Wisconsin Schools Not Spending Pandemic Aid On Air Quality Improvements
Wisconsin school districts received more than $1.5 billion in federal funds.
English teacher Blair Kath, center, helps her student, Kyler Olsen, during class Thursday, March 3, 2022, at the Racine Engineering, Arts and Leadership School in Racine, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
Since the pandemic, millions of dollars have been available to Wisconsin school districts to improve air quality in aging buildings. But only about 20 percent of those federal dollars have been spent on replacing HVAC systems in schools.
If school districts want to avoid remote learning as seasonal viruses spread, the number one thing they can do is improve the school building’s ventilation, said Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times science and global health reporter and the 2019 University of Wisconsin-Madison science writer in residence during a recent interview on The Morning Show.
“Wisconsin got more than $1.5 billion and the state spent about 20 percent of those funds,” Mandavilli said. “There is definitely plenty of money and all that is really required is will power.”
That money came from the American Rescue Plan, which provided $122 billion for the Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund to help schools prevent the spread of, prepare for, and respond to COVID-19, including by improving indoor air quality, so school leaders across the country can improve ventilation in their buildings.
Wisconsin’s public schools received a total of nearly $2.4 billion in three rounds of ESSER funds and the Department of Public Instruction has documentation of how the money has been spent. HVAC improvements are not specifically broken down. They are included in general construction under “health and safety.”
Some school districts have used federal funds to improve HVAC.
In November 2021, the Granton Area School District, near Marshfield, planned to use ESSER funds to revamp the school’s HVAC system. The project was estimated to cost about $1.6 million.
The school board in Lake Mills voted in March 2022 to use ESSER money on a new HVAC unit that would serve one of the school’s food lab and agricultural classrooms.
DPI public records show Milwaukee Public Schools spent $92.2 million of its $505.5 million in ESSER funds on “health and safety” related construction, but it is unknown how much specifically went to HVAC improvements.
MPS has released a statement saying “millions of ESSER dollars (were spent) to improve air circulation in all schools, including upgrades to HVAC units, restoration of windows and installation of outdoor classrooms at all learning sites.”
Madison Metropolitan School District spent $15 million of its $42.5 million in ESSER funds on “health and safety,” but again, it is not known how much specifically went to HVAC improvements.
Schools could soon know more about their air quality. A pending Republican Assembly bill would require the Department of Health Services randomly inspect and evaluate public school buildings. DHS would also have to respond to complaints about air quality in public schools, unless the building was inspected within the previous two years and no problems were identified, or the building was inspected within the previous six months and problems were identified.
Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, is the lead sponsor on the bill. He said the idea came to him from a constituent who was hoping to create an air quality law for schools.
A 2009 law directed DPI to develop a task for to provide recommendations for improving Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) in schools but did not require enforcement. Sortwell said this bill won’t require school districts to improve their HVAC systems if the DHS inspection finds air problems, but will arm the district with information.
“If you have the test in hand that says we don’t have good filtration and we have the Canadian wildfires going on, that’s going to be a whole lot easier to sell to the community and say ‘we’ve got to make upgrades let’s go to referendum and get that done,'” Sortwell said.
Mandavilli said of the reasons school districts have not done a lot to update HVAC systems and air quality is because there hasn’t been legal guidance or pressure.
“I think having some legal teeth behind this could be really useful, and knowing exactly how bad air quality is, is really the first step,” Mandavilli said. “You can’t really fix a problem unless you know what a problem is.”
Listen to the WPR report here.
Wisconsin school districts not spending federal funds on upgrading aging HVAC was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
This piece is a bit confusing because it starts out by stating a few different amounts of money that the ARP Legislation provided & the % spent on HVAC.
Paragraph 1 states “millions of dollars have been available to WI schools” and “but only 20% was spent on replacing HVAC systems”.
Paragraph 3 states “WI got more than $1.5 billion” and “the state spent about 20% of those funds”
Then…
Paragraph 5 states “WI public schools received a total of nearly $2.4 billion”
It’s unclear to me how much was given, how much was spent, or why there is even an issue.
In any event…. were these dollars spent on something else or something that violated the law? The huge ARP $$ giveaways were intentionally “non-specific” on purpose, and this fact will forever be it’s legacy.
…… Somewhat feels like this is just a paid advertisement for the HVAC industry or HVAC Union.
Ward101. I agree with you. ,
Inasmuch as a primary source for the author’s (Hess’) article is him/herself a journalist in residence perhaps speaking with yet another reporter, maybe the story should be rewritten or at least drafted by that source.
As it stands it feels as if we hold the end position of the old game “Telephone” where “she said that he said he had told her that if it were true, then perhaps the money is in the blue jar … but then we also heard that maybe someone else put it in the orange box”