Focus on Fox Hill Part 5: What Happens if The Project Doesn't Pass?

This series has focused on one aspect of the proposed project for a new Fox Hill Elementary School building each day this week.

Town Meeting Members, knowing all this information and having their questions answered by those who have been involved in this project, will vote at next week's Town Meeting (which begins on Monday, September 23) on whether or not to approve that funding. The Buzz has talked with Town Meeting Members who plan to vote in favor of the funding, those who plan to vote against it, and those who are still undecided. It's not clear at this point how the vote will shake out, and many are still gathering information to form their opinion.

So what happens if the Fox Hill project doesn't pass?

Answering this question requires following a lot of hypothetical vapor trails, some of which we will explore, but let's start with solid facts.

If Town Meeting votes yes on funding this project, and the debt exclusion, which at this point is expected to be on April's town-wide election ballot, passes, then the school will be built and the project will not affect the town's annual tax levy increase.

If Town Meeting votes yes, and the debt exclusion fails at April's election, then the school will be built and the debt will decrease the total amount the town is able to raise taxes each year. According to projections by the Ways & Means Committee, if growth remains stable from the last four years, the town would still have enough buffer to keep services level well into the 2030s if this were to happen.

If Town Meeting votes no on funding the new Fox Hill, these things will certainly or almost certainly happen:

• The school will not be built at this time.
• The MSBA (the state building authority whose grant program is subsidizing this project) will terminate their agreement with us, as it is contingent on securing funding within 120 days of the August 28 vote by the MSBA Board to accept the schematic design.
• The district would not get the state's $31 million in reimbursements for the new Fox Hill School at this time.
• This reimbursement could not be shifted to another project, such as the high school.
• The district would need to apply to get Fox Hill back into the program in the future. The best case scenario, according to a representative for the Owner's Project Manager, Dore & Whittier, is that the district applies next year and is accepted into the program, they redo the work they've been doing over the last 4 years, and it takes another four years to get back to where they are now. The worst case scenario is that MSBA rejects another Fox Hill application and it takes even longer.

Now here is where things get a little mushier. Different people have different things to say about the other downstream effects of the Fox Hill project not receiving funding.

Those who are in favor of the project proceeding today say that the district's relationship with the MSBA may sour and the state authority might hold the withdrawal from the program after the four-year time investment against Burlington when considering future applications. They also say the cost to build a new Fox Hill will only go up, as construction costs have done nothing but rise (beyond what any of us could have predicted). The need to do something with Fox Hill doesn't go away, in other words, and the feasibility study determined the best course of action to address the building's structural deficiencies (like accordion walls and an energy-inefficient design) would be to rebuild the school. If the state didn't accept the school into the program again, then the town might be on the hook for much more in a few years—and in the meantime, the kids at Fox Hill are still learning in what the district and the state characterize as an inadequate learning environment.

Those who oppose the project say that if Fox Hill isn't built (and funded) now, the chances increase that the high school will be approved in 1-2 years, when the district and School Committee say it will be ready to bring forward. Delaying this project will also drive up the cost, and the impact would be greater given the higher price tag of the high school. The district could go back to the drawing board for a more creative way to solve the Fox Hill problem and focus on the school that has been the district's number one priority for more than a decade now.

These are all hypothetical possibilities, but without a crystal ball, it's impossible to predict how the various situations will play out. The best Town Meeting Members can do is to be informed, listen to their constituents, and balance the present and future needs of the community.

Read the full Focus on Fox Hill series here. Learn more about the building project here.