School District Turns Over Documents for State Investigation

The New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller picked up documents from the Lacey Township School District as part of on Monday, Oct. 17.

“We provided them with everything that they asked for and even more,” Board of Education President Jack Martenak said. “We gave them some stuff we didn’t have to provide them but we gave them anyway.”

The Lacey Township School District has been served a subpoena in regards to the solar panel project by the New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller.

The subpoena, served on the district Friday, Sept. 23, requests all documents related to the solar panel project, Superintendent Richard Starodub said.

The subpoena is administrative in nature and does not focus on anything in particular but looks at the project in its entirety, Starodub previously said.

The school district was offered an extension and declined, Martenak said. The district actually prepared the documents one week in advance to the state’s deadline.

According to the state’s website, the Office of the State Comptroller audits government finances, examines efficiency of government programs, scrutinizes government contracts and investigates and uncovers government misconduct, waste and abuse.

“Our policy is we don’t comment on pending investigations,” spokesperson Pete McAleer previously said.

Generally, an investigation takes six to nine months, he said. Additional information will be made available to the public once the investigation is completed.

The documents requested by the state include files that have been in question by various community members over the past year, Starodub said.

The district credits the project in saving approximately 35 percent in electricity costs and generating $1.1 million in Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECS), accomplishments that helped lead to a zero percent tax increase in the proposed budget.

But in March, for bonding $19,806,000 for an $11,540,000 project. 

The school district bonded for more than $19 million due to an estimate determined by architects Di Cara and Rubino. The number was approved by the state Office of Facilities, Business Administrator James Savage previously said.

The bid, which was accepted nearly a year after bonding, was around $12 million so that left the school district with more than $7 million remaining.

The school district is paying 3 percent interest on the bond, and the debt service aid pays 40 percent of the bill every year, Martenak previously said.

This bond cannot be paid back early and has limits according to certain years, Martenak said. The bond will be callable (the school district could pay back early) in 10 years. The principal cannot be paid down until 10 years as well, Martenak said.

The school district returned $2,230,000 during the 2010 to 2011 school year and will return $3,280,000 next year. The district might split the remaining money up over the following two years, Savage said.

Resident Tim O’Connor asked the school board at the meeting Monday night if they could present a profit-loss statement pertaining to the project.

“Apparently now the school is in the business. And I just see a lot of expenditures for a lot of different things,” he said.

The school district should have a statement to explain the SRECs and what the project has generated so far, O’Connor said.

“I’m just curious if we’re showing a profit. Where, when, what? Everybody says that we are and it sounds like we are but I attended all those meetings, I read all the literature that came out and I still don’t know,” he said.

Martenak explained that the funds generated by the SRECs go into the revenue side of the school district’s budget.

A breakdown of the project in its entirety was presented to the public in March when the school district brought in Di Cara and Rubino.

The project is producing 11 percent more clean renewable energy then anticipated by the design criteria, accounting for two bad months for snow and rain this year, Di Cara said in March.

“Every step in the process you have energy conservation which saves you money, you’re generating clean renewable energy that you’re selling, you have not had to pay your local utility because you produced 1,400 SRECs, and you also won’t pay electric charges for the energy you’re producing,” Di Cara said.

As of March, the district reduced CO2 by over three million pounds of green house gases in the atmosphere and the project is the equivalent to running over 200 homes for a full year of their energy costs, he said. The district had also generated approximately $840,000 in SRECs.

The district is expected to generate $3.2 million from SRECs, which are certificates traded in the online market, Di Cara said. They are projected to generate $1 million every year for three years.