At a meeting Wednesday, the School Committtee’s facilities subcommittee, composed of Sarah Fox and Al Williams, agreed to recommend asking voters at May’s Town Meeting to raise their taxes for 30 years by approving an $8.6 million debt exclusion, to replace the high school’s leaky roof.
The full School Committee will vote on whether to accept that recommendation at its Thursday night meeting.
Town Finance Director Aleesha Benjamin told the Current that the debt exclusion would add $.06 per thousand, or $57.36, to the median tax bill based on $965,000 median single family value for 2025. The $.06 per thousand would stay on tax bills for 30 years.
Town Meeting in 2022 approved $5.3 million for the roof project, but it never happened. The estimate is now approximately $14 million and includes new HVAC units.
Benjamin pointed out that there is $1.6 million of unborrowed money left in the Brown School construction budget that could be reappropriated to the roof project, but that switch can’t be made until Town Meeting 2026.
Timeline
If the debt exclusion is approved at Town Meeting in May and the town’s election in June, the roof project would begin in the early summer of 2026.
“There’s a tremendous push from the community to do it now, do it now, but that would not be smart,” Fox said at Wednesday’s meeting, pointing out that the HVAC units are not available and it doesn’t make sense to place a new roof and then pull part of it up to install HVAC units.
Pfiffering concurred, saying that would add $2.5 million to the project.
The MHS roof leaks in several spots. Pfifferling said patches can be made (and funded from the facilities budget) until the replacement can be done.
Pfifferling said he shared the district’s other capital project priorities with Benjamin. They include:
- Air conditioning in the Glover School cafeteria, where the windows do not open. The cost: $70,000.
- Adding a second structure to the Glover School playground.
- Reupholstering seats and painting the Performing Arts Center at the Veterans School.
Pfifferling did not mention costs associated with the last two requests.
Editor Leigh Blander is an experienced TV, radio and print journalist.
