School A/C plan in limbo

Because of long delays from the State Education Department, the Rockville Centre Board of Education must decide whether to move forward with the installation of air conditioners at district schools without department approval — and possibly forgo hundreds of thousands of dollars in state aid.

As part of a bond passed last year, the district planned to install air conditioning in every classroom. The plan was submitted to the Education Department for approval last October — a project that would earn the district additional state aid of about $15,000 a year for 15 years.

The district hoped to complete the work this summer. But the Education Department has been slow to approve projects, holding up much of the work the district planned on doing over the summer. Robert Bartels, the assistant superintendent for business, estimated that the projects would most likely not be approved until late September or early October — nearly a year after the application was submitted.

“We made a commitment to this community that it would be done, and done within a year or two,” Superintendent Dr. William Johnson said at a Board of Education meeting on April 21.

The district would not violate any laws by starting the work on its own, but it might jeopardize the additional aid. District officials agreed with the contractor set to do the work to delay signing a contract as long as possible. If the contract were to be signed before the department approved the project, the district most likely would not receive the aid.

“The question the board has is, is it worth waiting another year to do this?” Johnson said. “If we wait until September for approval, we bump into the problem of not fulfilling our promise to the community of getting it done in the first two years. The board appears to be stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place on this.”

If the work doesn’t take place this summer, it would most likely be delayed until next summer. The air conditioning installation is a large project that would disrupt classes, and therefore must be done when school is not in session.