School building committee seeks 5‑year extension on land reverter clause amid MSBA timeline

The Milton School Building Committee asked the school committee on Aug. 20 to consider supporting a warrant article that would extend the five‑year reverter clause attached to a 2023 land swap for the school building project.

School committee members said the reverter clause — which returns land to its prior status if construction has not begun within five years — was included in the original town legislation. Committee members said the project’s acceptance into the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) brings state funding and oversight but also extended review timelines that could push project milestones past the five‑year mark.

“We were moving on a good timeline for that… until we hit the acceptance into MSBA,” the committee’s presenter said, explaining that MSBA’s process slowed the schedule and may cause the district to approach the reverter deadline. The proposed warrant article would extend the reverter period by an additional five years rather than remove the clause.

The school building committee voted unanimously to forward the warrant article to the fall town meeting process and planned to present the measure to the warrant committee. Committee members said the language largely mirrors the original town article but with an adjusted timeline and that the article will appear for consideration at the October town meeting; the district expects to hear MSBA’s formal acceptance of the module‑1 submission in the coming weeks.

Committee members said they would provide the school committee with the warrant language and that a vote of support from the school committee could be taken at a future meeting as the town prepares its fall warrant.