Cherry Hill Schools Could Get $5M in Grants, Officials Say

The Cherry Hill school district could be in line to get back as much as $5 million in state grants after adding in $7 million in projects Tuesday night to the list being submitted to Trenton.

The additional projects make for a total of $12.6 million in capital improvements that could get 40-percent funding from the state’s $425 million Schools Development Authority program, which school officials and board members called a major boon to the district.

“By my math, it’s going to save us $500,000 a year,” board member Steven Robbins said. “I think this is phenomenal, and I would say the tax impact is very, very positive.”

The move was mentioned last month by Jim Devereaux, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, though he said at the time administrators might only add $3 or $4 million to the grant application.

They ended up including a slew of projects, both from the 2013-2014 capital improvement budget, as well as possible projects for future years, given the chance to recoup millions in grants, he said.

“We’re just leaving no stone unturned,” Devereaux said.

Those projects include 15 fire alarm system replacements, as well as several HVAC systems and a project to stop groundwater from leaking into Cherry Hill East’s auxiliary gym, among others.

All of them fall under what are being referred to as Tier 1 projects by the state—generally projects focused on health and safety measures—and bond counsel Lisa Gorab said all the costs Cherry Hill is submitting under the grant application appear to be eligible for that 40-percent grant.

Even though it slightly complicates the capital project process—the district had to carve the $5.6 million for the boilers out of an $8.9 million energy savings program, and had to reclassify other projects as facility projects, the potential savings outweigh the headaches, Gorab said.

“We did not want to lose that opportunity,” she said. “We really believe it’s in the district’s—and the taxpayers’—best interests.”

That grant application has to be in Trenton by the beginning of September, but school officials said it could be done and submitted by next week. The state’s supposed to make grant announcements some time later in the fall, and should the unlikely happen and there not be any grant funding for the additional $7 million in projects, the district won’t get dinged, board members said.

“There’s no risk to the budget, because we can just not do them,” Robbins said.

The board also approved a lease-purchase agreement for the boiler replacement projects, mostly as a precautionary measure, to ensure the projects can be bid and get underway at some point in 2014.

“You don’t want to be short cash,” Gorab said.

The only downside to that is the likelihood of a higher interest rate—when the boilers were part of the energy savings program, the district had gotten a rate of 1.16 percent, but Gorab said there’s almost no chance of going that low for the new lease-purchase financing.

“We will expect to see a higher rate on this five-year lease,” she said. “How much higher, I don’t know.”

The grant-funded portion of those projects—about $2.25 million—would be callable, Gorab said, allowing the district to pay that lump as soon as the grant funding comes through.

Those projects are still scheduled to run through the summer of 2014, Devereaux said.

“We don’t anticipate the boilers being a problem,” he said. “It’s all the other piping and control work that could take more time.”