The state has given Minuteman High School until November 30 to win approval from Belmont for a new school project after that town voted down a bond authorization earlier this month.
The Minuteman School Committee voted to bond for the project on March 15 and gave member towns 60 days in which to disapprove. Nine of the 10 towns in the Minuteman school district voted at Town Meetings this spring to approve spending a total of $149 million on a new school in Lincoln, with the Massachusetts School Building Committee (MSBA) paying $44 million of that cost if member town’s approvals were achieved in time.
The Belmont Town Meeting voted no on May 4, citing concerns about the school’s size and cost as well as enrollment projection. Minuteman Superintendent-Director Edward Bouquillon attributed the rejection to “a lack of understanding and a lack of information” due in part to Belmont’s political process.
In February, Lincoln decided to withdraw from the Minuteman district to avoid having to help pay for the new school as a member town. Non-member towns can still send students to Minuteman but will pay through a new out-of-district capital fee in addition to the annual tuition fee (both set by the state).
The time extension granted by the MSBA will “allow the district and other key stakeholders an opportunity to further engage Belmont officials in a substantive discussion about the benefits of moving forward with the project,” Bouquillon said in a May 27 statement, adding that he “remains hopeful.”
Ironically, Belmont officials played an instrumental role in getting the project to the point where approval is now within reach. The town pushed hard to get out-of-district communities to pay a share of capital costs and also pushed for changes in the regional agreement that were approved late last year by all 16 district communities. Those changes reconfigured the makeup of the district, led to weighted voting on the Minuteman School Committee, and revised how long-term debt is allocated.
No decision has been made by the Minuteman School Committee on how to proceed next. Members have at least two options: voting again to bond for the project and giving the member communities another 60 days in which to object, or calling a one-day district-wide referendum where the project is decided by the combined vote in favor versus the combined vote in opposition.