Amid the biggest budget problem the Lawrence school district has had in years, USD 497 is thinking outside the box in hopes of improving the situation. Efforts to install a citywide sales tax to increase the district’s budget have been highly publicized. Getting less media attention, but probably more interesting, is the hiring of a district “energy manager.”

I became aware of this position when several of my teachers at school showed me a memo. The two-page memo listed ways that the school could save money by avoiding energy costs. And yes, the irony of a two-page memo in the hands of every Free State faculty member saying how to save money did not escape me. (Don’t they have e-mail?) Some of the guidelines, and I quote:

• “All lights will be turned off when students and teachers leave school.”
• “Refrain from turning lights on unless definitely needed.”
• The memo also lists temperature settings for different seasons (Basically saying, “don’t set the thermostat to 85 degrees in the winter, no matter what your purple toes tell you differently.”)

My first reaction was utter terror. No, not for my temperature-sensitive toes, but instead for our community. I thought, “These are the people educating our young people. Do they really need this all to be written down? Couldn’t a simple ‘try and save money, guys” suffice?” Faculty members I spoke to seemed disgusted somebody was getting paid presumably more than them to tell them to turn off the lights and jealous that they couldn’t have landed the job of energy manager.

This made no sense, so I decided to investigate. Nobody I talked to seemed to have a clear understanding of what this new position entailed, so I called the energy czar himself, who turned out to be a really nice guy. His name is John Geist, and he has worked in the district for more than a decade as an electronic technician. He explained this was a district-initiated program, where an outside consulting firm, Energy Education Inc., was hired to train Geist in energy conservation techniques.

The question soon came to me: Why would the district hire a full-time employee to save money? Geist responded by quoting Tom Bracciano, the district’s director of operations and planning, that this program was expected to save $3.5 million in seven years.

I contacted Bracciano, and he said estimated savings were now more than $4 million. Either way, it seemed like a lot of savings from turning of the lights.

“The district will pay EEI $121,000 a year for four years,” Bracciano said. The district is guaranteed saving at least as much as it pays EEI and for the energy manager’s salary, or we will be reimbursed the difference by EEI.”

Geist’s main tasks so far as energy manager have been compiling energy bills from past years into a database for a standard of comparison once numbers come in from this year, as well as traveling from school to school checking for compliance of the new guidelines. I asked him what would happen if the money he makes was more than the money saved.

His response was, “If it fails, I fail.”

Nevertheless, it seems to be a win/win situation for the district.

Now I’m off to go start my own energy consulting firm.