Tamaqua Area School Board discussed applying for up to $5 million in state grant funding for improvements at the high school during their work session Tuesday night.

The COVID-19 ARPA Capital Projects Fund Multipurpose Community Facilities Program grant requires a 25% match, and districts can apply for a minimum of $500,000 and a maximum of $5 million.

Administrators, however, aren’t sure how the state will be allocating the funds or how to apply to best position the district to receive the funding.

“We were having the discussion today, are they going to look at everybody with $5 million, unless they’re a massive school?” Superintendent Ray Kinder said. “Is it better to apply for one project at $500,000 and maybe that project will get funded?

“So, these are discussions that we’re still looking at,” he said.

The grant also has specific guidelines for projects to qualify, Kinder explained. The funds have to be spent for a variety of improvement projects in one building, such as the high school, or for one type of project, such as roofs, in all of the district buildings, he said.

“You can’t do a roof at the high school and the windows at West Penn,” Kinder said. “You have to do the same things at both buildings.”

The district also can’t look to fund existing projects, such as the paving of the parking lots, Assistant Superintendent Stephen Toth said. But if a district had a new project, such as a solar project, they could look to fund it with this grant, Kinder said.

“We’re trying to look at what projects we know that we’re going to do anyway,” Kinder said. “If we can get 75% of the funding out of this grant, great, and if we can’t we’re going to do it anyway.”

The district will be seeking up to $5 million for roof and window replacement at the high school and other necessary projects, business manager Connie Ligenza said.

“We’re still getting advice,” Kinder said. “We’re reaching out to people in Sen. (David) Argall’s office, in terms of looking at do we apply for all $5 million or do we be more strategic about it? We’re trying to get some advice there.

“We’re going to make sure that we do it so we have the best chance to be successful,” he said.

Toth pointed out that they could apply for funding to do all the roofs in the district, and then they’d be set for years. He noted that the middle school is 25 years old, and it hasn’t been touched.

“That would put us in a really good position to get all those buildings taken care of,” Toth said.

The grant application is due May 31, he said.