The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) committee will be asking the Island towns for $2 million for a Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) feasibility study article on the town meeting warrants, which will take place in the spring.
Before Martha’s Vineyard Public Schools business administrator Mark Friedman shared the numbers during the Monday evening meeting, he clarified that this was a vote to “ask the towns to put a placeholder in their spring town warrants,” and not to actually borrow the money.
“This would not be the official vote for you folks to actually borrow the money. To do that would trigger the 60-day consideration period under which the towns, if they felt it was necessary, schedule a special town meeting,” Friedman said, adding that the plan is to have the vote so it can “fold neatly” into a special town meeting or the annual town meeting without incurring additional costs. Edgartown and Tisbury have deadlines of Dec. 16 for warrant article request submissions, and the language recommended by the MSBA will be used.
Friedman showed two feasibility study cost estimations, building on a previous presentation. The expense was found by calculating the average feasibility cost of four high schools — Watertown, Wakefield, Nashoba Regional, and Monument Mountain Regional — and adding contingency. The average was $1.65 million. Friedman showed two options: Option A, with a 10 percent contingency ($165,000), and Option B, with a 20 percent contingency ($330,000). This adds up to $1.815 million for Option A, the amount originally proposed, and $1.98 million for Option B.
“We would not recommend going higher than [Option B] for this feasibility study, because it’s our understanding that we wouldn’t get any extra value at this stage in the process,” Friedman said.
However, committee member Skipper Manter was concerned the cost estimate did not take into consideration the “Martha’s Vineyard factor,” describing the difficulties of doing a large project on the Island. This was a point he and committee member Kathryn Shertzer made during a previous discussion about funding the feasibility study.
“We can’t go back. We’ve got one ask here … I think we should make it $2 million,” Manter said.
“We had a good amount of discussion on this topic,” Friedman replied. “The reason why we’re not putting in any additional contingency for the ‘Island factor’ is because this is predominantly expert services. This is architectural, engineering services, and there’s less inflation, or less of an Island factor, involved in that than there is in the logistics to bring materials and construction equipment over to this Island.”
When asked by committee chair Robert Lionette, committee member Michael Watts, who is also a Tisbury School committee member where a school construction project is underway, said, “We didn’t carry that much contingency.”
“I can tell you that once you get to an actual construction project, it was a 20-plus percent Island factor. But, we didn’t see that in our OPM (owner’s project manager) or architect work,” Watts said, although the educational consultants and people doing geophysical survey work had to come from off-Island. Currently, Tisbury School is going through a massive renovation and addition project that is costing taxpayers $82 million.
Manter asked if the feasibility study costs will be offset by $500,000 of excess and deficiencies (E and D) funds, and Friedman said, “We had put that out to our bond counsel, and they have yet to come back with that exact language” in the warrant article.
“It would take a bit of the sticker shock off the $2 million if we could show them that we were using some E and D to lower that,” Manter said.
Friedman reminded the committee that the final vote for the draft warrant article language with the cost figures would not be until March, and a request to appropriate funds will not occur during the upcoming budget process. Manter said the costs and offsets should be decided before then, since people “aren’t going to vote for it unless they know how much it is.”
Manter also said the funds for the MVRHS building committee, a part of the feasibility study process, should have been “budgeted accordingly” rather than using contingency funds from the high school budget, which Friedman said would not be a large amount, since it was “a foreseeable expenditure.” Lionette pointed out that the money used is reimbursable, but Manter said that money would not be available until July.
“We weren’t in the MSBA when we budgeted last year,” MVRHS Principal Sara Dingledy said, adding that the MVRHS building committee will need to meet before July. “There is work to be done between now and July. I guess it would be great to have some guidance on where we tap into any sort of funds.”
After a bit more discussion, the MVRHS committee voted 7-0 to send the draft warrant article language to the towns with the amount of $2 million for the feasibility study. MVRHS committee member Kimberly Kirk did not respond when called on.
In other business, there will be another public hearing for the MVRHS fiscal year 2024 budget on Wednesday, Dec. 21, at 7 pm. Although a public hearing was conducted on Wednesday, Nov. 30, Lionette said that the high school committee had actually not made a quorum during that meeting, which is required per guidelines from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In turn, the certification of the budget that was on the Monday, Dec. 5, agenda could not be done.
Relating to the budget, the MVRHS committee unanimously approved asking the towns to put a placeholder line in their town meeting warrants for capital improvement repairs for the high school, and a line of money for the Performing Arts Center’s HVAC system. The committee plans to further discuss this at a future meeting.
The MVRHS committee also voted 6-1 to retroactively approve increases, most at 3 percent and a few at 6 percent, for nonunion salaries. In the list of salary increases Martha’s Vineyard Superintendent Richie Smith presented, those receiving a 6 percent bump include MVRHS athletic director Mark McCarthy, data and technology specialist Rick Mello, accounting and finance manager Suzanne Cioffi, trainer and nurse assistant Tania Laslovich, and transportation office manager Anastasia Carter. These were delayed due to the teachers’ salary negotiations. Committee member Louis Paciello abstained, while Manter voted in opposition. Manter expressed concerns about the 6 percent increases. After some discussion, the committee voted 6-2 to also give MVRHS facilities manager Mike Taus a 6 percent salary increase to recognize the hard work he has done. Lionette and committee member Roxanne Ackerman voted against, because they thought Smith’s salary recommendations were appropriate, since he also sits on the high school’s personnel committee.
