I believe your report is correct. In a previous life I consulted on GE lighting projects and there is more to effective lighting than just lumens. For pure lumens per watt I'm not sure anything can yet beat the yellow low pressure sodium found in Springfield but an additional component is color rendering - CRI that is -  horrendous under that light. Better CRI requires less lumens per watt. 
For your next story maybe you could find out why the city owned utility gives a rebate to the city that owns it.