After hours of discussion, the Finance Committee on May 3 decided not to endorse any of the school project plans over the others and did not specify a project price limit to recommend to voters. However, members made other recommendations, including that Lincoln should not appeal to the state to go over its borrowing limit.

In its discussion on that to recommend to voters at the Special Town Meeting on June 9, the FinCom also said in unanimous resolutions that:

• The estimated construction costs, exclusive of “soft” and escalation costs, are well within the norms of comparable Massachusetts school construction costs.
• The town should not delay the school project in hopes of more favorable construction costs down the road.
• It is more fiscally responsible to do a single project that addresses all the needs of the building rather than doing a series of piecemeal repairs.

Members debated how much financial cushion—in the form of additional borrowing “headroom” under the town’s borrowing limit, and/or cash to leave in the debt stabilization fund—the town ought to preserve after borrowing for the school project. They also discussed how much of that fund should be used to cushion the first year or two of repayments or to reduce the initial bond amount.

Much of the uncertainty on the part of committee members stems from the fact that several of the six cost estimates for the school project are very close to the town’s current $97 million borrowing limit (Option C is estimated at $95 million and Option L3 at $89 million). And those figures do not include another $2 million for a net-zero energy-efficient building with solar panels.

• See a table comparing the six current school options, and sketches and tax increase estimates for each.

Adding to the uncertainty is the distinct possibility that the price tag on whatever option is chosen on June 9 could drop before the bonding votes happen in the fall, as officials noted on April 30.

“It’s entirely realistic to expect a fair amount of movement in the cost estimates between June 9 and December 1, but it’s not realistic to expect any shift” before June, School Committee chair Tim Christenfeld said at Thursday’s FinCom meeting.

In 2011, the SBC initially included preK in the building and adding a two-story addition, but to reduce cost and square footage, preK was taken out and the addition was reduced to one floor.

Also, “there are many, many contingencies built in at this stage of the process,” Selectman and former School Committee chair Jennifer Glass said on Sunday. “As decisions are made, the ‘knowns’ replace the ‘estimates’ and some of the contingencies get reduced.

“For this project, I would never presume to say that history is an indicator of future performance,” Glass continued. “We cannot make any guarantees of a percentage decrease—we can only say that the SBC will take the June 9th vote as a budget cap, and do everything reasonable to reduce up-front costs to the town without overly sacrificing long-term value.”

The FinCom tabled its discussion on a financial buffer until its next meeting on May 22.

No agreement on cost limit

Committee members also wrestled with recommending a specific cost ceiling for the school project.

“I struggled mightily with this one. I do believe there should be a ‘do not exceed’ number… but I struggle with giving guidance on a specific number,” FinCom member Andy Payne said. “At the end of the day, it’s a resident decision and I feel that very strongly… My concern is that we collectively [on town boards and committees] don’t necessarily have a good pulse on the resident appetite here. My worry is that without that pulse, we risk not having a supermajority” in the fall, when a two-third majority is required at Town Meeting to bond a project.

Setting a dollar-limit recommendation is “putting the cart before the horse and trying to imagine the will of the town,” said member Tom Sander.

Without first setting parameters for how much money or borrowing capacity to hold in reserve, “I feel like we’d be making a decision without making some of the building-block decisions,” member Gina Halsted said.

Outgoing and non-voting FinCom member Eric Harris was not so circumspect. He proposed a limit of $85 million for a school project in light of the fact that more money will be needed for a community center right after the school is finished. A community center is currently expected to cost at least $13 million. However, the town will have paid off some of its current and future debt by the time that project is bonded and property values will increase, so its total borrowing limit will be higher than it is today.

$85 million “is a reasonable expense for the town. As a Finance Committee, we should say we can spend the amount of money that’s likely to pass [at Town Meeting] and that meets everyone’s needs, not just the school,” Harris said. “I just think we need to pay more attention to building a prudent plan that includes both… I’m worried that the community center is getting pushed off in a way that’s going to piss a lot of people off.”

Design options

Turning to discussion of which of the six design options to recommend, if any, “I believe narrowing down concepts is the School Building Committee’s job. Why should we be operating as a shadow SBC?” Payne said.

FinCom chair Jim Hutchinson disagreed, saying, “We’re not talking about disabling any concepts from being selected by the town; we’re trying to help residents with our opinion, not just on the cost straight up, but on the value of those concepts.”

Although it didn’t take a formal vote, the committee was deadlocked 3-3 on whether to recommend for or against specific designs, though members agreed in principle that the $109 million “FPC” option was not feasible, and that the $49 million repair-only option was not fiscally prudent.

