Schools

Daily Buzz | Cost Estimates for Elementary Projects Presented

Preliminary tax increase estimates also presented

Nicci Kadilak

Jun 29, 2023 — 3 min read

Good Morning, Burlington!

The Elementary School Building Committee met last night with the primary intention of discussing numbers, at last. The financial spreadsheet was very detailed, and there’s no hope of (or reason for) replicating it here, so expect a focused overview of a few different scenarios. Note, also, that these numbers are rough preliminary estimates.

As you might know, the MSBA requires us to look at 8 main options (with sub-options for some) to compare costs and determine which option best suits our town’s needs and desires with respect to the new elementary school. Not all of those options will be feasible to meet our educational program, and I won’t post costs for them because (a) it’s a lot of numbers and (b) the likelihood we’d undertake them is vanishingly small. Options I won’t be outlining here:

Option 1: Repairs and Code Upgrades for 325 students at Fox Hill
Option 2: Fox Hill Addition/Renovation for 325 students
Option 4: Repairs and Code Upgrades for 325 students at Fox Hill
Option 5: Fox Hill Addition/Renovation for 640 students (3-story only; traffic flow would not be improved)
Option 7: Pine Glen Addition/Renovation for 640 students (3-story only, limits capacity for amenities and traffic needs can’t be met)

You can always see the entire presentation online, along with the spreadsheet and summary, but the below options are the most likely to be considered by the town and the MSBA. Here are the projects with the total cost and then the district’s share after MSBA reimbursement.

Option 3: New Fox Hill Construction for 325 students (2- or 3-story, four total sub-options)
- Total Cost: $101M to $107M, depending on which sub-option is chosen
- District Share: $78.8M to $84.1M
Option 6: New Fox Hill construction for 640 students (2 sub-options)
- Total Cost:$152M
- District Share: $113M
Option 8: New Pine Glen Construction for 640 students
- Total Cost: $141M
- District Share: $109.4M
Option 9 (non-MSBA option): New Pine Glen Construction for 325 students (likely 3-story only, not subject to reimbursement)
- Total Cost: $93M
- District Share: $93M

Reimbursement percentage from the MSBA is based on a formula that subtracts out ineligible costs, including construction costs above a certain cost per square foot; the effective reimbursement for options 3, 6, 8, and 9 is in the mid-20% range after everything is factored in.

A few notes to consider as you digest these figures:

Once again, these numbers are preliminary and intended to demonstrate proportional cost for each of the options (i.e. tax impact doubles between a single new, small school and two of them). They will change as time passes, and nothing is set in stone yet. They’re here for us to begin the conversation—they’re not the end of the conversation.
A high school, much larger and more expensive, is on the horizon very soon. Whether it is renovated, rebuilt, or some combination of the two, it’s going to cost multiple hundreds of millions.
A new police station is also being studied and needs to be built ASAP.
The presentation didn’t go into all the different options for paying for these projects, and I don’t pretend to be an expert, but it’s unrealistic to believe the taxpayers won’t need to pick up a pretty big part of the burden for these projects over the next years and decades. The chair noted that the funding will still require a Town Meeting vote and even a town-wide vote if a debt exclusion is required. Therefore the SBC truly will need to determine which option will be supported by the entire town.
Ways & Means presented some preliminary numbers to this effect: The median taxpayer would be affected by estimated increases of $259/year for only a smaller Fox Hill. For a larger building that would house both Fox Hill and Pine Glen, the number is $356; building 2 small schools brand-new would increase the median taxpayer’s burden by $552.

It was mentioned that we could rebuild a small Fox Hill using MSBA funds (around $80M district share), but also mentioned that this has the potential to increase inequity among the school sites; equity ranked very high in a survey of importance conducted by the Building Committee several weeks ago.

Be sure to join the School Building Committee on July 11 for a community forum to officially present these figures and answer any questions or concerns from the community.