NO ONE Can Turn Off the Lights At This Massachusetts High School

A Massachusetts high school is making national news due to the fact that its lights stay on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week because no one knows how to turn off the lights. 

There are nearly 7,000 lights in this Massachusetts high school that have been turned on for about a year and a half. No one in the district has been able to shut the lights off this entire time.

At Minnechaug Regional High School, the lighting system was installed with the hopes of saving money and energy...That was over a decade ago.

The lights in the school, located in a Springfield, MA suburb, have stayed on due to a malfunction in its software on August 24, 2001 and is slowly costing taxpayers a small fortune. The high school uses fluorescent and LED bulbs which are highly efficient. Its because of the highly efficient bulbs that the money being spent on the electric bill for the school isn't as astronomical as what it could be.

Aaron Osborne, the assistant superintendent of finance at the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District told NBC News:

We are very much aware this is costing taxpayers a significant amount of money...And we have been doing everything we can to get this problem solved...I would say the net impact is in the thousands of dollars per month on average, but not in the tens of thousands.

Some of the bulbs have been manually removed by teachers, when possible. Staffers have also shut off the breakers that aren't part of the main system as a remedy for the exterior lighting.

However, according to Paul Mustone, who serves as president of Reflex Lighting Group, it seems that recently the parts needed to replace their current system have arrived in a shipment from a factory in China. The will make the necessary installation changes during their February break.

In the meantime, be sure to conserve energy by turning your lights off. These guys probably could have benefitted from that tip a long time ago.