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June 17, 2006 - The new regulations the School Building Authority has proposed send cities and towns one basic message: Don’t do anything without us.
That could be frustrating for municipalities used to hiring an architect, negotiating their own contracts, and drawing up plans for a new building that are later presented to the state.
But on the up side, the authority plans to pay for enrollment projections, feasibility studies, facilities assessments and commissioning of buildings — including making sure staff is trained on how to run ventilation equipment and other systems.
The proposed regulations will affect new projects, not those already on the state waiting list, which will be reopened in July 2007.
“We’re trying to make it really easy for a community to talk to us,” School Building Authority Executive Director Katherine P. Craven said yesterday at Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School. “We’re going to convey bad news as well as good news as early as possible in the process.”
Yesterday’s hearing on the proposed regulations was the third of five scheduled statewide.
The biggest differences between the old and proposed regulations include:
•A space-per-student calculation that varies with enrollment, making it easier to build smaller schools. For example, an elementary school with fewer than 300 pupils would be allotted 180 gross square feet per pupil, while one built for 600 would be limited to 145 gross square feet per pupil.
•State reimbursement paid monthly.
•A statewide cap on annual SBA spending ($500 million for fiscal 2008).
•An increased focus on maintenance, including more reimbursement for districts with solid maintenance records and state matching money for local maintenance trust funds.
•Standard contracts for project managers, architects, engineers and contractors.
The new regulations will not consider school choice students in enrollment projections, which drew criticism from Penny P. Kelley of Upton, who has served on two school building committees, and state Sen. Richard T. Moore, D-Uxbridge. Ms. Kelley said there are 170 school choice students in the Mendon-Upton school system alone.
Mr. Moore also said some districts, such as Uxbridge, have already paid for plans for a new high school and shouldn’t have to go through another study. He was also concerned about the feasibility of funding projects in fiscal 2008, given the timeline the guidelines would establish and the fact that the authority cannot decide on any application until after July 1, 2007.
“The water’s been rising behind the dam of the moratorium, and as soon as the spillway is open, a lot of applications will come in,” Mr. Moore said.
Ms. Craven said districts can submit a statement of interest as a preliminary application.
The draft timeline for fiscal 2008 is:
•Districts submit a statement of interest by July 31, 2007;
•the SBA validates the district’s needs and evaluates potential solutions, which might require a facility assessment or feasibility study, August-December 2007;
•in January 2008, if the SBA determines the project is worth pursuing, it will execute a project scope and budget agreement with the district and decide whether to approve it;
•if approved, the district will have 90 days to get local approval;
•the project will generally call for three to 12 months of design work and three to five months for soliciting bids and awarding the contract;
•construction will run six to 36 months.
Eric G. Twickler, principal architect for Worcester’s Architectural Services Division in the Department of Public Works and Parks, praised the proposed regulations, particularly the new per-pupil space allotments.
“We’re now faced with a lot of sites where we might be able to get a 300-pupil school in where we couldn’t possibly get a 600-pupil student school in,” he said, adding that the new rules could also “renew some of the really old building sites with either major additions or new schools.”
Worcester has one major project on the waiting list: a new North High School. The project’s cost has risen steeply since the City Council approved it in 2000, but the state will not pay more than $45.5 million of the price tag, which stood at $69.1 million in April.
Ms. Craven, in Worcester this week, said she was waiting for new design work from the city and added that Worcester might qualify for low-interest loans through the SBA. Mr. Twickler said his department and the school department are working on design and waiting for more details on how much the city will be able to pay of the $23.6 million funding gap.
North High is one of seven schools in Central Massachusetts and 62 statewide that the SBA recently determined were in poor condition.
The others in Central Massachusetts are Briggs Elementary School in Ashburnham, Waterford Street Primary School in Gardner, John F. Kennedy Middle School in Hudson, Lura A. White Elementary School in Shirley and Thorndyke Road and Vernon Hill elementary schools in Worcester. Seventy-six percent of the state’s schools are in generally good condition, according to the SBA.
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