Jean Perry, Neighb News Correspondent
The town is taking the next step in the tentative plan to partner with the Southeastern Massachusetts Educational Collaborative (SMEC) in rehabilitating and then leasing the 1950s addition of the Rogers School to SMEC. The Fairhaven Selectboard on 5/10 authorized Interim Town Administrator Wendy Graves to engage an architectural engineer to review some informal quotes estimating the project at around $675,000.
Rogers School Re-Use Committee Chairperson Susan Loo said she and SMEC Executive Director Catherine Cooper consulted with several contractors who toured the building and gave quotes for the work that would need to be done to make the space habitable for the 40 or so special education students SMEC hopes to service come September.
The town would have to invest about $425,000 to repair the roof, replace the windows and tiles, remove asbestos, fix the parking lot, install a fence and firewall, and upgrade the fire alarm system. SMEC would invest $250,000 for the internal structure, including installing ADA compliant bathrooms, widening doorways for ADA compliance, upgrading the ceiling and flooring, rewiring the electric, and installing lighting.
SMEC’s financial investment is a strong indicator that SMEC is interested in a long-term lease arrangement, said Ms. Loo, who emphasized that SMEC would not be leaving the old Tripp School in favor of Rogers, nor would SMEC be interested in the old school wing for its operations.
With a little investment, this part of the building that has been vacant for nine years and only ever slated for demolition will return the initial investment cost to the town and possibly save it some money, Ms. Loo Said, given that demolition estimates from five years ago ranged between $640,000-$715,000 and would now likely exceed $1 million.
“It’s really a win-win situation for the town,” said Ms. Loo, “[and] we have a great program that wants to go in and use it.”
This project would not interfere with the mothballing efforts at the old part of the school Some of the funding for the 1950s wing project could possibly come from the Rogers School preservation funding approved by Town Meeting, which Town Accountant Anne Carreiro told the board still has a balance of $192,000.
“This is a lot coming at us real fast,” said Selectboard member Bob Espindola, whose concern was mainly on the accuracy of the quotes Ms. Loo and SMEC obtained outside any formal bidding process. But with the Annual Town Meeting only weeks away, the funding mechanism for the project must make it onto the warrant in time if SMEC is to meet its aggressive goal of a September completion.
The board voted to allow an engineer to review what needs to be done at the school and the costs involved, which would start the project’s path through the various avenues involved in a capital project of this scope.
“If we have something that looks like this … and you folks (SMEC) are going to stick by this, I think this is something that we should move forward on,” said Selectboard Chairperson Daniel Freitas.
In other matters, as the town prepares to receive two installments of $4.7 million in federal and state financial aid, including funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, the board voted to hire a consultant to assist the town in maximizing its use of the funds, including possibly helping to defray wastewater treatment plant and other infrastructure costs.
The board also reviewed some budget transfer requests ahead of the fiscal year’s end, beginning with the approval of a transfer of $28,500 from unemployment to the Assessors’ contracted services line item to cover the cost of a software upgrade that was overlooked in the FY21 budget.
According to Ms. Graves, the town put a significantly higher amount of money in its unemployment budget in FY21 as a precaution during the pandemic. With funding left over, Ms. Graves said the bulk of that budget could fund a number of other budgets that came up short in FY21.
One such budget is the legal expenses budget, for which Ms. Graves requested a transfer of $36,000 from the unemployment budget. Mr. Espindola, who had been asking Ms. Graves for weeks to provide some semblance of a summary of legal expenses thus far in FY21 to no avail, asked Ms. Graves if the $36,000 transfer would cover the legal costs exceeding the regular budget. She said it would.
The board approved a transfer of $47,100 from the wind turbine account to the Town Hall electricity ($14,000), police electricity ($13,500), streetlights ($12,000) and recreation center electricity ($7,600). There was also a transfer approved for $11,860 from unemployment to town insurance ($4,860) and workers compensation insurance ($7,000).
The board tabled a budget transfer request from Tree Warden Don Collasius for $3,000 in tree department salaries to the repair and maintenance budget because the request was to fund a brake repair for an old tree truck that should have been decommissioned once a new tree truck was bought. It did approve a transfer of $7,500 from the tree department payroll budget to the tree removal account, and $2,000 from the tree department payroll budget to the tree purchase account.
The Finance Committee must also approve the budget transfer requests.
Also during the meeting, the board voted to recommend the amendments to the waterways regulations to Town Meeting
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