Sec. 170.7. Lease-purchase of instructional equipment

(a) The board of education of any school district may enter into agreements for the lease- purchase of instructional equipment, in accordance with section 1725-a of the Education Law and this section, with the payments to be applied against the purchase price of the equipment.

(b) All such lease-purchase agreements shall be subject to written approval of the commissioner before execution. Applications for approval of lease-purchase agreements shall be in a form prescribed by the commissioner and shall be submitted no more than 90 days and no less than 30 days prior to the date of execution of the agreement. A variance may be granted from the time limitations for submission of such applications upon a showing of good cause satisfactory to the commissioner.

(c) As used in Education Law, section 1725-a, and this section, instructional equipment means instruments, machines, apparatus or other types of equipment, which are used directly in the instruction of students and which:

(1) are not consumed in use and retain their original shape and appearance with use;

(2) are not expendable items such as textbooks or supplies;

(3) are not capital improvements, as such term is defined in subdivision 9 of section 2 of the Local Finance Law; and

(4) do not lose their identity through incorporation into a different or more complex unit.