The School Committee, during its Wednesday, Sept. 13 meeting, unanimously voted to approve sending the $135,289,673 plan for a new grade five to eight Whitman Middle School building — with an auditorium — intended to last and serve educational needs for 50 years, to the voters at the Oct. 30 special Town Meeting and to a Nov. 4 special election ballot.
The town stands to obtain $89,673,000 in reimbursements from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for the project.
The plan had been approved by the WMS Building Committee at its Aug. 15 meeting and survived an effort to rescind it in favor of a grade six to eight plan with a cafetorium instead of an auditorium at the building panel’s Aug. 28 meeting.
“We were accepted [by MSBA] in our first go-round because they saw the need for a new middle school,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said, asking if that was a common occurrence for school projects. “If you postpone, you start rolling the dice.”
He said the project is at a critical point, if a middle school is to open in 2027.
“If I had a district calling me today … I would say to expect to potentially get in within three to five years,” said the committee’s Owner Project Manager Michael Carroll “It’s very unusual to put a statement of interest in the first time and get accepted right away.”
Carroll attended the School Committee meeting to brief them on the plan and the events of the Aug. 28 meeting.
“The Building Committee voted 9-0, with one abstention [former member John Galvin] to move the project forward,” said Szymaniak. He noted that the Whitman Select Board, on the other hand, had voted 3 to 2 [with Justin Evans and Shawn Kain against] on Tuesday, Sept. 12 to ask the School Committee to consider not voting on the project Wednesday.
impact of delay
Carroll was also asked to explain what could happen if the School Committee postponed its vote.
“Would we be out of the queue?” Szymaniak asked. “Would MSBA turn its back to us?”
He noted that Carroll is “relatively new to us,” having come on board with the project three weeks ago, but Szymaniak added, he had hit the ground running.
“There was a lot of discussion about budgets, there was a lot of discussion about the project, and we looked at different options,” Carroll said of the Aug. 28 meeting. “At the end of that meeting there was a vote taken to move forward with the school project as it currently stands.”
Carroll described an atmosphere of urgency as the committee worked on a schematic design package to submit to the MSBA, sending it to the building authority on Aug. 31 after the Aug. 28 vote.
“They’re reviewing it, they’ve given us a few questions,” he said. “They’re actually looking to talk to us about budgets next week. [The week of Sept. 18-22].
The MSBA project coordinator and project manager, who work specifically on the WMS plans, review it first and then with authority higher-ups with the ultimate objective to bring it before the MSBA board on Oct. 25.
“The assumption here is that they would be approving us,” Carroll said. When that happens, MSBA will forward a project funding agreement to the district and town. Carroll said that defines the funding agreement and, therefore, the overall project budget, which would go to Town Meeting and then the ballot question on Nov. 4.
Szymaniak asked how a postponement, as the Select Board had urged them to do, would affect the process.
“The MSBA would have to grant us a postponement, is that correct?” he asked. “It’s not a done deal?”
“When we entered into our agreement and feasibility study, we agreed to provide them our schematic design package within a certain time period,” Connor said, noting that, while he did not have that date on him, he believed it was Oct. 17. “If we were to withdraw our proposal, or ask to withdraw our proposal, one of the first things that we’d have to do is ask for an extension of that time. We’d have to explain to them why and … if we hadn’t submitted our package already … the MSBA is very accommodating.”
He said they do not want to continue to extend and extend and extend, but if there is a logical reason you need to do some reconsideration, there’s really typically no problem there.
They have, however, already submitted the schematic design plan and, while it has not gone to the MSBA board for a vote yet, he said he would think they would allow the district to withdraw it, but “we certainly ought to have a discussion on that before I would say that we could.”
Chair Beth Stafford, who pointed out that it would cost about $60 million just to get the current building up to code, said her concern was losing time as they worked to vote on whether to trim the $5 million in Teir 1 options from the plan. Funds for repairing the current school would also not be reimbursable, nor would the cost of the portable classrooms that would be needed while work is done.
