NORWICH – Norwich officials are pondering an option of buying the city’s street lighting system in a move that could save local taxpayers as much as $84,000 per year.

According to City Chamberlain John Zielinski, the street lighting system, which the city currently rents from New York State Electric and Gas Company (NYSEG), is a hefty burden to taxpayers that costs them nearly $145,000 per year. Of that, nearly $84,000 is applied to rental fees while the rest covers the cost of electric.

But NYSEG has made an offer to sell the lighting system to the city for less than $150,000, Zielinski said, and that might mean big savings for the city in the long run.

The system encompasses every street lighting unit within the city with the exception of those in the downtown commercial district (which are already owned by the city). Units consist of a light bulb, fixture, and arm that attaches it to a utility pole.

City officials weighed the pros and cons of the proposal at a Joint Committees meeting held earlier this month.

In recent years, the city has explored the possibility of converting light bulbs from the current sodium lights to LED lights. However, given that the project would cost nearly $900,000, it’s not worth the investment without first being awarded grant money to help, said Zielinski. What’s more, since converting bulbs to LED would require the city to purchase the lighting system anyway, he said most of the cost savings wouldn’t come by cutting the electric bill, but by not paying a rental fee.

“When you break it down, the real savings that justify that $900,000 is the rent that we pay NYSEG, not the savings of switching to LED,” Zielinski said. “The real savings is in buying the system.”