EBENSBURG — According to Central Cambria Superintendent Jason Moore, Competitive Power Ventures has granted a six-year extension for the district’s repayment of more than $3 million in taxes owed from overassessment of its Fairview Energy Center in Jackson Township.

Moore said the agreement lowers the district’s initial repayment from $1.8 million to $1.2 million. The district’s annual repayment will be lowered from $482,426 to $100,000 without interest, he said.

With the extension, the repayment will be made over a nine-year period, and the remainder of the money owed will be made up through tax credits.

“We would repay the $100,000 in addition to forgiving the $184,000 they would have paid based on the current millage rate,” Moore said.

The tax dispute occurred after Cambria County contracted an outside company, Resource Technologies Corp., to complete an appraisal of the energy center in 2020.

The district reportedly owes more than $3 million in overassessed taxes to CPV while Cambria County owes more than $2 million because of the tax dispute.

Matthew Litchfield, CPV’s director of external affairs, said members of CPV Fairview approached the school district to see how they could help and offered to renegotiate the plan to mitigate financial impacts to the district.

“We take our commitment to being a good neighbor very seriously,” he said. “The school district was very interested in having this discussion, and we believe we have found a mutually agreeable solution.”

Litchfield said the extension is only for Central Cambria and does not apply to the county.

Litchfield said the fine details of the agreement will be discussed at the Central Cambria school directors’ special board meeting at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the high school cafeteria.

School officials said the meeting is being held to address a budget and finance committee item.

Moore said CPV was “sympathetic” to the district because the assessment issue was outside of its scope.

“The district doesn’t have a tax assessment office. We just happened to be negatively impacted by the issue,” he said. “They (CPV) don’t want to see our students negatively impacted.”

Although the district’s financial situation is not as dire as it was before the agreement, Moore said the district still needs to “do some belt tightening because we still don’t have the revenue.”

“We still have to make sure that we’re operating efficiently. The feasibility study for the elementary school is still definitely continuing,” Moore said. “We’ll wait and see what kind of recommendations we receive.”

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.