Klamath County School District bond measure 18-91 will provide real savings. Information courtesy of the Klamath County School District.
When discussing ballot measure 18-91, some Klamath County citizens focus only on the school being built for Henley Elementary and then voice concerns about the long-term effect on maintenance and spending the money wisely. Those are valid concerns, and the answer to those questions and concerns lie in the projects themselves.
When you visit our Proposed Projects page, you’ll see that 11 schools will receive lighting system upgrades. Why do the lighting upgrades matter? For starters, some of the schools have poor lighting with bulbs that are in the process of being phased out nationwide. Aside from making it easier for kids to read and see better in the hallways, these lighting upgrades represent an estimated annual savings of over $95,588. Yes, nearly $100,000 in savings.
The estimated cost of installing new lighting systems in these 11 schools is $1,898,473. Power costs for these schools in FY 2012 ran the Klamath County School District $403,900. If bond measure 18-91 passes and the lighting upgrades are installed, power costs are estimated to only be $308,312 – a 23.7% reduction from 2012 power costs. That means these lights will pay for themselves before the bond measure is paid off.
If the citizens of Klamath County are serious about being fiscally conservative, we need to look at how we can start saving money. One of the ways we can make our schools more sustainable (and safe!) is by looking at how our money is spent, seeing if there’s a way to save money and then making intelligent investments in those solutions. Looking at the numbers provided by the Klamath County School District, these lighting upgrades are one of the solutions and investments we need to make.
Source of the graphic and the numbers are courtesy of the Klamath County School District. You can download a full, 12 month cost for the 11 schools version here.
