AMHERST – A financial plan is in place that would permit the town to spend around $100 million to undertake four municipal building projects, including constructing two, 375-student schools in one building at the Wildwood School site and enlarging and renovating the Jones Library.
But the long-term plan, presented by acting Finance Director Claire McGinnis at a meeting of five municipal boards Wednesday, raised concerns from some elected and appointed officials about its high costs to taxpayers, and whether it is fair only the school and library projects, and not a new Department of Public Works headquarters and a South Amherst fire station, would be subject to Proposition 2 ½ debt-exclusion override votes.
“This is a model that is getting to be functional,” McGinnis said.
McGinnis explained that the costs of the four buildings, pegged at between $96.5 million and $107.5 million, could be covered through voter and Town Meeting approval of overrides, an increase in annual capital spending, drawing on the town’s stabilization account and receiving significant state financial support.
Yet even with these varied sources of funding, a resident who owns a home with a median value of $306,300 would pay $500 more in taxes to support these when all are being paid for in fiscal year 2022.
Town Manager Paul Bockelman said the building projects are coming at an opportune time, as there are projects that will soon be paid off, and the town has been putting money into a stabilization fund, a sort of savings account, that could be used to reduce costs to taxpayers.
“We have several years to prepare for the impact on our budget,” Bockelman said.
But Finance Committee members are worried about the impact on town spending. Timothy Neale said town officials have to find ways to soften the increase in taxes, and Anurag Sharma said there should be ways to reduce spending elsewhere in the budget.
Select Board member Constance Kruger said it will be critical to show residents that town and school operating and capital budgets can be trimmed.
“The more sensitivity, the more discipline approaching the projects, the more receptive” the public will be, Kruger said.
Austin Sarat, president of the trustees for the Jones Library, said he worries that only the library and school are directly facing voters, with the $66.4 million Wildwood School project on the Nov. 8 election ballot, and the $32 million Jones project likely to follow a year later. Some residents, nervous that they can’t afford all four building projects, may vote against one or the other of those that come to a vote, Sarat said.
The Select Board earlier this year scheduled the override for the Wildwood project, which would get $33.9 million from Massachusetts School Building Authority program and rely on $32.5 million in local spending. The debt exclusion vote will be followed by a vote to authorize the spending at fall Town Meeting that begins Nov. 14.
Acting School Superintendent Michael Morris said the Wildwood project is essential because teachers can’t do project-based learning well at either Wildwood or Fort River due to the noise levels in the buildings constructed more than 40 years ago with an open classroom model.
“Our students and staff deserve better than what they have at Wildwood and Fort River right now,” Morris said.
Library Director Sharon Sharry said the Jones project will seek approval at Town Meeting next spring to move forward, with plans submitted to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. The commissioner will rank the top tier projects next summer, and if the Jones is in the top eight or 10, money will be sought at fall Town Meeting in 2017.
The current projections for this project include $15 million from the town, $12 million from the state and $5 million from a capital campaign.
Sharry said the Jones is no longer adequate in size for all the functions for “a diverse town of 39,000 in the 21st century.” And this will be the best opportunity for the state to cover 40 percent of the project costs. “Similar funding will not be available again until before 2024, probably later,” Sharry said.
Lynn Griesemer, chairwoman of the DPW/ Fire Station Advisory Committee, said the committee is in the process of negotiating to hire a consultant to undertake a fire station feasibility study, and another consultant for a second phase of a DPW study.
Current estimates are that a fire station would cost $11 to $13 million, based on a 22,000-square-foot building, while a new DPW would come in at a cost of $38 million, based on 79,000-square-foot building.
The committee is seeking $75,000 for the fire station feasibility study at fall Town Meeting, and will ask for $350,000 at the same session for preliminary schematic designs of a new DPW headquarters.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