Connor confirmed that they would have to confer with MSBA on how changes might impact the project.
While MSBA has not finalized their budget form, which will feed into the project funding agreement and what the vote entailed could have lowered that number.
“If we raised the number, we’d have to withdraw it, but if we’re lowering the number, I don’t know what the answer is,” Connor said. “We’d have to have that discussion.”
If a change is made to the project, it makes the process less definitive, he said. Building costs are also escalating, he explained.
“We can’t make that decision on this without talking to them and getting advice from them,” Carroll explained. The town could reconsider and do nothing, reconsider and ask for an adjustment to the overall project, ask the MSBA for an adjustment or to withdraw the proposal, which would require their input on what that withdrawal would mean and what duration they would be thinking about.
“The important thing here is, once they vote – if we do nothing – if they’ve approved us for a funding agreement, that’s kind of the point of no return,” he said. “Once they’ve done that, we’ve got to move forward with that project.”
Carroll said contingency funds are built into the budget in case change-orders come about.
“Virtually all my jobs, I’ve had the ability to send some of that contingency back,” he said.
Parents’ support
A quartet of residents spoke in favor of the project as approved by the WMS Building Committee on Aug. 28. expressing concern about the “near certainty of increased building costs” if the project is rejected or delayed.
“As we debate this huge topic, it’s important to remember that in order to just renovate the building and get it up to code has approximately a $60 million price tag on it and that would be 100-percent on the residents of Whitman,” said Leah Donovan, of 81 Old Mansion Lane, said during the public comment period. “There’s no funding available from the state. That’s a hefty sum or money for fixes that need to be done again and again and again.”
Small pointed out that the $60 million would not be a renovation, it’s a repair of what is broken and bring things to code.
Donovan said the town wants to take advantage of available MSBA funding, and that means a new school.
“That price tag is between $73 and $89 million at this point,” she said, noting that $10 million of that is contingency that might not be needed and residents would not be taxed on that. “That’s a staggering number for sure – I get it – but that price is not going to go down.”
Contingency funds are budgeted in case an unforseen problem adds to the cost of a project after a building budget is approved.
She said her fear is that, if the district doesn’t go ahead with a new school, they will end up paying the same price for a lesser school at some point down the road.
“We have an opportunity to do what’s right for the younger residents of the town,” Donovan said, asking the committee to give residents a chance to speak through their votes at Town Meeting and a ballot question.
Elizabteh Dagnall of 316 School St., also spoke in favor of the new WSM plan during the public forum.
“There seems to be a lot of fear surrounding this project,” she said. “Fear that it’s too large in scope, fear that it won’t be voted through, and fear as the main motivation in any situation can be a very damaging thing.”
She noted that, as the mother of a 13-year-old boy, she could be scared all the time, if she allowed herself to be.
“I can tell you that worrying amounts to nothing more than a state of worry,” Dagnall said. “What I’m learning as the parent of a teen is that Trust is far better than fear. Trust. When I allow for trust, the answer to ‘Are we going to be OK?’ surprises me. It often turns out to be something like this: ‘We are going to be more than OK. We are going to be great.’”
She challenged officials to, instead of fearing that it won’t pass at the ballot box, that “we trusted that it can.”
Julia Sheehan of 38 Beal Ave., thanked the committee and the building committee for their work on the WMS project so far.
“At this point, there is no way to drastically change the scope of the project without significant delays and even risking our grant from the MSBA,” she said. “Given that, I hope this committee will move forward with the Oct. 30 Town Meeting and the Nov. 4 vote. I believe the people of Whitman should have the opportunity to get out and vote.”
Julia Nanigan of 28 Forest St., who was born and raised in Whitman, said of all the schools she attended in Whitman, only WMS is still here and exactly the same as when she grew up.
“It’s pretty awful,” she said of the need for a new middle school. “We have to do this, and kicking the can down the road, we know is going to end up costing us more money. I think we just need to do it.”