By Alice Waugh
At Town Meeting on March 29, residents approved spending up to $250,000 to come up with options and cost estimates for school renovation projects, but not without considerable discussion and a number of dissenting votes—though not enough to derail the measure, which required a two-thirds majority vote.
“I’m here because you have asked for choices, and this warrant article will give us the tools to give you what you asked for,” said Jennifer Glass, chair of the School Committee. The sum was transferred from the town’s Debt Stabilization Fund, meaning it will not draw from current property tax revenues, she emphasized.
The warrant article was a last-minute addition to the Town Meeting agenda after residents at a multiboard meeting in February took issue with the School Committee’s original plan, which did not involve asking for any money at last week’s Town Meeting. Instead, the committee had planned to ask voters at a special town meeting in fall 2014 if (1) they wanted to try again for state funding, and (2) they would approve spending to study repair/renovation options that would be paid for solely by Lincoln funds.
But several residents at the multiboard meeting said they couldn’t make an informed decision about the state funding issue without first seeing cost estimates for a selection of “Lincoln-only” repair and renovation projects.
Four studies over the past decade have shown the need for significant repairs and safety improvements at the school including work on windows and window walls, a boiler, a smokestack, and the walls of Reed Gym. To pay for those needs as well as other improvements such as a kitchen and cafeteria, a covered link to Reed Gym, improved air quality and lighting, and more flexible educational space in some areas, the School Committee proposed a comprehensive project costing $49 million, $21 million of which was approved for reimbursement by the state. However, the funding request failed to garner the necessary two-thirds majority at a special town meeting in 2012 and the state rescinded its funding offer as a result, so efforts are now focusing on “Lincoln-only” options.
The $250,000 would build on previous studies as well as the work of the School Building Advisory Committee (SBAC) to identify individual repair and renovation projects and get updated specific cost estimates for each. “Even with the previous work, there are still holes in our information,” Glass said, because previous studies including the Maguire Group report focused on a large project that would meet all the requirements of the Massachusetts School Building Authority to secure its funding.
“This will help us understand [project components] in bits and pieces” and “building blocks,” she said.
The four previous school studies have cost the town a total of $665,000, said Finance Committee chair Laura Sander.
Comparing costs
The $49 million price tag for the comprehensive project was still lower per square foot than the $6.8 million cost of renovating the Town Office Building and the $34 million cost of a new Hanscom middle school, Glass said.
Some residents at Town Meeting objected to the amount of money that the School Committee was requesting. Glass answered that for reasons including the school’s size, the new study requires a project manager who will oversee creation of schematic plans and construction documents as well as consider state code compliance work that may be required, swing space where students would attended classes while parts of the building were being worked on, opportunities for collaborating with consultants who will soon be studying detailed options for a community center and the lifespan of the various repair/renovation projects.
“Part of the conversation is: how much does this get us and for how long?” Glass said.
The Finance Committee and Capital Planning Committee both supported the $250,000 request. “We believe a good array of choices is what the town has been calling for, with good data behind those choices,” said CapComm member Andy Beard.
Sander noted that the request was significantly less than the $517,000 that officials sought to add this year to the Debt Stabilization Fund (a sum residents approved later in the Town Meeting). Before Saturday, the fund’s balance stood at $2.04 million, Finance Committee member Peyton Marshall said.
Resident Sara Mattes said she was “quite alarmed” not only at the amount being requested but also at the notion that a consultant would work with the school administration. She suggested that the town “cull the information we already have with the talent in town, come up with some order of magnitude on a variety of choices, bake some cakes… and then have the town zero in on or one or two choices” to get a “reality check” on dollar amounts, and only then allot money for a detailed analysis of those options.
The four previous studies as well as public data held by the Massachusetts School Building Authority offer plenty of cost figures, “and we don’t need to spend a dime to get new ones,” said resident Graham Atkin, adding that he would much rather spend $80,000 for another teacher to reduce class sizes than “spend a quarter million dollars to rehash numbers that we already have.”
Peter Sugar, who was on the SBAC, said it was “too early” to be allocating more money and that no more should be spent until an SBAC establishes priorities for school projects.
In response to these comments, Finance Committee member Eric Harris, emphasizing that he was speaking as a private resident, noted that the School Committee was asking for the $250,000 only because residents at the February multiboard meeting asked to proceed this way. “Now essentially we’re getting communication from some of the same people who wanted more options that the way we’re doing this is not adequate,” he said.
The SBAC did not have the resources to come up with cost estimates for alternatives to the preferred option, said SBAC member Maggy Pietropaolo. “We need to have choices, and we can’t come up with choices without more detailed information,” she said. “We need more than an educated guess to spend millions of dollars, and we need to get the information now.
Residents Joanna Hopkins and Vincent Cannistraro (who was a member of the SBAC and candidate for selectman) suggested rewording the motion to specify that the consultant must work with the SBAC. “We need to provide a broader view from the very beginning, which I think was lacking in the previous process,” Hopkins said.
But town counsel Joel Bard noted that the group was officially disbanded and no longer exists. The motion that eventually passed called for the school administration to work “in close consultation” with a new School Building Advisory Committee appointed by the School Committee and the town moderator, as the first SBAC was.
Other school spending
Separate warrant articles at Town Meeting approved the following spending for the Lincoln School:
- $137,355 to replace the wetlands boardwalk and observation tower from the school to the muster field (Article 12)
- $50,000 to rehabilitate the Smith playground (Article 12)
- $50,000 for replacement switchgear for the Brooks school building (Article 9)
- $75,000 for annual classroom maintenance (Article 13)
- Up to $800 for two bike racks (Article 10). This motion was written by the Grade Eight Warrant Article Group after students successfully submitted a citizens petition to get the article onto the Town Meeting warrant. It was approved after a presentation and Q&A by the students.