Thanks for your interest in our ad that appeared in the June ’09 issue of Engineered Systems. This page provides an overview and commentary about pending legislation that’s designed to provide stimulus money for the upgrading of schools and educational facilities across the United States.
The Stimulus Package and Schools
What exactly is the “stimulus package” anyway?
Technically, the “package” is a bill that was passed by the U.S. Congress on February 17th, 2009 under the official name “H.R. 1 – The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” To help stimulate the slow economy, the act was designed to appropriate money which will promote “job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization.”
So where do schools fit under this act?
Actually another pending act was written to specifically allocate $64 billion in stimulus money over the next six years to update, upgrade and renovate public schools and other educational facilities. Under the official name of “H.R. 2187 – 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act,” this act technically falls under the broader stimulus bill, H.R. 1.
The purpose of H.R. 2187 is defined within the actual text of the act as follows:
“Sec. 101. Purpose. – Grants under this title shall be for the purpose of modernizing, renovating, or repairing public school facilities, based on their need for such improvements, to be safe, healthy, high-performing, and up-to-date technologically.”
How can I review the content within H.R. 2187?
If you’d like to review H.R. 2187 in full, click the link below and you’ll be taken to the website of The Library of Congress. Once you click through, select link #4 towards the top of the page and you’ll have access to the entire text of the most current version of the act. This page will also allow you to review all references to H.R. 2187 within the following content. Here’s the link.
Please note though, that H.R. 2187 was only passed by the House of Representatives on May 14th, 2009. The Senate has yet to pass it. In the meantime, we will attempt to maneuver through the pending text and language as it relates to Desert Aire.
Three Big Questions
In our ad, we posed three major questions about the stimulus bill, specifically H.R. 2187, and how it relates to schools. We will address each question below.
Question 1 – Exactly which schools will receive money?
To
begin with, H.R. 2187 defines what formulas are to be used to allocate the
$64 billion to each state as well as to individual school districts. It
would probably require another three to five paragraphs to explain these
formulas in detail.
However, this web page will focus more on the act’s impact on schools
rather than the specifics that went into writing the actual act. We can
best sum it up by saying that the House of Representatives relied on
previous legislation as a primary guideline to create the formulas,
namely “The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.” This is
defined in H.R. 2187 under “Sec. 102. Allocation of Funds.”
Because the Senate has not yet passed the act, no money has officially been allocated.
However,
to assist the House of Representatives as they wrote H.R. 2187, the
Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimated approximately how much
stimulus money each district in the U.S. will receive.
To
review these estimates, click the link below to download a 410-page PDF
created by the CRS. In this document, you’ll note that the CRS refers
to school districts as local educational agencies or LEAs.
Question 2 – What criteria must schools meet to receive stimulus money?
As we just pointed out under Question 1, each school district will most likely receive an assigned amount of stimulus money based upon predefined formulas. Therefore, there aren’t many stipulations or criteria that districts must meet to receive stimulus money.
Likewise, it must be noted that Sec. 102 of the act also states that the minimum that a district would receive in any fiscal year is $5,000. Several districts listed in the CRS’s report (click link above for downloadable PDF) show this minimum amount as their estimated stimulus allocation.
Regardless of what the final amount that a school district receives, H.R. 2187 places more emphasis on how the money is spent. This is outlined in two places. Parameters for states are found under “Sec. 102. Allocation of Funds” whereas overall spending criteria for school districts is detailed in “Sec. 103. Allowable Uses of Funds.”
In effect, both sections spell out how money must be spent in accordance with green practices. Remember, the official name of H.R. 2187 is the “21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act.” Desert Aire notes that Secs. 102 and 103 cite energy conservation as a cornerstone in defining how states and districts should spend stimulus money. We address the topic of energy in the third question of our ad which we further clarify below.
Question 3 – How does energy consumption fit into the equation?
Sec. 102 of the act essentially gives states the authority to use a portion of its allocated stimulus money (1%) to develop the guidelines for high-performance school buildings. In other words, a state will determine what ratings a school will need to meet to be classified as a high-performance building. As defined under Sec. 102, states are permitted to develop guidelines for six specific areas, two of which relate directly to reducing energy consumption. In brief, they include:
energy efficiency (…such as for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems)...
operations and management, such as use of energy efficient equipment …
Additionally, Sec. 102 includes a recommendation about developing guidelines for air quality.
indoor environmental quality, … indoor air quality (including with reference to reducing the incidence and effects of asthma and other respiratory illnesses) … and thermal comfort
While all 50 states have yet to establish the exact guidelines for these strategic areas, our TotalAire and Vertical DOAS units are already designed to provide tremendous energy savings while also delivering improved indoor air quality. Both products also deliver comfortable air temperatures within ±2.0° F of an established set point. In addition, when our Q-Pump is integrated into a water loop, it offers EERs of 14+ and COP’s of 6 or greater. (Scroll to bottom of page for more information about each product.)
In Sec. 103, school districts are given a total of 15 allowable uses of stimulus money. Of the 15, our equipment meets or works in conjunction with five of them, i.e. one third.
The
following bullets summarize the three relevant guidelines in Sec. 103
which reference energy efficiency. Following each bullet in
parenthesis, we also list those Desert Aire systems which meet the
stated parameters.
modernizations,
renovations, or repairs necessary to reduce the consumption of coal, …
electricity, natural gas, oil… (TotalAire, VerticalAire and Q-Pump)
renewable energy generation and heating systems, including … geothermal … (Q-Pump)
other
modernization, renovation, or repair of school facilities to … make
them more energy efficient (TotalAire, VerticalAire and Q-Pump)
Furthermore,
Sec. 103 lists two additional guidelines which are unrelated to energy,
yet they’re still relevant to Desert Aire’s products.
repairing,
replacing, or installing heating, ventilation, air conditioning
systems, or components of such systems … (TotalAire, VerticalAire,
ND/SA, ExpertAire and HPR)
abatement, removal, or interim controls of … mold, mildew … (TotalAire, VerticalAire, ND/SA, ExpertAire and HPR)
While specific green standards are not referenced in Secs. 102 and 103, they are definitely addressed in “Sec. 309. Green Schools.” Here you’ll find that H.R. 2187 lists five green, sustainable or energy saving rating systems which are acceptable for districts to follow. We list them below with links to each system’s home page, where applicable.
Green Globes (as developed by the Green Building Initiative)
an equivalent program adopted by the state or another jurisdiction with authority over the local educational agency, which shall include a verifiable method to demonstrate compliance with such a program
We must emphasize that, as of the posting of this web page, H.R. 2187 has not been fully passed or implemented.
However, assuming that a similar version of this act passes, it would behoove engineers, architects and HVAC manufacturers to pay close attention as to how each state decides to define the energy and air quality standards for its school districts. It will also be important to know which sustainable practices each district ends up following. These parameters will most affect how mechanical equipment is designed, specified and built in order to qualify for a stimulus project.
The Desert Aire systems that will have the most impact on energy efficiency and IAQ – two of the major building and spending criteria in H.R. 2187 – include TotalAire, VerticalAire and Q-Pump.
To view a TotalAireTM Brochure, please click here.
To view a VerticalAireTM Brochure, please click here.
To learn more about our Q-Pump, view "Technical Bulletin 21 - Heat Pump Design for 100% Outdoor Aire Systems," by clicking here.
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