A Lehighton Area School District board member spoke Wednesday at the state capitol in Harrisburg in favor of legislation aimed at simplifying the school construction reimbursement process.

Currently, the Pennsylvania Department of Education requires school districts to use the 11-step Planning and Construction Workbook (PlanCon) process to apply for state reimbursement for a share of approved construction costs.House Bill 2124, sponsored by State Rep. Seth Grove, of York, would establish a five-step Accountability and Reducing Costs in Construction (ARC Con) process.According to Grove, under ARC Con, paperwork is streamlined, an online database makes all aspects transparent, and school districts are reimbursed in the order their completed paperwork is received. In addition, school districts will be able to submit paperwork electronically, reducing time and costs for school districts and PDE.Ahner said the ARC Con process also favors the rehabilitation of old buildings rather than new construction."In September of 2012 our district hastily submitted Part A and B for renovation projects to our high school, middle school and four elementary schools to beat the October deadline," Ahner said. "However, with the recently lifted two-year moratorium on PlanCon, six school districts (Catasauqua, East Penn, Eastern Lebanon, Lancaster, Reading and Portage) had projects that were given Part H approval. Those were the first in several years to move to the so-called pipeline to be paid."He said, "With the dilemma of unknown reimbursement dollars, many school districts like ours that are either in the early stages of the PlanCon process, or have not yet submitted an application, will debate or even delay projects until there is a guarantee that the commonwealth will meet its reimbursement obligations."Lehighton is currently grappling with the decision to renovate its four existing elementary schools (Mahoning, East Penn, Franklin and Shull-David), or build a $32.5 million K-5 elementary center.It is also facing around $20 million in renovations to its middle and high schools.Under ARC Con, Ahner said, a district could, by mutual agreement of the district and PDE, receive their reimbursement in a lump sum according to their aid ratio, reducing the debt to the taxpayer by loaning less money.Ahner was joined at Wednesday's news conference by PSBA President Rich Frerichs, Penn Manor School District; Thomas Kerek, board vice president, Kane Area School District; and Kerith Taylor, school board member, Brookville Area School District.According to a May 2014 report by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, 200 projects across the state are waiting for reimbursement, adding up to a cost of $105 million to initiate reimbursement payments."The process of receiving reimbursement for a school district project in Pennsylvania is outdated and archaic," Grove said. "We need to act soon on reform to eliminate the backlog of projects waiting for approval and to modernize this system once and for all."House Bill 2124 is currently awaiting consideration in the Senate education committee.