Tom Ferry received special recognition during the July 21 school board meeting for saving the school district a lot of money.

Ferry, the director of maintenance, noticed something wasn’t right when he looked at the utility bill for the district’s new transportation building.

“It was so large that it matched the high school. For a facility the size of the transportation building to the high school, he thought, ‘What is going on here?’” said Superintendent Laura Hammack.

Ferry called the utility company to come out and do a meter reading. The company told Ferry that everything was fine with the meter and that the bill was what was owed, Hammack said.

“Most folks would leave it there. You’ve done your due diligence. You’ve called someone out to come and check,” Hammack said.

“Well, he conducted his own little science experience and did a measurement of actual utilities being used and found that he was still right, that there was absolutely an inaccuracy in this reading.”

Ferry called the utility company back out to the building, and upon second observation, they discovered an error.

The bill was off by a whole decimal point, Hammack said.

The utility company is issuing a reimbursement to the district along with an apology, Hammack said.