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Partly cloudy skies. Low near 10F. Winds light and variable..
Partly cloudy skies. Low near 10F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: December 25, 2024 @ 7:23 pm
Massena Central School District officials are moving forward with plans to present a capital project for voter approval in May, but how much the project will cost remains to be seen. Christopher Lenney/Watertown Daily Times
Reporter/Editor
Massena Central School District officials are moving forward with plans to present a capital project for voter approval in May, but how much the project will cost remains to be seen. Christopher Lenney/Watertown Daily Times
MASSENA — Massena Central School District officials are moving forward with plans to present a capital project for voter approval in May, but how much the project will cost remains to be seen.
Superintendent Ronald P. Burke told school board members the district’s maximum cost allowance for work at the high school, junior high and three elementary buildings was $86.9 million, with total maximum state aid of approximately $84.3 million.
“There are really two components of the maximum cost allowance. The first part is the actual construction costs. Those are our hard costs, and those are the things that are really related to the building itself — anything on the inside of the building, the exterior of the building, the roofs, the windows, the brick work, those types of things,” Burke said. “That is generally the bigger portion of any one of these maximum cost allowances.”
There are also incidental costs.
The incidental costs include the elements that are on the outside of the building — site work that we might have to put in, areas for contractors to park their trailers or to store their bins and their materials. It also includes things that would remain with the district, such as parking lots, sidewalks and athletic fields.
In addition, Burke said, there are soft costs, which are the engineering costs and the architectural fees.
He outlined the maximum cost allowance for each of the school buildings.
“These are based on building units, student units. So, it’s based on your census, your population over time,” he said.
The maximum cost allowance for Jefferson Elementary School is $10 million, which includes $8.4 million for construction and $1.7 million for incidental costs. At Madison Elementary School, the maximum cost allowance is $11.5 million, which includes $9.5 million for construction and $2 million for incidental costs. The maximum cost allowance at Nightengale Elementary School is $10 million for construction and $2.1 million for incidental costs, for a total of $12.2 million.
J.W. Leary Junior High School has a maximum cost allowance of $17.2 million, which includes $13.7 million for construction and $3.4 million for incidental costs. The high school’s maximum cost allowance is $45 million, which includes $36 million for construction and $9 million for incidental costs.
Burke said the high school will have the bulk of the work.
“What’s important to note on the high school is our construction maximum cost is $36 million. Since our issue with the pipeline about a year ago, I’ve talked with the board about the need to upgrade and replace our HVAC system here. The initial estimate to replace the HVAC system completely and include air conditioning throughout this building was just over $37 million. It ate up our entire construction cost. So, we’ve been going back to the drawing board. We’ve been working with our architect and our engineer. We had a meeting earlier today and we have some preliminary numbers of scaling that back, still getting the essential work done, making sure that we have a reliable heat system and air conditioning in some of the major areas,” he said.
Those major areas include the auditorium, cafeteria, media center and gymnasium.
“I want people to understand why we can’t just spend $50 million here at the high school on construction. If we go above the maximum cost amount, it’s no longer aidable, and we really want to make sure that we’re maximizing every aidable dollar from the state of New York and limiting the exposure to our local taxpayers,” Burke said.
He said the maximum cost allowance has a “five-year look back window.”
‘So, every five years it gets reset and the money doesn’t carry over,” he said. With our project, we plan on bringing the referendum to the voters in May at the annual budget vote. If approved, basically design work will take place throughout the course of much of the 2025-26 school year. We will submit then to SED (state Education Department) in the spring of ‘26. When we submit, that sets the look back window. So, you go five years back from the spring of ‘26 and that’s when they look at what you have already spent on your buildings. By the spring of ‘26 we have almost a complete reset throughout the district.”
The district receives 97.4% state aid for capital projects, but Burke said not every aspect of the project is aidable.
“Please don’t think that it means that every dollar we spend, we’re going to get 97 cents back. Not everything in even the best laid out project is going to be aidable. There will always be certain elements that we do in a capital project that are going to fully come back on he local taxpayer. So, we look at 97%. In my mind, I’m thinking I would be pleased if we can make that no less than 90%,” he said.
He said they working to bring the final number down that will be presented to voters.
“I certainly don’t want anyone to think that we’re looking at or the Facilities Committee is looking at spending every penny of our maximum cost. That’s not what we’re going to be doing. But, we are going to be looking at what are the necessities, what are the things that seven years from now we wish we had done and try to fix those things now while we have that money, especially at the elementary schools and the junior high even though they just came off some capital project work,” Burke said.
He said the plan is to present a project that will have no impact on the taxpayer, using some of the $15 million they have in the capital reserve to cover anything that’s not aidable.
Johnson Newspapers 7.1
Reporter/Editor
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