Senate Bill S6941A

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S6941A

 TITLE OF BILL :  An act to amend the education law, in relation to
the use of school district funds to install and maintain wood pellet,
wood chip or other biomass burning boiler systems

 PURPOSE :

To permit school districts to use district funds for the installation
and maintenance of wood pellet, wood chip, or other biomass burning
boiler systems.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

Section 1 amends § 3602(6)(a) of the Education Law by adding a new
subparagraph authorizing a school district to use any funds otherwise
dedicated for renovations or repairs to a building within the district
to pay for the installation and maintenance of a wood pellet, wood
chip, or other biomass burning boiler system.

Section 2 provides the effective date.

 EXISTING LAW :

Section 3602 of the Education Law 3602 relates to the apportionment of
public money to school districts employing eight or more teachers.
              

Subdivision 6 of the section outlines the apportionment for capital
outlays and debt service for school building purposes.

This bill adds a new subparagraph to subdivision 6 authorizing school
districts to use any funds otherwise dedicated for renovations or
repairs to a building within the district to pay for the installation
and maintenance of a wood pellet, wood chips, or other biomass burning
boiler system. There are no other provisions of law related to the
school district maintenance of a wood pellet, wood chip, or other
biomass burning boiler systems.

 JUSTIFICATION :

Giving rural schools the option of using school renovation funds to
install wood pellet, chip or biomass burning boiler heating systems
dramatically helps rebuild Upstate's economy and create new jobs and
employment opportunities. When isolated rural school districts
renovate or replace their heating systems, a biomass boiler system can
be an environmentally sustainable and cost effective alternative to
foreign fossil fuel fired boiler systems. In the rural community of
Edwards, N.Y., for example, the cost of heating oil would have to drop
to as low as 87 cents a gallon to be as competitive as wood chips to
heat the school district.

In neighboring Vermont, over 20% of its students attend schools that
use bio-fuels for heating. Modern institutional high-temperature
systems are much more environmentally friendly than traditional wood
burning systems. Over the course of a typical winter, a biomass boiler
system for a 200,000 square-foot school produces less particulate
emissions than six residential wood stoves, according to Vermont's
Biomass Energy Resource Center (BERC) and its School Energy Management
Program (SEMP). Vermont's Biomass Energy Resource Center points out
that unlike oil, gas and coal which add carbon dioxide to the
atmosphere, burning wood adds essentially no new carbon dioxide to the
atmosphere, reducing the school's carbon footprint.

By encouraging biomass, wood chips and pellets energy dollars are kept
local. Money spent on oil and gas drains the local economy while
communities that use biomass create sustainable local forestry and
agricultural jobs. Biomass reduces greenhouse gases and acid rain
because, unlike fossil fuels, it contains no sulfur. Woodchips and
pellets help improve forest health by providing a market for low grade
wood, providing incentives to forest owners to practice sustainable
forestry. Furthermore, biomass is substantially less expensive than
oil and propane and in some cases slightly less expensive than natural
gas. Even ash residue has a positive economic impact, as left over ash
can be used as an agricultural fertilizer as a replacement for lime,
which adds to biomass's value as a sustainable fuel resource.

Enabling rural districts to install and maintain wood pellet burning
boiler systems is extremely cost effective and allows districts with
limited budgets to maximize resources. For the aforementioned reasons
it is imperative that this bill is enacted.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :

New bill.

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :

None.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act shall take effect immediately.