million worth of upgrades already approved by the state, including lighting, lighting controls and software controls for heating systems, in the first portion.

The remainder of the project—$5.5 million concentrated primarily on 16 boiler replacements—will be withdrawn and resubmitted as equipment upgrades eligible under a $425 million Schools Development Authority (SDA) grant program, which Gov. Chris Christie announced May 30.

“We have to go through some work to pull them all back and resubmit, but still, at the end of the day, we’re very fortunate,” said Jim Devereaux, the district’s assistant superintendent for business. “We were just on the cusp of getting started…if we had actually executed the construction contract, we’d be out of luck.”

The project will have to get approval from both the Department of Education and the SDA, but with the boilers falling under what the SDA is referring to as Tier 1 infrastructure projects, Devereaux said it’s unlikely Cherry Hill will get shut out of the program.

“We’re pretty confident we’re going to get money,” he said.

So confident, in fact, that school officials are considering submitting an additional $3 to $4 million of capital projects by the Sept. 4 deadline.

“We have a whole slew of projects we can do around the school district,” Devereaux said. “If we can do that, that would be beyond huge...to be able to get that much work done with that much aid, that would just be unbelievable.”

School board members raised a few concerns, including over the withdrawal of the projects after two years of planning, but business and finance committee chair Elliott Roth assured them the plans wouldn’t take a hit by doing so.

“It’s not losing a whole two-year process,” he said.

Board member Steve Robbins also questioned whether it would be better to approve financing up to the full $8.9 million, but Devereaux called the process “cleaner” if they financed the grant-ineligible programs now and waited until the fall to find out what kind of grant the district could get from the state, then figured out any necessary financing from there.

“My worry was we’d lose the ability to do leases for the eligible parts if we didn’t get all or part of the SDA grants,” Robbins said. “As long as that avenue still exists, I’m fine with it.”

The grant-ineligible upgrades approved under the $3.3 million financing deal, which comes with just a 1.16 percent interest rate over five years, could start soon, Devereaux said, but might be held and completed along with the other, potentially grant-funded programs, which wouldn’t have started immediately, even had they been financed.

“We’re still having that discussion,” he said. “Either way, the project was going to be next summer. It really doesn’t hold us up.”