A pair of middle-of-the-night false alarms at Lehighton Area School District’s administration building has pushed its school board toward replacing the facility’s aging security system, with the lowest bid coming in at $21,795.

Johnson Controls, district officials said, submitted the lowest of two bids, topping another at $38,000. The $21,795 installation cost would be drawn from capital funds, with an additional $4,500 annual service charge paid out of the general operating budget.

The impetus for the project was hard to ignore. The building experienced two false alarms in a single week — one at 3 a.m. and another at 5 a.m. on a Friday.

“This seems very necessary,” board President Alex Matika said.

Director David Bradley pressed administration on whether capital funds were the appropriate source for what he characterized as an operational expense.

“You set aside capital funds for capital projects, and now you’re pulling out of that fund money to do basically an operation for a school,” Bradley said.

Superintendent Jason Moser said he would go back and ensure the project had been part of a previously discussed capital plan.

“The only way the money got into the capital fund is that you took it from the public, didn’t use it on their kids to educate them and set it aside,” Bradley said. “At which point you’re saying, in the future, we don’t want to give it back, we want to hold on to it, and therefore we might want to do something later with it. That’s capital, and that’s for capital projects.

“This is buying stuff to make sure that you have the right alarms in school. That’s part of the operation. But the board thought differently back then. We should find out and maybe make a correction.”

Board member Jeremy Glaush raised a separate technical concern, noting the proposal did not specify what equipment would be installed. He urged the district to prioritize wireless technology over wired systems.

“Wireless is better technology now for fire alarms, and that’s kind of hard to kill a wireless signal,” Glaush said. “I would just suggest that the way technology is going, go with the wireless.”

The recommendation is expected to come before the board for a formal vote at the April 27 meeting.