Fox C-6 Board Approves $500,000 Lighting Dimmer Project Amid Split Vote
The Fox C-6 Board of Education approved a contract with Reinhold Electric to install lighting dimmers across the district, a project that Chief Operations Officer Tracy Schmidt said would place 449 dimmers in 12 schools. The purchase will be made from existing capital projects funds in the maintenance budget.
Schmidt described the equipment as Lutron 0-to-10-volt dimmers, including single-circuit and two-circuit dimmers plus additional work. He said the project was driven by teacher feedback to improve the learning environment. "This project came out of just teachers wanting to support their students," Schmidt said.
Officials repeatedly cautioned that energy savings from the dimmers could not be quantified. Superintendent Paul Frigo said, "I'm not going to be able to quantify any savings for the public," noting that dimming levels would be left to individual teachers.
District officials explained the dimmer work was originally expected to be part of an LED lighting replacement handled through performance contracting with a firm referred to as Verigy, but that the contractor could not guarantee savings on the dimmers and would only take on the work for an added cost. The district determined it could complete the dimmer work more cheaply on its own.
A board member questioned why only two contractors bid on the project. Officials acknowledged errors in the bid documents. "In all transparency, we had some errors in our bid documents that probably created some confusion," one official said, adding, "we're going to be better moving forward."
Officials said the roughly half-million-dollar cost reflected extensive labor, including running dimming wires from every fixture in about 500 classrooms. The motion passed, though two board members voted no.
Earlier in the meeting, a resident, Alan Leaderbrand, raised questions during patron comments about the project, asking what types of dimmers and lighting were involved, whether motion sensors would be used in less-used areas, and what savings were expected to justify the cost.
Watch the discussion:
Source: Fox C-6 Board of Education Meeting - 7/14/2026