Toni Simonetti reports:
1st Selectman Kevin Christie’s administration will seek “upwards of $5 million” in federal tax credits for the geothermal energy system being installed at the new Long Lots Elementary School.
On Wednesday, the Board of Selectmen unanimously approved hiring a consulting firm to help obtain “the geothermal investment tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act.” The credit would be requested through the town’s tax filings “to offset the cost of geothermal and ancillary energy related construction,” according to the request submitted by Westport finance director Gary Conrad. The request was presented at the meeting by LLS project manager Susan Chipouras.
The town is currently building a new elementary school at the site of the existing school. The total appropriation as approved in June 2025 is $110 million, plus interest costs. The new consulting contract with CliftonAllenLarson LLP would be paid under the original appropriation; no new funds were requested.
Construction is underway on the new Long Lots Elementary School. (Drone photo/Brandon Malin)
A state grant totaling about $12 million has been approved, and is included in the current state budget. The town says more state funding may also be on its way because the state legislature approved a space standards waiver, allowing for a greater proportion of the total cost to be reimbursed.
The total cost of the consulting contract was not known, and is dependent on the firm’s hours spent to research and develop the tax credit application. The multi-tiered agreement includes a $65,000 base fee, plus $10,000 in other fees for memo preparation and the like, and “ongoing project services” to be billed at variable professional hourly rates.
1st Selectman Kevin Christie questioned how the firm’s billed hours will be managed. Chipouras said she and the construction management firm would monitor the hours billed.
Chipouras said “all costs” related to the geothermal system would be included in the calculation, and that “30 percent of all these costs … could be substantial.” She declined to provide a more specific estimate.
The total amount of eligible costs was not provided to the Board of Selectmen and will be calculated by the consultants. Costs are eligible if they meet various wage, domestic content, function and timing criteria, among others.
In the publicly available cost documents for the Long Lots project, the HVAC systems total cost estimate is $12.74 million. A 30 percent tax credit would be $3.7 million if all those costs are eligible. In order to reach a $5 million or more credit, about $16.7 million in eligible costs, all at a 30 percent credit rate, would have to be submitted.
Third Selectman Don O’Day, who is also a member of the Long Lots Building Committee, stated that hiring the consultant at $75,000-plus “was an easy decision.”
“These substantial reimbursements … will go back into taxpayers’ pockets,” he said.
A response to a question regarding use of the tax credit funds is pending regarding whether proceeds received would go to the general fund or be used for an earmarked purpose.
Toni: Blue Horseshoe loves ramen noodles.
Load up.
“The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even – if you will – eccentricity. That is, something that can’t be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn’t be happy with.”
Gilberto Bragga died in 2021. And Gordon Gecko was a creep.
FWIW we have geothermal HVAC for our Texas ranch home and it works very well. We do get below freezing temps in the winter and over 100° days in the summers. Our system is all inside the garage in a purpose built closet and has been going strong for 13 years now.
I’m curious what the point of this “report “ is. Seeking available tax credits to partially offset the costs of building the new Long Lots School seems like a worthwhile and fiscally prudent thing to do. That it supports of use of “green” geothermal energy seems like to would be particularly laudatory.
Yet it seems to have been simply tossed out without celebration or editorial comment by someone that historically opposed the new building and the displacement of the Community Garden. Can it be Toni reconsidered her opposition and is now jumping on board the green school bus?
It’s called “news.”
I thought it a worthy piece of news that was otherwise not reported in the media. It’s straight newswriting, not an op-ed. And I continue to be interested in the massive cost of this project, how that can be mitigated, and the looming new Coleytown school project which is now officially on the table.
Without solar panels, geothermal is a huge electricity expense ~