Extends the time period from eighteen years to twenty-five years that a school shall be guaranteed recovery of energy performance contract costs from energy savings incurred by school districts over that time period.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
 
BILL NUMBER: A6318
SPONSOR: Griffin (MS)
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the education law, in relation to extending the time
period for guaranteed recovery of energy performance contract costs from
energy savings incurred by school districts
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
This bill extends the recovery time-period for energy performance
contracts under the education law, from 18 years to 25 years.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1. Amends the education law to extend the statutory recovery
time limit of energy performance contracts from 18 years to 25 years.
Section 2. Effective Date
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Energy performance contracts are successful way for school districts to
lower their costs while improving efficiency. Energy performance
contracts use the projected savings from the performance contract to pay
for the project/upgrade. Upgrading or replacing a system is often
significantly cheaper than continuing to pay the previous energy costs,
but schools sometimes struggle to pay the upfront costs of energy
upgrades.
Current state law requires that energy performance contracts must guar-
antee the recovery of contract costs from recovery savings during the
term of the contract, which currently may not exceed 18 years. This
legislation would allow recovery period of the contracts to extend for
25 years.
This change would have numerous benefits, such as energy efficiency and
reducing operating costs, and aligns with the 25 year usefulness period
established under federal law. These contracts help schools avoid
significant upfront costs and allow for reinvestments over time.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2023-2024: A.6577/9.2699
2021-2022: A.3446/9.6307
2019-2020: A.7771/S.5099
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
No cost to the state. Will result in cost saving to school districts.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
6318
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
March 4, 2025
___________
Introduced by M. of A. GRIFFIN -- Multi-Sponsored by -- M. of A. STERN
-- read once and referred to the Committee on Education
AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to extending the time
period for guaranteed recovery of energy performance contract costs
from energy savings incurred by school districts
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subclause C of clause (i) of subparagraph 5 of paragraph i
2 of subdivision 6 of section 3602 of the education law, as amended by
3 section 1 of part F of chapter 383 of the laws of 2001, is amended to
4 read as follows:
5 C. The energy performance contractor shall guarantee recovery of
6 contract costs from energy savings realized by the school district
7 during the term of the energy performance contract, which shall not
8 exceed [eighteen] twenty-five years.
9 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD04732-01-5