Sheffield — The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) Wednesday (January 14) officially approved an estimated $2.6 million for the replacement of Mt. Everett Regional High School’s 23-year-old failing boilers and leaky roof next summer and into fall. The state reimbursement represents about 39 percent of the estimated $7.7 million cost of the two projects, a figure that includes 10 percent in contingencies for possible overruns, and which the MSBA does not reimburse.
The $2,612,552 funded through the MSBA’s Accelerated Repair Program is a “maximum Total Facilities Grant,” and does not include those contingencies, but the project may qualify for extra reimbursements up to $2,743,157 upon review, wrote MSBA Executive Director John K. McCarthy in a letter to Southern Berkshire Regional School District Superintendent David Hastings.
Also, McCarthy wrote, “the final grant amount may be an amount less than $2,612,552.” Hastings explained that “this is because the reimbursement, based on 39.21 percent, would be reduced as the total project costs reduce.”
The 10 percent in contingencies had been added to the project estimate “just in case they find rotting or other problems [with the roof],” Hastings said. “But I don’t think it will get anywhere near that [amount].”
“In the end, even though taxpayers have to approve the full amount, the bonds will be what we actually spend, and the first payment will be almost a year after the project begins,” Hastings added.
Southern Berkshire has 90 days to get “local approval” for all facets of the project, including “cost, site, type, scope and timeline,” according to McCarthy.
The district is composed of five towns: Alford, Egremont, New Marlborough, Monterey and Sheffield. The towns, which hold their town meetings in May, will be asked to hold earlier special elections in order to hasten the project so it does not disrupt school while it is in session, according to school committee chair Carl Stewart. It is still “unclear how the vote will be done,” he added, whether each town will vote separately, or all residents of the towns will vote together. This process, however, will be decided at a special school committee meeting next Tuesday, January 20.
On Wednesday, January 21 at 6:30 pm, the district will hold an informational meeting in Mt. Everett’s auditorium to help residents make an “informed” decision when they vote, Stewart said. Project experts will be on hand to discuss the project, answer questions and hand out literature.
A wood pellet silo similar to the one that will be installed at Mt. Everett Regional High School.
Southern Berkshire will also get $360,000 from the state’s Department of Energy Resources (DOER) SAPHIRE program (Schools and Public Housing Integrating Renewables and Efficiency) towards the cost of a wood pellet boiler to replace the current oil system, and $10,000 of that DOER money will go towards “soft costs like engineering.” SAPHIRE collaborates with the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and the MSBA to promote renewable thermal heating and cooling upgrades in public schools and public housing.
A feasibility study funded by SAPHIRE says a pellet boiler, with an upfront cost of $808,000, will give the school an annual fuel savings of 67,600 gallons (of oil) and a $76,631 annual “lifecycle cost saving.”
In an email to all the towns’ Selectboard members informing them of the MSBA’s approval, Hastings also wrote that the district “will be submitting bills to MSBA for reimbursement on a minimum monthly basis throughout the project period, so that by the end of the construction, we will have paid around 61 percent and MSBA will have paid around 39 percent.” The district’s share will be “paid out of a short-term loan (something like a construction loan) which will be turned into a bond when the project is done.”
Hastings also noted that of all the Accelerated Repair Program projects accepted by the MSBA Monday, “our project is the largest, by far…” and that reimbursement rates are based on a host of variables that include “the relative wealth of the towns…”
“You will see, if you get your calculator out,” Hastings wrote, “that some districts’ projects are funded at a much higher rate than ours.”
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