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The Whittier Regional Vocational Technical School Committee voted unanimously Wednesday night to move forward with the next step in repairing or replacing the school, while at the same time acknowledging money challenges ahead.
The vote to spend up to $2.5 million on a feasibility study to repair or replace the 50-year-old school and its aging sewage treatment plant on Amesbury Line Road in Haverhill, puts the 11-community school district in line to receive reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority. As part of that process, however, the state board is requiring communities to update the compact that specifies how capital and operational costs are apportioned.
Assigned to suggest improvements to the agreement, the advisory Regional Agreement Amendment Committee, is stalemated. Retiring Committee Chair Angus G. Jennings, former West Newbury town manager, said Newburyport and Rowley are pressing for Haverhill to pay a greater portion of any new building than it would under the 1967 pact.
“The challenge, as I think everybody knows, is the capital allocation, which I think from back to ’23, ’24 was always going to be the most difficult challenge to achieve consensus. That does remain really the sole major sticking point,” Jennings reported.
Salisbury Town Manager Neil Harrington previously proposed a compromise formula—a combination of 50% of the cost based on the current formula and 50% of the cost based on enrollment. As previously reported by WHAV, Harrington’s plan depends on successfully lowering the cost of a new school with a one-time $30 million distribution from the voter-approved millionaire’s tax.
Haverhill Mayor Melinda E. Barrett again endorsed the concession in an address to the board.
“Haverhill has moved considerably in an effort to have everyone come along. I know it’s not exactly what everybody wants but it is a damn sight better than what you had before and that’s what politics is all about, is compromise. And, I have been willing to compromise not only for the kids that are here or going to be here in the next five years, but this is a legacy. This is everything that we are charged to do as leaders in our community,” Barrett said
She also noted that the longer the district puts off the school’s replacement, the greater the expense of building a new school. Richard P. Early Jr., one of two of Haverhill’s representatives on the School Committee, noted that even under the best of circumstances, the current school building will be in use for at least another five years and that the district is facing major repair costs, include up to $2 million to upgrade the electrical system.
Barrett, as vice chair of the amendment committee, becomes the acting chair until the committee meets and reorganizes, Jennings noted. The board also voted to seat Christopher Wile as West Newbury’s voting representative, replacing Jennings. Wile, who is vice chair of his town’s select board, has been serving as the West Newbury alternate.
Under the current formula, Haverhill would pay 44% of new construction even though it sends 66% of the school’s students. That’s because the current capital cost distribution formula is based on each community’s total kindergarten through grade 12 enrollment. By comparison, day-to-day operational costs are allocated based on the number of students each community sends to Whittier Tech.
Newburyport and Rowley both favor a strict accounting based on per-pupil enrollment at Whittier Tech for capital costs as well. In addition to Haverhill, Newburyport, Rowley and West Newbury, the members of the Whittier Tech district are Amesbury, Georgetown, Groveland, Ipswich, Merrimac, Newbury and Salisbury.
In other business Kurt Slevoski, Georgetown’s representative on the Whittier Tech School Committee, was elected chair of the board’s Plant Operations Subcommittee.