57. a. Notwithstanding any provision of this act or any other law or regulation to the contrary, a board of education or a board of school estimate, as appropriate, may, through the adoption of a board resolution, establish a capital reserve account. The account shall be established and held in accordance with GAAP and shall be subject to annual audit. The funds in the capital reserve account shall be used to finance the district‘s long-range facilities plan required pursuant to subsection a. of section 4 of this act and the amount in the account shall not exceed the total amount of local funds required to implement the plan.

b. A board of education or a board of school estimate, as appropriate, may appropriate funds in the district’s annual budget for the establishment of the capital reserve account pursuant to subsection a. of this section or to supplement the funds in the account as required to meet the needs of the long-range facilities plan.

c. A board of education may, by resolution of the board: transfer funds from the capital reserve account to the appropriate line item account for the funding of capital projects as contained in the district’s long-range facilities plan; and transfer funds from the capital reserve account to the debt service account for the purpose of offsetting principal and interest payments for bonded projects which are included in the district’s long-range facilities plan.

L.2000,c.72,s.57; amended 2004, c.73, s.5.