New Whittier Building Hits a Buzz Saw

REGIONAL – Whittier Tech Supt. Maureen Lynch last week ran into a wall with fewer cracks than her school has as she tried to persuade town and city officials in the Whittier District to support the proposed $440 million new school building.
“We have to do something,” Lynch repeated several times about fixing or replacing the 50-year-old building at 115 Amesbury Line Rd in Haverhill.
The building is no longer equipped to provide a 21st century technical education and has pressing problems including a lack of sprinklers, accessibility issues, lack of lighting in some areas, no loading access for shops and a shortage of classroom space, she said.
During a meeting in the Whittier auditorium that drew about 50 town and city officials, Brian Callahan, a Newburyport school committee member, voiced the general consensus that the districtwide vote to fund the building “may not pass, but it needs to.”
Several town leaders agreed that Whittier, which educates 1,300 students, needs help. But they argued that a new building could force residents in the 11 cities and towns to choose between paying their tax bill and their prescriptions.
The voters in Amesbury, Georgetown, Groveland, Haverhill, Ipswich, Merrimac, Newbury, Newburyport, Rowley, Salisbury and West Newbury will vote Jan. 23 on the proposed building.
The Whittier School Committee was approved by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for a $257 million grant, leaving the 11 municipalities to fund $267.5 million. Another $15.4 million would come from other state incentives and rebates.
Lynch said the average taxpayer would pay about $239 a year more each year for the next 30 years, if the building is approved.
The challenge for most of the towns and cities is that the new building will be decided by a simple majority of voters districtwide, not by a majority of the cities and towns that have a funding mechanism to pay for it.
Being held in January on a one-issue ballot, the election is likely to draw a low voter turnout. In addition, early voting will not be allowed for this election.
The election could be dominated by Haverhill, which has 67,361 residents, while the total population of the 10 other cities and towns in the district is 93,446. Haverhill sends 866 students, the largest number of students from any town. Its students make up 68 percent of Whittier’s student population.
The Rowley SelectBoard launched a campaign last week to persuade other municipal leaders in the district to lobby the Whittier School Committee and state legislators not to allow this issue to be decided by a districtwide vote.
“Will you please join us in contacting the Whittier school committee and asking them to vote to have a town-by-town vote rather than a district-wide vote?” Rowley SelectBoard chairman Clifford Pierce wrote to the 10 other towns in the district.
Newburyport Mayor Sean Reardon wrote to Whittier Board Chair Garry James and Superintendent Maureen Lynch requesting that the towns be allowed to vote separately on authorizing a debt override to pay its share of the proposed building.
Newburyport would have a $30 million share of the building. It sends 29 students to Whittier.
“The draft ballot question does not have language stating that the vote is contingent on the passage of a debt exclusion override to Proposition 21/2,” Reardon wrote. “Newburyport voters may not understand that this vote would authorize the project moving forward without a plan for the City to pay for it.”
State law requires that voters approve any debt that is above its levy limit. It is called a debt-exclusion override.
Reardon and most other municipal officials asked for Whittier to allow each city and town to tie the vote for the building to a debt-exclusion override.
The municipal leaders also complained that Whittier sprung the new building on the districts and towns without sufficient notice. One official said the cities and towns should have been told years ago so they could be building a reserve fund.
Salisbury Selectman Michael Colburn said in the year and a half he has been on the SelectBoard, he has never heard a word about Whittier needing a new building.
The municipal leaders also objected that the building is too big and has too many amenities like extra athletic fields and a large office for the superintendent.
“We have been very conservative,” Lynch said, disagreeing that the new building should be smaller and cost less. “We have very few bells and whistles.”
The local schools also have other demands on their budgets, officials said. Triton Regional School District, which serves three of the 10 municipalities, needs a new high school and middle school building. It was turned down last year by the MSBA and could face having to make extensive renovations or build a new high school and middle school without state help.
Newburyport needs to build a new Youth Services building and the high school has a leaky roof, officials said.
Amesbury, which believes it will have to lay off 20 school employees to pay for the Whittier Building, is paying off the new Shay Elementary School. Mayor Kassandra Gove said Amesbury cannot afford to pay for Whittier’s new building.
“This is just not right,” Callahan said.