A Massachusetts high school’s have been lights stuck powered on since August 2021, costing local taxpayers, NBC News reported Thursday.
Minnechaug Regional High School’s inoperable lights problem has remained unsolved and taxpayers continue to foot the bill to keep the school in session, according to NBC News. The school’s lighting system, which was installed over ten years ago, stopped working when the software running it failed a year and a half ago.
Aaron Osborne, the assistant superintendent of Finance in Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District, where the school is located, said “we have been doing everything we can to get this problem solved.”
Osborne said the power issue is “costing taxpayers a significant amount of money.”
“The net impact is in the thousands of dollars per month on average, but not in the tens of thousands,” he speculated. (RELATED: Tesla Is Recalling Nearly 12,000 Vehicles Due To Software Glitch)
The issue stems from the lighting system which was installed over a decade ago, according NBC News. Te 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.
All the lights at Minnechaug Regional High School in Wilbraham, Mass., have been on since Aug. 24, 2021. because no one can turn them off. https://t.co/9BMWgcuoWX
— Anne (@Annefor2022) January 19, 2023
When the problem first arose nearly a year and a half ago, the district contacted the company which installed the lighting system, Reflex Lighting Group, to try and fix the problem. The company failed to respond in a timely manner because ownership of the lighting business has changed over the past decade, according to the report.
The president of the lighting company, Paul Mustone, told NBC News his company received parts from China to finally replace the system. The installation is expected to take place during a February school break. Mustone said, “there will be a remote override switch so this won’t happen again,” the outlet reported.