- Officials at Minnechaug Regional High School in Massachusetts haven’t been able to turn out the lights since August 2021, and taxpayers have been stuck with the inflated electric bill.
- The school’s lighting system, which was installed more than 10 years ago, stopped working when the software running it failed a year and a half ago.
- The issue stems from the lighting system which was installed over a decade ago, according NBC News. The system was designed to save money by automatically dimming or turning off lights throughout the day. When the system’s software failed, the “lighting system went into default,” NBC News reported.
- Aaron Osborne, the assistant superintendent of Finance in Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District, said the problem is “costing taxpayers a significant amount of money.” He added, “The net impact is in the thousands of dollars per month on average, but not in the tens of thousands.”
