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School Building Committee lays out three project options and targets fall referendum
Summary
The School Building Committee presented three options — renovate Hall with an addition, build new on the Hall site, or build new on a separate parcel — released preliminary cost and tax‑impact estimates, and said it expects to seek voter approval in late September or early October after further community engagement.
The School Building Committee on Wednesday summarized three distinct approaches to address the district's school facilities needs and offered preliminary plans to mitigate tax impact.
Jim Marshall, chair of the School Building Committee, told the Board of Selectmen the committee and its consultants have produced order‑of‑magnitude project budgets for three options: a renovation and addition to Hall School, a new school on the Hall site, and new construction on a separate parcel under consideration. Marshall said the team is continuing to refine geotechnical and site work estimates and has scheduled additional community Q&A sessions in coming weeks.
"We are projecting or targeting a referendum sometime early October or late September," Marshall said, adding that the committee is working with a financial adviser to structure paydown and debt service so taxpayers would not see an immediate levy increase at construction start.
Marshall said the committee's initial financing approach would use capital reserve savings accumulated over recent years to defer most tax impacts until a new building becomes operational. The analysis shown to the board assumed a conservative reimbursement rate from state grant programs and a 20‑year debt term; it also assumed contingency allowances were fully expended and used a cautious projection of operational savings from consolidation.
Committee presenters emphasized the estimates remain preliminary and are subject to refinement as design, reimbursements and enrollment assumptions are finalized. The team plans geotechnical investigation work on proposed new‑site parcels over the next month and has approved limited site clearing to allow test drilling.
Marshall said the reimbursement assumptions in the cost models use the current range of eligible state grant rates and that final figures could improve the town's position.
The committee plans multiple outreach steps before a referendum, including a senior‑center Q&A, presence at summer concerts and postcard mailings with executive summaries of the options and the likely tax impacts. "We want to make sure the community can make an informed decision," Marshall said.
Next steps: the committee will finalize project scopes, refine cost estimates with the OPM and architects, and post a more detailed tax‑impact schedule before recommending a single project to the Selectmen and the Board of Finance for inclusion in a grant application and potential referendum.
