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Nearly 3,500 Washington public schools would be eligible for building improvement grants if voters were to approve the state’s Referendum Bill 52 next month.

The bill would allow the state to authorize $503.3 million in bonds for construction and repair projects to increase the energy efficiency of public schools. Though Washington’s struggling building sector has backed the bill, not everyone is convinced the bill will deliver the jobs and energy savings promised.

If the bill were to pass, the state could dole out bond proceeds over the next five years to schools based on a competitive grant application process. Favored projects would be those with the highest projected energy savings and most supplementary funding, according to Cynara Lilly, spokeswoman for the Referendum 52 campaign.

As laid out in the bill, the Washington State Department of Commerce would manage the grant process with assistance from Washington State University‘s energy program. To be certain the projects would deliver the promised savings, the commerce department would be required to contract with energy service companies for project assessments before grant awards were made. If those savings weren’t apparent following project completion, the energy service company would be on the financial hook, Lilly said.

The Washington State Department of General Administration earlier this year made a list of 16 pre-qualified companies to perform the assessments.

“Any financial risk that schools and universities take on for these projects will be assumed by private energy service companies like ours,” said Megan Owen, director of government affairs for McKinstry, a pre-qualified firm. “If we went to an elementary school and said these improvements take 11 years to pay off, and that’s not realized, we would pay the difference. If your company is on this list, the health of your business is such that you can provide these guarantees.”

The Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council is supporting the bill with hopes that it will help reduce unemployment in the construction industry, said David Johnson, executive secretary for the council. Unemployment rates for the industry are approximately 35 percent in metro areas in Washington and approximately 65 percent in Eastern Washington, Johnson said.

The Southwest Washington Central Labor Council, Teamsters Joint Council No. 28 and other building organizations also support the bill, which they say could create 30,000 jobs.

“Everyone is calling this a recession; but for us, it’s a depression,” Johnson said. “I think with this bill we’re killing two birds with one stone: fixing schools and creating jobs. I see apprenticeship opportunities and opportunities for people returning from service in Iraq that we can’t afford to ignore.”

The bill would require the state to deposit the money raised by selling the bonds into the state treasury; general state revenues would be used to repay the bonds. The bill would remove the 2013 expiration date currently set for Washington’s bottled water tax. Extending the tax past the expiration date would increase state revenue by $39.8 million per year and increase local revenue by $14.8 million per year, according to estimates. The money would be used to pay off the bond’s debt service, which is estimated at $937 million over the next 29 years. The state plans to pay $32,311,444 per year toward its debt.

Such an investment is too costly, according to Mike Merrill, president of Vancouver-based Merrill Construction. Merrill is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-accredited builder, but he thinks the bill will benefit only a few, small areas of construction, and isn’t worth the increase in debt.

“I’ve embraced the green movement, but this bill is not timely,” Merrill said. “I know we won’t help our industry by spending more money. It’s not a prudent investment.”

The Legislature has the authority to issue bonds, but Referendum 52 was required to go to voters because it would cause Washington to exceed its debt limit. According to state law, payments of borrowed money and interest in any fiscal year can’t exceed 7 percent of general state revenues for the three preceding fiscal years without a public vote. According to Todd Myers, director of the Washington Policy Center’s Center for the Environment, the state’s decision to exceed its debt capacity is equivalent to the state maxing out its credit card.

“If we go above the state’s debt limit, it’s going to be difficult to borrow for other purposes,” Myers said. “Taxpayers should say, ‘We’re cutting a lot of programs already and this is not the best way to spend the money.’ Politicians want to look green and they are giving money to be green whether or not schools need that.”

Whether the bill will pass is anyone’s guess, Lilly said. But she believes the state’s partnership with energy service companies will guarantee savings and that the bill will be a model for other states to follow.

“We’ve been told a lot of states are interested in doing this kind of work,” Lilly said. “If it passes in Washington, it could work elsewhere. Being neighbors, Oregon and Washington tend to watch each other.”