$550 million per year, for 5 years; that’s what Prop 39 is diverting from the general revenues of the state of California. Reporter Dan Stork describes where that money is going, and how much of it is trickling down to the Morongo Basin…
In 2012, the voters of California approved Proposition 39, the Clean Energy Jobs Act. The initiative sets aside $550 million, for each of 5 years, to be used for energy efficiency improvements. (This does not include renewable energy generation, which is not covered by this program.) The primary beneficiaries of these funds are to be public primary and secondary schools, and community colleges, with more than two-thirds of the money to go to K-12 schools. In the first fiscal year of the program, about $150 million of the public school allocation has gone for planning activities, with the Morongo Unified School District getting about $130,000, according to Amber Pasricha-Beck, of the state energy office. She told us that about 1,600 of 2,000 local education agencies received planning funds. To date, an additional $71 million in grants have been awarded for specific energy efficiency implementation projects in 260 schools statewide—no local schools are in that list, although several districts in the Inland Empire are listed. That leaves about $160 million in uncommitted funds for the first fiscal year of the program. Morongo Unified’s share of that is $270,000. Pasricha-Beck explained that districts and schools that have not used their allocation are not in a use-it-or-lose-it situation. Rather, unused funds will carry over to the second year of the program. Allocations for the second fiscal year have not yet been determined.
PROP 39: WHERE IS THAT MONEY GOING?
