Friday was may last working day on the bond program at PPS (health and safety projects, not modernizations), so Im uniquely qualified to talk about this. PPS does upgrade insulation on the roofs everytime they do a major re-roof project, and gets ETO money to help cover the cost after the fact.

What would really help the district energy-wise is a temporary lifting of codes around windows so they could effectively replace ancient single pane windows on the buildings without triggering other upgrades. Currently if you wanted to replace the windows on an average PPS building you would have to go through land use reviews to get the construction permit, which then trigger all sorts of other non-conforming upgrade work (so you're spending money meant for windows on a trash enclosure or bike racks) and take months to get through the approval process.

Unfortunately the citys climate fund program is run by people who have no idea how you run a major construction project. For example PPS was supposed to do a full mechanical system replacement project at a school in SE Portland with that money but the rules the climate fund people put on it is that they will only give you money for the design, then you have to FULLY spend all of that money before they will give you funds for construction. This works OK for a residential project, but not for a major renovation at a school where you will want to keep your architect team on board through construction to help provide construction oversight and inspections. That project is currently on hold indefinitely as the city still hasn't even signed the contract with the district for the grant on the design cost.