The New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Board of Education is considering a project to bring air conditioning to its four schools, officials said Monday night. 

“We are still waiting for information from our architect to some of our questions,” Superintendent Jennifer Morrison said. “This is just preliminary information that we are talking about.”

Morrison said they are awaiting estimates on a potential plan and will examine air quality before a decision is made. 

Deputy Superintendent Michael Frank said that if the board decided to move forward with the project, the money would come from capital reserve funds rather than taxpayers. 

“The Board of Education throughout my career in the district took a stance with not wanting to have to issue debt when taking care of things we wanted for our buildings,” Frank said Monday night. “Throughout these years we have had three capital reserves that each can fund up to $10 million.”

Frank said capital fund A was utilized many years ago, fund B is almost fully funded with roughly $8 million and C had approximately $4 million as of June 2021. 

“The forecasted projections based on the architect’s analysis is that the entire project would cost approximately $10.2 million,” Frank said. “If we were to go forward with this project, the entire amount would be able to be funded from the savings we have accumulated over many years.”

Frank said another benefit of putting a surplus toward the funds is that no one, not even the board, can access it without taxpayers voting in favor of it. 

President James Reddan said the discussions are a work in progress and any decision to use the funding will be done so through a district vote at a similar time around voting for next year’s budget. 

In other district news, the board unanimously voted to opt into Nassau County’s income limitations scale for senior citizens and persons with disabilities. 

In September, County Executive Bruce Blakeman signed a local law to increase the maximum allowable annual household income requirements from $37,399 to $58,399 to qualify for low-income senior citizens’ exemption and persons with disabilities. 

More information on the exemption can be found on the district’s website. 

The next meeting for the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Board of Education will take place Monday, Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. at Garden City Park School.