Thanks to action taken by Lawrence’s school board Monday night, about $10 million of local school maintenance and repair projects will get under way this summer – without a property tax increase.

Using a financing method called performance contracts, the board will be able to take care of dozens of repair projects this summer that might have taken years to fix otherwise.

Performance contracts are low-interest loans that can be used for projects that provide energy savings over the term of the loan.

In a unanimous vote, the board approved $7 million in the contracts – at an interest rate of 4.45 percent over 19 years – as part of the $10 million repair and maintenance projects package.

The rest of the funding will come out of the board’s capital outlay budget, plus leftover funds from the 1998 and the 2005 bond issues.

Some of the projects are small, like replacing carpeting or fixing cracked sidewalks. Others are much larger, like repairing restrooms at several schools.

Board member Leonard Ortiz originally didn’t want to commit the district to more than $5 million in performance contracts. However, after a show of hands indicated four of the seven board members supported $7 million in performance bonds, other board members eventually came around.

“How else are we going to fund these projects?” asked Sue Morgan, board president.

Morgan said the cost of construction is continuing to grow about 6 percent a year, so the board should take the opportunity to pay for the projects with a 4.45 percent interest rate.

“It really is a vehicle that will allow us, without going to the taxpayers and increasing the property taxes, to finance some of these projects within our existing levies,” Morgan said after the meeting. “This allows us to take care of things we wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.”