The article in last week's Kenton County Recorder prompted this response that questions the economic justification of solar panels on the Turkeyfoot school.  When will our elected officals quit spending Other Peoples Money?

The article in the Kenton County Recorder was written by Mr. Wm. Croyle. You can read the article by clicking here.

I'm using info given by the author and assume he is correct.

The school got a utility bill credit of $3,147.94 for a period covering June/July when the hours of daylight are the longest and school electric use was very low because it was closed for summer break.  Lets assume the school utility bill would have been $1,000.00 for that month without the solar panels. That means net savings is $4,147.94/month and, if we assume it would be that much for the rest of the year [even though all other months of the year will have less daylight and savings]; a generous estimate of the yearly savings would be 12 x $4,147.94 or $ 49,775.28 /year.

The author says there were $3,200,000 worth of solar panels and let's assume installation costs were 50% of this amount. So we spent $4,800,000 to save less than $50,000/year.

This means we will pay for the panels in just less than 100 years, if they require no maintenance costs and if they last that long and if the building is still standing at that time. We will then start showing a profit.

The author points out that federal funds paid for half the cost of the panels; so only half the cost comes out of our local taxes and the rest comes out of our federal taxes. Why should this be a factor?  We the people are paying the bill.

Here is hoping that our Kenton County school personnel use better judgment than this in teaching our children math and economic issues.

I'm quite disappointed in how my tax dollars are spent.