State says no to Lincoln’s school building application

By Alice Waugh

Lincoln will not be eligible for any state funding for a school building project in the near future, according to a letter received by school officials on December 6.

The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) said on Friday that Lincoln will not be invited into the funding pipeline for a renovation project during this application cycle, according to an email sent this morning to residents by Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall and School Committee chair Jennifer Glass.

“This is not the outcome the School Committee hoped for, as it impacts the  range of options available to the Town to address the facilities and educational needs of the school,” Glass and McFall said.

If the MSBA response had been favorable, the town could have proceeded to fund and perform a second feasibility study, the next step in getting MSBA project funding. In the last go-round which ultimately ended in failure, the MSBA eventually approved a grant of $21 million for a $49 million building project, contingent on a two-thirds majority vote at Town Meeting.

School officials now must decide whether to reapply for MSBA funding for the 2014-15 cycle. Statements of interest can be submitted between January 10 and April 11, 2014, and Lincoln would learn whether it was invited to proceed by late fall 2014.

The other question is whether Lincoln should proceed with plans for a school project without state funding and focus on options put forth by the School Building Advisory Committee. The SBAC, which presented its report to the School Committee on November 21, considered different levels of repair but concluded that the school needs almost everything in the original $49 million project approved by the MSBA, though preferably in an L-shaped configuration.

If the town goes ahead without a project, it would have to fully cover the costs both of the study of solutions and all the subsequent work done on the schools.

“At our December 19th School Committee meeting, we will begin talking about  our course of action, including ways to involve the community in the decision-making process. We request the continued involvement of the community as  we strive for a solution that benefits our students and our town,” Glass and McFall wrote.

At its meeting on December 5, the day before officials got the letter from the MSBA, the School Committee discussed possible courses of action depending on the state’s response. At the annual Town Meeting in March 2014, the committee may request funding for  study of a new roof on the school, and perhaps other major repair items as well.

If the town opts to reapply for MSBA funding, “I think we need to think up front how many years” Lincoln would pursue that option, said committee vice chair Tom Sander. “Is it just that one time, or are we going do that for up to five years, or try it twice and then we really have move on… It’s a bad decision to kind of decide open-ended ‘we’re just gonna endlessly going to keep applying until they say yes’.”

Officials will also have to gauge how much it will cost to figure out how much it will cost. Many residents have expressed the desire to be able to vote on two or three options at different cost levels rather than having just one yes-or-no vote, but generating multiple scenarios also has a price. “It’s going to be like planning two projects or three projects at the same time,” Sander said.