Schools will request Special Town meeting
Published on October 10th, 2001
STONEHAM, MA - The School Department scrapped its $5 million October Town Meeting warrant article, indefinitely postponed the opening and dedication of the new Central School, and discussed calling a Special Town Meeting in December to ask for around $6 million to complete the elementary school building project.
In September the School Committee had sponsored an article for the Oct. 29 Town Meeting, asking for $5 million to fund construction cost overruns, mostly at Central. But replacing a defective sidewalk ramp at Central and redesigning inadequate drainage systems at the Robin Hood and Colonial Park Schools may cost more than $900,000 — in addition to the $5 million in overruns from the original $39.5 million price tag seen at the Oct. 1997 Town Meeting. Town Meeting approved the project at that cost, and in December of 1997 a town-wide secret ballot vote approved a debt exclusion override from Proposition 2 1/2’s property tax cap.
According to a letter sent from the Department of Revenue to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Joseph Connelly, the schools don’t need another town-wide debt exclusion override vote to borrow the additional money because of the language in the original May 1997 article. But the 2001 Town Meeting has to approve any new spending. Annual property taxes for an owner of a $300,000 home in Stoneham would be only $180 higher, assuming a $45 million project was on the books, according to the Finance Board. But the town will be paying off this debt for decades, and many town officials are wary of coming back to the till too many times.
“I think we all agree: we want to go once-that’s it,” said Dan Hogan, Chairman of the School Building Committee.
An Oct. 4 joint meeting of the School Committee, School Building Committee, Finance Board and Selectmen decided to wait for the final figure before asking the town for anything. Design cost estimates won’t be ready in time for the Oct. 29 Town Meeting, so the committees decided to shoot for Dec. 3 or 10.
With an average school budget close to $20 million and separate warrant articles for tens of thousands of dollars, some committee members are worried about losing the support of those people who voted for the project in 1997 and who voted to pay for materials and technology and feasibility studies over the past three years.
“The people have got to realize that they’ve made a commitment to the children,” Hogan said.
“The Building Committee has done a tremendous job,” Connelly said. The Committee has met around 180 times over four years with at least eight out of 11 members at each meeting.
“But $5 million is a lot of money,” said Finance Board member Peter D’Angelo. The number was closer to six million by the end of the Oct. 4 meeting. Watching the building project bottom line has been like watching the numbers at the gas pump while holding the nozzle at full throttle. Everyone’s waiting for the click.
History and funding
In 1997 voters approved a plan to build new Central and South Schools and to make major renovations to Robin Hood and Colonial Park. The project would cost $39.5 million, but the School Building Assistance Bureau (SBAB) of the Department of Education would reimburse Stoneham for 63 percent of the cost. The work would be complete by 2006.
Flansburgh Associates of Boston is the architectural firm that designed the work. Flansburgh hired Hanscomb, Inc. of Cambridge to do the cost estimates of the job. Hanscomb included a calculation for construction cost escalation in the estimate, but because of a construction boom from 1997 through 2000, the actual costs rose more rapidly than estimated, and the South and Central Schools ran overbudget.
“This was the worst time in ten years to do estimates,” said architect David DeFilippo, the Project Manager from Flansburgh.
The SBAB only funds construction up to a certain amount per square foot. And the SBAB construction escalation calculation built into the funding formula was not keeping pace with real costs either. The schools had underestimated both how much they would need to spend and how much they would get back.
But creative strategies and some rare good luck helped to hold the project together as the new millennium began. The state was spending close to $50 million each year in the late 1990s as opposed to the $15 million or so average of previous years. The increased funding meant more projects were getting done. Stoneham took advantage of this situation by condensing the schedule of the schools project. School districts have one year from when they hit the top of the list to begin construction. If Stoneham could get the schools built faster, then money would be saved on escalation costs.
Superintendent Connelly also helped the bottom line by convincing the state to give Stoneham a waiver to consider $1.2 million in work above the SBAB cost limit as reimbursable. Connelly successfully argued that the unforeseen costs of $300,000 of soil removal at South and $900,000 of soil remediation at Central should be reimbursed at the 63 percent level.
With South open, Central more than 90 percent complete and $17 million left, the School Department knew they needed more money and a little more time. As of September, $5 million looked like it would finish the job. And Connelly had convinced the state to delay Colonial Park for one year without forfeiting its place on the funding list. Robin Hood must have a shovel in the ground by July 2002. Colonial Park needs to break ground before July 2003. But funding begins for both schools in 2003.
Then test borings at Robin Hood and Colonial and a site inspection at Central revealed the most recent surprises.
Colonial Park School
Engineer Josh Alston of Judith Nitsch Engineering, Inc. in Boston discovered that a 1997 Stoneham Conservation Commission decision designated a section of the Robin Hood School grounds as “isolated land subject to flooding,” meaning special consideration must be taken under the Wetlands Protection Act. If the water levels have not changed since 1997 and the land is still subject to the Act, a retention pond the size of the school soccer field would be required.
“That could cost upwards of $500,000,” DeFilippo said.
The School Department has requested a spot on the Conservation Commission’s Oct. 17 agenda.
Robin Hood School
In the Oak Street neighborhood adjacent to the Robin Hood School, flooding has been a problem for years. The town is working on a comprehensive program to improve drainage around town. If the school building project had stretched the eight years originally envisioned, offsite drainage work on Oak Street would have been complete by the time work on the school began. But the town has no plans nor money set aside to do the project before 2002.
Flansburgh architects estimate drainage work will cost anywhere from $100,000 to $375,000.
“This is not a rate problem; it’s a volume problem. The surrounding ground just cannot hold the volume of water coming from the school site,” said engineer and School Building Committee member Steve O’Neill. Larger drainage pipes may be necessary.
Central School
The sidewalk ramp leading from the front door of the Central School to the corner near the Middle School has a horizontal slope — building to school — that is three degrees off from the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This doesn’t seem like much, but the whole sidewalk has to be ripped up and redone.
Flansburgh blames Alexandra. Alexandra blames Flansburgh. No one has said how much the work will cost.
“We don’t want to place blame. We just want the schools built,” Connelly said.
A property owner has the legal right to file a construction change directive (CCD) for work that has been somehow delayed. A CCD requires the work be complete before a price is negotiated. The joint forces of the Oct. 4 meeting decided that a CCD is the best way to get the sidewalk done.
Moving in
The School Department originally planned to move into the Central School on Sept. 1. That was postponed until Oct. 5 and then pushed back to Oct. 19. For now, the move is on hold, but before Christmas sounds like a safe estimate. The official dedication ceremony, originally scheduled for Oct. 27, will be held after the kids are in the building.
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