A diagram of the choices facing Lincoln voters in Town Meeting warrant articles 30, 31 and 32 (click to enlarge).
By Alice Waugh
With a last-minute change to the wording of a Town Meeting motion, town officials are doubling down on their support for seeking state funding for a comprehensive school renovation project in the hope that a large majority of voters feel the same way.
Article 30 now asks residents if they support appropriating $750,000 for a school project feasibility study for a comprehensive, state-supported school repair and renovation project with a total cost of $55-$59 million (of which Lincoln’s share would be at least $30 million after a grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority). The new wording specifies that those funds may be spent on a feasibility study only if Lincoln is accepted into the MSBA funding application process.
If Article 30 passes, residents will the be asked if they want the town to formally apply to the MSBA. In the event that Article 30 passes but Article 31 fails, the $750,000 will be set aside and residents must vote at a future Town Meeting on another way to spend it (see diagram), which does not necessarily have to be school-related. That vote can pass by a simple majority unless the proposed alternative use is adding the money to the town’s Debt Stabilization Fund, in which case a two-thirds majority is required.
If Article 30 fails, voters will skip Article 31 and vote on Article 32, which asks if they support a package of repair-only options that would cost at least $30 million. If even that is voted down, the School Committee will have to seek individual repair projects on a year-by-year basis to be funded via the town’s Capital Planning Committee.
The new wording places more emphasis on town officials’ strong belief that Lincoln should seek MSBA funding for a school project. The goal, officials agreed, is to get the highest possible number of “yes” votes on Article 30 to show the MSBA that the town is committed to a comprehensive project. In 2012, the MSBA had offered $21 million to partially offset a $49 million project, but the project failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority at Town Meeting to pay for Lincoln’s share, so the grant offer was withdrawn.
The changed wording came about because some members of the School Committee were concerned about whether “we were diluting our message to the MSBA by indicating we were ready to embark on a renovation project on our own,” committee chair Jennifer Glass said Thursday night.
The Boards of Selectmen and Finance voted on Friday morning to support the revised wording for the Article 30 motion after the School Committee and Capital Planning Committee did the same earlier this week.
The potential downside to partnering with the MSBA is that it would add at least 18 months to the process and more than $3 million in costs due to the delay, although that extra cost would be more than offset by an MSBA grant of about 40 percent of the total project cost.
Notwithstanding these disadvantages, it’s in the town’s best interest financially to seek MSBA funding as a way to minimize Lincoln’s share of overall costs while getting the best overall school in the end, said Selectman Peter Braun.
“For a small potential for delay, you get a potential for a huge bang for our buck,” he said. “It’s the financial opportunity that’s driving this and we can’t screw it up. If we’re going for it, let’s go for it 110 percent.
Making “renovation on our own” trickier
Officials acknowledged that the new motion wording might displease voters who want to do a renovation project without MSBA participation. “With this [motion on Article 30] and [Article] 32, there’s no ‘renovation on our own’ option on the menu,” Finance Board Peyton Marshall said Thursday night, adding Friday morning that “there seems to be a movement afoot in that direction.”
Glass agreed that some voters may feel that they want to “get the school renovated before my children graduate from it and I’m ready to just do something now.” However, she and other officials hope the reworded motion will result in a net gain in support for an MSBA-funded renovation project.
“It may peel off some people who wanted to do it faster, but gain people who are worried about the upper limit of the cost for a non-MSBA project,” Glass said.
“The people who think we can do it on our own are people who are not good understanders of how many people will be opposed to spending $50 million,” School Committee member Eric Harris said Friday.
School C0mmittee member Jena Salon also worried on Thursday night that the last-minute nature of the changes might also alienate voters, especially since the committee has tried to be more open and transparent this time around.
“We should be very, very clear that the School Committee in no way wanted to shove the MSBA down people’s throats,” Salon said. “This is not what all these meetings were about… I worry what the reception is going to be.”
Braun and other officials said they would emphasize at Town Meeting that the revised motion has the full support of all four boards and they made the change with the intention of maximizing the margin of approval for a project.
“I apologize for not seeing this sooner,” Harris, who was a key driver behind the late-breaking change, said on Thursday night.
In the School Building Advisory Committee’s final public forum in January, Dore and Whittier, the consulting architects hired by the town, said that the school needs at least $30 million in repairs and other work subsequently triggered by code requirements. That required work plus selected “a la carte” educational enhancements would cost $30-$48 million, while a project that meets all of the school’s facilities and education needs (and which the MSBA would be most likely to support ) would cost $55-$59 million, the architects estimate.
Dore and Whittier’s final report is available online and in print form at the Lincoln Public Library and Town Office Building.