To the Editor,
We write to today to offer some insight on the proposed Whittier Construction Project. We both have had experience in helping to secure funding for many school construction projects in our former districts, that include, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Middleton, Newburyport and the Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School just to name a few. We support education and certainly tech education, as well as new construction of schools when warranted.
However, we have concerns with the proposed Whittier Construction Project and we would like to share them with you.
We believe the most important issue before the citizens of the Whittier District, is the inequity of how the sending towns will pay their share of the costs associated with this project. The current proposed price tag of this project is $444 million of which the state would fund $159 Million. The formula in which the sending towns would use to pay for this project is through a formula that was set up in 1967, which bases your enrollment on your local K-12 districts and not the Whittier School enrollment. So, for example, Ipswich has a K-12 enrollment of 1576, however they only send 30 students to Whittier. The formula dictates that they will pay on the 1576 not the 30 students. Which means Ipswich will have to pay for almost 8% of the project. By the way, those 30 students only represent 2% of the Whittier enrollment. Another example that is important to note is Newburyport who sends 29 students. Their K-12 enrollment is 2331. They would have to pay 11 1/2 % of the costs while only sending 2.3% of the current enrollment to Whittier. Meanwhile, Haverhill who sends 867 students to Whittier (which is 68% of the Whittier’s enrollment) would only pay 42%. Needless to say, this formula is very complicated and not equitable. Additionally, as a side note, the project does not propose increasing student population for our tech students but remain at the status quo.
It is imperative that before the project move forward that ALL communities and their respective leaders sit down and come up with an equitable funding formula for this project. One question to ask, can the cities and towns sit down again with our local and federal legislators to find better funding options? This is a project that will be one of the largest in the history of the Commonwealth. More state and federal funding should be identified as it is vocational which costs more than a non-vocational school. The precedent has been set with unique funding as was the case with the Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School, where a special Act was passed to help with the construction costs. These are the type of questions that need answers BEFORE a vote is taken. A special committee of all the local leaders and Whittier Administrators needs to be put into place so that ALL communities are on the same page. As we look back to when Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School was being proposed such a committee was set up and meetings took place on a weekly and monthly schedule to ensure the project could be paid for in an equitable way and every community knew what was happening BEFORE AND DURING construction. A similar group needs to be created where EVERY community has a say.
Unlike a normal construction project in our local municipalities and school districts there will be no town meeting gatherings or City Council meetings that would allow for each community to address the funding issues of this project. Unlike the protocols set in place for communities to pass budgets and prop 2 ½, we will only be voting at the ballot box for a yea or nay to move this project forward with NO funding mechanism in place. Which means that we would be voting for a blank check to the Whittier School District not knowing how each community will pay their bill. Will it come out of our current budgets (which means severe cuts to services already in place) or by a Prop 2 ½ override. These are the type of questions that should be answered before ANY vote is taking district wide to move forward.
In closing, we are recommending a NO vote on January 23rd until further answers to the many questions that have been asked from the many communities have been addressed in a fair and equitable way. Additionally, although we did not get into some other concerns brought up by others, a no vote would stop this rushed process and gives cities and towns more options and give member communities time to review Act of 1967 and have a charter review which could lead to better equity in paying for this proposed project.
Sincerely,
Frank G. Cousins, Jr.
Former Sheriff
Essex County
and
Bradford R. Hill
Former Assistant Minority Leader
Massachusetts House of Representative