But resident Owen Beenhouwer, an architect and veteran of past School Building Committees, argued that the FinCom should strongly recommend against the repair-only option, saying the last major school project did not go far enough. He implied that the current plan to offer a broad range of options to voters is an overreaction to the negative vote on a single option in 2012.

“I am disturbed at the fact that next year, we are looking at the 25-year anniversary of what I consider to be a bad job in 1994,” he said. “People really want help… people are puzzled with the mountains of information and too many choices to be made, and are looking to the committees to be helpful in some way.”

A repair-only option would be “a bad investment,” Beenhouwer continued. “I speak from experience as an architect that we are pushing the ball down the road. It would be better to turn the task back to the SBC and say ‘try again’ instead of saying it would be acceptable just to do a repair job.”

Town officials wrestled on Monday night with how to present the various school project choices to voters at the Special Town Meeting on June 9. And the biggest barrier to passage, unlike in 2012, will probably be building cost rather than design.

Even if a plan is approved in June, it still may see some changes; the June vote is only on the cost and the footprint, School Building Committee (SBC) Chair Chris Fasciano noted. In 2011-2012, the “preferred option”—a mostly new, 164,000-square-foot building with a two-story addition for $64 million—morphed into a 140,000-square-foot, $49.9 million building with a one-story addition that was only 35 percent new, once the schematic designs were finished and Town Meeting voted.

As for the mechanics of the vote itself, the tentative plan is to offer all six of the current options for a first vote by paper ballot to residents in the Brooks auditorium and in overflow space in the Reed gym. Then the two concepts with the most votes would go on to s second stand-and-count vote in both venues. Architects will then develop schematic designs for the winner, and there will be a bonding vote in the fall.

A simple majority is required for concept approval in June. The vote to bond the project in the fall will require a two-thirds majority at Town Meeting plus a simple majority at the ballot box shortly thereafter.

If the fall Town Meeting vote doesn’t pass by a two-thirds majority, the next step will depend on how close the vote is. Since the town is not bound by Massachusetts School Building Authority deadlines as it was in 2012, officials can continue to refine concepts and schedule more Special Town Meetings until a project wins approval. However, if the June vote is lopsidedly negative, “it means we missed a step on the way and we’ll have to regroup and see where we are,” Selectman Jennifer Glass said.

The Finance Committee also spent considerable time on Monday night grilling school officials and architects on details of how they arrived at their cost estimates and assumptions of how big the school building needs to be. Their questions followed up on written answers to dozens of questions that the SBC had submitted before the meeting.

The FinCom will meet on Thursday, May 3 to come up with a recommendation to the town—either for a specific option or “just a set of boundaries,” Chair Jim Hutchinson said. The SBC is trying to leave the decision in the hands of voters as much as possible, but “there will be something coming from our committee to let folks know what we’re thinking” in terms of a preferred concept, Fasciano added.

Residents at Monday’s multiboard meeting offered various other suggestions for the June vote, including allowing voters to choose which educational enhancements they would most like to see, or offering them a choice of three price points rather than specific design concepts.

Feedback from the various public forums so far has been overwhelmingly in favor of a compact building shape offering a high level of educational enhancement over the current school. However, people who attend such forums are often more engaged and informed and tend to be in favor of a project in general, and there will be a much broader cross-section of voters at Town Meeting, Glass noted.

Meanwhile, architects will present a seventh design concept to the SBC this week, and there will be another public forum in May to gauge sentiment and try to narrow down the options to be considered in June.

The June vote will focus only on a school project; the Community Center Preliminary Planning and Design Committee has agreed since the beginning of the planning process that construction on a community center will not start until after the school is complete, most likely in 2023. This is mainly because the school campus does not have space for construction staging areas and student swing space for two simultaneous projects, and there would not be any cost savings since the two projects are of such different sizes that the same contractors would not bid on both, officials said.

This is a disappointment to some seniors in town, including Barbara Low. “is it going to be another 10 years before a community center is looked at because there won’t be any more money [after the school project]?” she said.

But Hutchinson reassured her that town finances will not stand in the way. “We’re pretty comfortable that the community center could fairly quickly follow the school building project,” he said.

Though the bonding for both projects could be done in one go—or even borrowing the full amount for just the school in a single bond issue—this would be the :worst-case scenario,” hutchinson said. “Spreading it out will soften the impact a little bit.”

Current estimates for the school project range from $49 million to $109 million. Finance officials have already determined that the town can borrow up to about $97 million without affecting its bond rating or needing special permission from the state. However, the effect on individual property tax bills will carry more weight when it comes to how people vote, they noted.

“What the town can afford in a debt load/bond rating sense is not necessarily the same as residents’ appetite for expenditure,” FinCom member Andy Payne said. “What will residents be willing to invest in? That’s a very tough question to answer outside the ballot box but we’re trying to figure that out.”