The early bird gets the worm.
That's what the Warren County School District is hoping for as it seeks reimbursement for renovations currently underway at Beaty-Warren Middle School.
The Physical Plant and Facilities Committee forwarded PlanCon Part H to the full board for action likely at January's meeting.
PlanCon, short for Planning and Construction workbook, "is a set of forms and procedures used to apply for Commonwealth reimbursement" for school construction projects, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. "Part H, Project Financing, addresses the financing used for a project. Calculation of the temporary reimbursable percent for a project's financing occurs at PlanCon Part H. Once PlanCon Part H is approved, reimbursement on a project commences."
"Upon approval (of part H), reimbursement is guaranteed for a project," WCSD Director of Buildings and Grounds Dr. Norbert Kennerknecht told the committee. "Sometimes we wait until the end of the project. The department (PDE) is not reviewing PlanCon H at this time."
Kennerknecht said that PDE is currently ordering all submitted part H applications by date of receipt and will "reward reimbursement on where you are in that stack. (It) makes sense to get those in as soon as possible so when they do release funds, we'll be getting them sooner rather than later."
Construction started in September on the $16.2 million renovation project that will utilize low-to-no interest Qualified Zone Academy Bond funding that the district accepted last year.