Report on school construction from Mass Inc and WRRB

 This was released yesterday

How great is the clever title?
A building foundation...the foundation budget?

The upshot is that if Shrewsbury has nine schools, and Worcester has fifty schools, and each can build one new school at a time, when we get to the end of any set of time, Shrewsbury can rebuild all of its schools before Worcester has rebuilt a fifth of theirs.

a quick note on Doherty

 I'm traveling this week, so on and offline, but passing along the following update regarding Doherty after the fire earlier this week at the construction site:

As reported, it is believed the fire stemmed from a welding incident. There's no hot work going on at the site until a new plan has been reviewed and approved by the Fire Department. There was also a site-wide project stand down while safety procedures were reviewed.

There's been a thorough review of the building and any damage to the structure is isolated to the roof area above the 6th floor of building D.  All necessary repairs will be completed without additional cost to the City through insurance.

The work is being re-sequenced while repairs are going on, and work elsewhere in the building is continuing.

it is not anticipated that this will impact the schedule for opening in the fall of 2024.

Liveblog: January Board of Ed on the budget

 Bell: "while we await the Governor's FY23 state budget proposal" (TOMORROW!)
working through FY22 budget
enrollment reserve: close to finalizing a recommendation on a methodology for that
will go to Secretary and Governor for review before going to the Legislature (wait, it has to do what?)
$55M Legislative bill passed:
HVAC, Compensatory services, educator diversity initiative, 53 separate Legislative earmarks

close to $3B in federal funding being managed
I missed how much of ESSER I has been drawn down; I'll ask
30% in ESSER II out
75% of applications approved for ESSER III
not yet approved: a lot of construction related; have to ensure that they adhere to state and federal procurement
$1.66B; approved about 3/4 of a billion of those funds out so far

looks like further Legislative action: masking and testing funding; not yet on Governor's desk

Peyser now arguing that DESE's isn't the bottleneck
districts enabled "to spend money as its needed"

Moriarty asking about outreach to families on compensatory services

Bell: let's be smart about getting it out there
$100M HVAC can be spent until 2027
even modest HVAC construction isn't going to happen overnight
"some of these things are multi year in nature"
Hills: school committee members are very focused on the cliff
to a large degree "money is fungible at the local level"
cliff impacts spending at local level "to a degree maybe not clear at this level"
"this is an issue that more people are following, what the real cliff is, than might be apparent"

Bell: local governance are still running their local appropriations
SOA: there are going to be additional funds coming
"how do you thoughtfully link up" those funding
DESE also managing private school federal support

Peyser: 2027 aligns with full implementation of SOA 
front load their investments that they might have to otherwise phase in
when funds were appropriated, was concern that there would be a hole
in addition to the one time COVID related expenses, a chance to front load

West: deadline to spending? or obligating?
Bell: expenditure dates

Hills: SOA plans? 
Riley: submitted. Have been very clear to districts about this phase in pick up of SOA from federal funding

AND ADJOURNED

Nelson Place construction starts this week!

We've just received the following from Fontaine Brothers, who are building the new Nelson Place:

Construction at Nelson Place will begin this week.  Activities during the first few days will include

- Work on access roads around each side of the existing school
- Construction of a ramp to create access from the lower side of the parking lot to the upper play area
- Installation of construction fence and erosion controls
- Tree clearing at the upper site

There will be no blasting during this upcoming week or the week of July 20th, and we will continue to provide updates on upcoming construction activities so that you are aware of what to expect.  

The plan at this time is for work hours to be Monday-Saturday, 7 am to 5 pm.

Nelson Place March update

Reminder: in a Feasibility study phase
updating as we go...
"have gotten back to us with some comments on how it could improve" before going on to the next step
going on to analyse the three options
Next public hearing: May 17 at 7 pm regarding Preferred Schematic Design
Vote: June 4 at 7 pm on Preferred Schematic Design

Mass School Building Authority presentation

really glad not to have to come up with what happens if Q.3 passed (1 cent of 6.25 sales tax dedicated to MSBA)


$2 billion backlog in funding when they took over
waitlist of 44 buildings when MSBA took over; last 2 are currently building
auditing has made this a much better, more honest process

1776 schools been reviewed
progress payment system: check is in the mail 15 days after district bill is reviewed ("pay as you build")
last year of $2.5 billion of the first five years of the capital pipeline
$500 million to spend a year

Grafton's high school passes

Congratulations to the town of Grafton on passing construction of a new Grafton High School today!