The light at a school in Massachusetts has been on for over a year because no one can turn it off.

WILBRAHAM, Massachusetts. For almost a year and a half, a high school in Massachusetts has been lit around the clock because the school district cannot turn off about 7,000 light bulbs in a huge building.

The lighting system was installed at Minnechauga Regional High School when it was built over a decade ago and was intended to save money and energy. But ever since the software that runs it failed on Aug. 24, 2021, the lights at the Springfield suburban school have been on permanently, at a cost to taxpayers of a small fortune.

“We are very aware that this is costing taxpayers a significant amount of money,” Aaron Osborne, assistant chief financial officer for the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District, told NBC News. “And we are doing our best to solve this problem.”

Osborne said it’s hard to say how much money it’s worth because the cost of energy fluctuated wildly during and after the pandemic.

“I would say the net effect is averaging thousands of dollars per month, but not tens of thousands,” Osborne said.

That’s partly because the high school uses high-efficiency fluorescent and LED lights, he says. And, when possible, teachers manually removed light bulbs from classroom fixtures while staff turned off light switches not connected to the main system to dim some external light sources.

However, keeping the lights on all the time in Minnechauga is a clear waste of taxpayer money, Wilbraham City Electors said in an Aug. 8, 2022 letter to members of the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District.

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