Opinion: Minimize Financial Pain To Residents In Order To Maximize The Chance Of Success Of The School Building Project

How would you use the $23 million in savings (“reserves”) the town has built up? That is a question facing town leaders as they consider how to afford “four major capital projects” with ever-increasing costs.

At a presentation on October 14, Town Finance Director Sean Mangano proposed multiple financing options but none of them proposed using reserves to offset the town cost of the elementary school project. This means taxpayers would be on the hook for the full balance of the project that remains after the state grant. District One Councilor and Chair of the Elementary School Building Committee, Cathy Schoen, challenged this assumption and asked that Mangano come back with an option that applied reserves toward the school cost. Town Councilor-at-large Ellisha Walker, also serving on both the Elementary School Building Committee and Finance Committee, agreed.

Mangano has indicated that public discussion of how to pay for the school project will not happen until early 2023, when the next set of cost estimates for the school project are available and the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) has unveiled what the town can expect to receive from this grant source. Other funds are expected from Eversource (for the ground-source heat pump system) and through the federal Inflation Reduction Act (also for ground-source heat pumps and for solar panels). I, and two other residents, have applied for $3 million in Community Preservation Act funds to help offset the costs of the recreational fields on the site that will be impacted by the project. However, Town Manager Paul Bockelman said at a recent Cuppa Joe event that the Town is not exploring any funding possibilities for the school beyond the MSBA grant. 

Bockelman and Town Council President Lynn Griesemer have stated that they have asked our state legislators to try to change the MSBA’s reimbursement formula so that it keeps up with increasing construction costs. I agree that this would be beneficial, but it is not something that we, as a town, have control over, and the very short time frame for action on the state level does not bode well. 

The town recently partitioned off a little under $10 million (of the $23 million) into a new “capital stabilization fund” meant to be spent on the town’s major capital projects. This money comes partly from already collected property taxes and functions essentially as a savings account. I would argue that these are exactly the sort of funds we should be using to pay for at least part of the school building project. Any amount we use could decrease how much taxpayers will be asked to approve in an expected town-wide vote on a debt exclusion override that would allow an increase in property taxes beyond the annual 2.5% to help pay for the new school. The question we should be asking is: how much should we draw from this account: $5 million? $10 million? 

It is clear that a debt exclusion override will be needed to fund a significant portion of the new school. We don’t have enough money saved to to pay for our share outright and the town must also complete other badly-needed projects, the most pressing being the south Amherst fire station and DPW building. But I also believe the town can, and should, do more to minimize the “ask” of an override–lowering the burden on taxpayers by aggressively pursuing all funding options, including using our “savings” and grant opportunities.