The Upper Darby School District Board of Directors and Superintendent Dr. Daniel McGarry at their board meeting on Tuesday, June 17. (Grace Del Pizzo/DelcoNow)
UPPER DARBY - The Upper Darby School District Board of Directors voted Tuesday to move forward with a possible solar panel project while they wait on the results of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" in Congress.
The project would involve installing solar panels on the roofs of six Upper Darby schools to offset electricity costs over the next 25 years and beyond.
Upper Darby received $2.4 million from Pennsylvania through the Solar for Schools Grant Program, the most funding of any school district in Pennsylvania.
However, according to Upper Darby School District superintendent Dr. Daniel McGarry, the project itself will cost close to $7 million.
"We were also looking to receive the remainder of those dollars through grants through the federal government," McGarry told DelcoNow before the board meeting.
"The rumor is that right now, that money is still in the current federal 'Big Beautiful Bill' dollar amount. If it gets cut, that lends itself to problems for us to finish these projects."
The Board of Directors held a public presentation Tuesday about the status of that project. Upper Darby Director of Operations Marvin Lee spoke about the benefits of the solar panels.
"You can see we are expecting to offset 90% of the electricity usage at the six schools through solar generation on site," Lee said during his presentation.
However, if the "Big Beautiful Bill" is passed in its current form, Upper Darby will face severe limitations. From the day President Trump signs it into law, the district will have just 60 days to either begin construction or incur at least 5% of the total project cost in order to remain eligible for the investment tax credit.
There are also additional costs to consider, namely roof replacement. Out of the six selected schools, three – Drexel Hill Middle School, Primos Elementary and Westbrook Park Elementary – have reached their life expectancy, and their roofs would need to be fully replaced to be able to support solar panel installation.
The other three schools – Bywood Elementary, Hillcrest Elementary and Stonehurst Hills Elementary – have approximately 13 years of life left in their roofs, and that lifespan can reasonably be extended.
The roof replacements would cost about $5.2 million, but that expense will arguably be necessary in the future even without the solar initiative.
The lifespan of the solar panels is at least 25 years, although many panels last longer than that. According to projections, the solar panels could save the school district over $15 million in electricity cost savings over the next 30 years.
Effectively, Upper Darby has received $2.4 million from Pennsylvania, but the availability of the potential $2.3 million in federal funding depends on the outcome of the "One Big Beautiful Bill." In its current iteration, the funding is still there, but the bill is changing daily.
Tuesday's presentation and motion to move forward or not was necessary, given the 60-day deadline and the fact that the Board of Directors won't meet again until August.
"All of a sudden, we got six buildings funded. Every single application that we submitted. The most money in the state, of anyone who applied," Craig Rogers, Upper Darby Chief Financial Officer and School Board Secretary, said.
"Now we're staring down a decision of, if we don't move forward, we're turning away the funding... We have no control over when the answers are coming. But if we didn't do this presentation tonight to see if the board would still like to move forward with this, we're essentially saying it's either only state funding or not at all. So we want to give ourselves the best chance at attempting to get that federal funding, if it is available."
After viewing the presentation and asking questions, the Board of Directors moved to authorize the district to continue pursuing the project while they wait for the results of the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Members of the board declined to be interviewed after the meeting, instead referring DelcoNow to let their vote speak for them.
"I wish that there was more infrastructure money in Pennsylvania like there used to be," McGarry said before the meeting.
"School districts used to get reimbursed for facilities projects. We haven't in a number of years. But by and large, we're grateful to have received the funding that we did, and we'll continue to do the best we can with what we have."
