School District to Receive Payout for Pipeline Explosion, PG&E Says

PG&E said this week that it would follow through with its promise to compensate the San Bruno Park School District for the 2010 pipeline explosion.

The school district submitted a claim to PG&E shortly after the fire and followed up with another request in January 2011 after not hearing back from the company. PG&E still didn't respond until ABC 7 News contacted the company this week about a story about the .

"We never received the claim from the school district," said Brittany Chord, a PG&E spokeswoman. "But once we heard about it, we called them and took immediate action and made the payment."

The school district was seeking $34,495 to compensate staff for extra time spent responding to matters resulting from the fire, just like the city was doing, said Superintendent David Hutt. PG&E has since for the city with a cap of $50 million to help with the city's rebuilding efforts. The company and the city also recently to help with the city's recovery.

While the school district's request is finally being honored, Hutt said he was disappointed that it took so long and that PG&E allegedly lost the school district's claim.

"I'm disappointed in terms of the inaction on their part to 2,600 kids," Hutt said. "To me, that's something that needs to be addressed. PG&E has a level of responsibility to the families that send their kids to schools in the district."

ABC 7 also reported that the funds from the city's $70 million settlement couldn't be used to help the district, which is looking at possibly closing a school because of declining enrollment and inadequate state funding.

City Manager Connie Jackson said nothing has been decided yet about how the settlement money will be spent. In the meantime, the city is working on setting up a nonprofit agency to handle the distribution of the money.

The only limitation so far is that the funds can't be used to fix budget issues, whether with the city or the school district, Jackson said.

"We anticipate that it will be nine to 12 months before the not-for-profit entity is established and we're prepared to begin the decision-making process," she said.

For more news about San Bruno, follow San Bruno Patch on Twitter and "like" us on Facebook. Sign up for our newsletter by clicking on the "Patch Newsletter" link on the top right of our homepage.