With state aid in short supply, Seacoast communities struggle with aging schools
by Larry Clow
When Rollinsford voters head to town meeting this year, they’ll find on the ballot an article asking the school board to close the Rollinsford Grade School and send the town’s elementary and kindergarten students to schools in nearby Eliot and South Berwick, Maine.
The article, which made it onto the ballot following a citizens’ petition, arrives just as the school board is considering how to renovate the town’s 79-year-old elementary school. At a meeting last month, the board presented two options for renovation, each costing about $7 million. Some residents at the meeting weren’t happy with the price tag. School board vice-chair Judith Nelson said some residents suggested closing the school.
“There are some people in town who think we will save a lot of money if we close our elementary school,” Nelson said. “They’re saying, we already send grades seven through 12 (to Maine), let’s send kindergarten through six there.”
Rollinsford is the latest Seacoast community to struggle with the costs associated with renovating or replacing aging school buildings. It’s a familiar topic of debate in Newmarket. There, a 2014 warrant article asking voters to approve $45.1 million in bonds for a new junior/senior high school divided the town. Residents ultimately voted against the measure, and the town is still weighing whether it should repair the school, which was originally constructed in the 1920s, or build a new facility.
Large-scale projects like these are never easy for small communities like Newmarket and Rollinsford. The absence of state aid for school building projects since 2010 has made that difficult task almost impossible.
“It’s absolutely, 100 percent more difficult” to move forward with the project without state aid, Nelson said. “It would make a complete difference if there was building aid.”
State lawmakers enacted a moratorium on school building aid funding in 2010. That moratorium ends this year. And even though the program was overhauled in 2013, it’s unclear how much money the state will be able to provide towns looking to repair or replace aging schools.
“It’s absolutely, 100 percent more difficult. … It would make a complete difference if there was building aid.” — Rollinsford School Board
member Judith Nelson
A bitter pill
The Rollinsford Grade School was built in 1936; an annex was added in 1965, and a kindergarten wing was built in 1997. Like any old building, repairs have piled up. More than two years ago, the town’s budget committee asked the school board to begin looking at the cost of renovating the school, according to Nelson.
“Ever year for the last 10 years or so, some big-ticket items have come to the front at (town) budget time,” she said.
The board hired consultants and worked with an architect and construction management company to figure out the cost of improvements, including changes to the heating and ventilation systems, new windows, electrical and fire protection upgrades, a new roof, and refurbishing the cupola that sits atop the front of the school.
At a meeting last December, the board presented two renovation options, one costing $6.9 million and the other costing $7.7 million. Both options would address all the building’s deficiencies; the second option also includes the cost of a new gymnasium.
None of the renovations are critical, Nelson said; there are no fire or life safety code violations. But they are necessary to keep the aging building operating.
The first option would increase taxes by at least $2.07 per $1,000 of valuation; the second would increase taxes by at least $2.32 per $1,000. For a $200,000 home, that could mean an additional $414 to $464 in taxes each year.
“The fact is that all of us are taxpayers here in Rollinsford, and we realize that our taxes would go up hundreds of dollars … each year for 20 years on a bond issue. That’s a big pill to swallow,” she said.
The board is looking at the possibility of shuttering the grade school and sending students to MSAD 35, the Maine school district that encompasses Eliot and South Berwick. However, the warrant article on this year’s ballot is nonbinding. Even if voters approve it, the board is not obligated to follow through.
“We don’t want any community members … to vote on something when they don’t have the facts,” Nelson said. “What will it cost over five years, or 10 years? Is the educational program there one we want to send our children to?”
Uncertain aid
Aid from the state may be a long time coming.
Though the moratorium on funding for new school building projects ends this year, it’s unclear how much funding will be available for schools throughout the state.
In 2008, lawmakers changed how the state paid for school building aid. Instead of taking the money from the general fund, the payments for projects approved in the 2009-2011 fiscal years were instead bonded — in other words, they were put on the state’s metaphorical credit card. That added up to about $131 million. Before that, the state had already committed to spending almost $540 million over the next 30 years on previously approved projects, according to a 2011 report by the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies. This outstanding amount is called “the tail.”
The building aid program was overhauled and new regulations went into effect in 2013. Under the new program, the state will give 80 percent of the total funds it can provide a district up front, once a district has signed a contract with a construction company. The remaining 20 percent is provided after construction is complete, according to Tim Carney, an administrator with the Department of Education’s bureau of school safety and facility management.
Another change: there will be no additions to the tail, according to Carney. Since all funding will be paid up front, there will be no outstanding payments to make.
“The community hasn’t (voted for) a bond since the late 1980s, and some of the systems of the building’s useful life are getting near the end.”
— Newmarket superintendent Michael Martin
Under current legislation, the department is allowed to disperse a maximum of $50 million each year for school building aid. However, it must first make payments on the tail before it funds any new projects. The state currently owes roughly $406 million on the tail through fiscal year 2040. When the moratorium ends, Carney said $43 million of the $50 million for aid this year will go to paying off the tail, leaving some $7 million for new projects. “That could be one project,” he said.
The program will also become more competitive. Districts applying for aid will be ranked according to a scoring system that looks at safety issues, overcrowding, space deficiencies, and other factors. The state is also working on a “priority list” for school projects, Carney said.
How much state lawmakers will set aside for school building aid remains unclear. House bill 215, which would allow the school building aid program to disburse a minimum of $50 million each year, rather than a maximum of $50 million, had its first hearing in front of the House Education Committee on Jan. 20.
Moving ahead
Both Newmarket and Rollinsford voters will have at least another year to decide what to do. In December, Nelson said, the Rollinsford School Board voted to wait at least a year before bringing a warrant article before voters.
In Newmarket, too, the school board voted earlier this month to hold off on bringing a warrant article before voters this year. The town’s joint advisory committee, made up of members of the school board, the town council, and community members, next meets on Feb. 3.
Newmarket superintendent Michael Martin said a reserve fund is being used to pay for repairs to the school that will bring it in line with fire and life safety c