Anger builds at rise in cost of new school

The construction of the city's new middle school is on schedule but $7.9 million over budget, leading one vocal opponent of the project to propose selling or leasing three elementary schools to help pay the bill.

Melrose officials learned last month that the higher cost of raw materials, especially steel and masonry, had increased the cost from the voter-approved $41.8 million to $49.7 million. The new school, which will share a campus with the high school, is scheduled to open to the city's sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders by September 2007.

At the School Committee's December meeting, the price increase prompted an angry response from several members of the Melrose Taxpayers Association, which originally opposed the project and now thinks the city must take drastic steps to keep costs from rising further.

Association member Robert Snow, who is assistant superintendent for Somerville schools, told the committee that once the middle school opens, the city should keep its eighth-graders at Melrose High School --where they have been taught during the middle school's construction -- and move the city's fifth-graders into the middle school along with the sixth and seventh grades. The city should then, he said, move all of the city's kindergarteners through fourth-graders -- now taught at five schools -- into the Lincoln, Winthrop, and Roosevelt schools, and the Franklin School, which has been housing the seventh grade since construction began.

Snow then proposed selling or renting the Beebe, Hoover, and Horace Mann elementary schools, which he said would generate enough revenue to pay down the middle school construction bond and pay for increased fire and police services. The Beebe Elementary School closed three years ago but was reopened to accommodate the sixth grade during construction. Snow also is proposing that the School Committee eliminate any part-time positions for which it pays full-time benefits.

''Mark my words, but we are going to see a $55 million price tag on this school before it is done," Snow said in an interview, noting the project won voter support by a 717-vote margin. ''I contend that had voters known the project would hit $50 million, it never would have passed."

In November 2003, voters approved a debt exclusion override to Proposition 2 1/2, 5,442 to 4,725. The vote authorized the city to tear down the Veterans Memorial Middle School, the city's former high school, and replace it with a slightly smaller building that will have a capacity for 900 students, making way for more playing fields. The project also includes a gymnasium and 900-seat auditorium that will connect the high school and middle school and be shared by their students.

An additional $1.5 million was spent to enclose the high school's open instructional spaces to create traditional classrooms. That portion of the project was completed before the middle school project began.

In response to Snow's proposal, John McLaughlin Jr., chairman of the Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School Building Committee, acknowledged that the project is over budget. However, he said changes in the state's school construction reimbursement program as well as declining interest rates mean that the amount of additional property taxes the average property owner can expect to pay is $200 a year for the next 20 years, slightly less than city officials had projected when the middle school building project was approved.

''In all our literature, we anticipated $190 to $200 for 25 years," McLaughlin said.

Last Wednesday, the city's financing agent for the project confirmed that the city can count on an interest rate of 4.15 percent rather than the 5.2 percent rate projected two years ago, according to Melrose City Auditor Patrick Dello Russo.

''With the lower interest rate and because the state has committed to giving the city a check for the bulk of its $22 million share of the project, we will be saving about $7.9 million in borrowing costs," Dello Russo said.

McLaughlin said it is very unlikely costs will increase more than the current estimates.

''The increases in raw material cost are not something we could have anticipated . . . when we sought voter approval for the project," McLaughlin said. ''Melrose has been hit with the same increases that every public works project in the state is dealing with. The good news is that now that the foundation is in the ground and the steel is rising, we are past the point at which we are most likely to see jumps in costs."

Furthermore, McLaughlin said enrollment projections suggest that the city won't have the extra classroom space available that Snow's consolidation plan requires.

''We are anticipating that with a new middle school and a renovated high school more parents are going to be keeping their children in the Melrose system." McLaughlin said. ''That certainly has been the experience of other communities, most notably North Andover, which saw a huge influx of students from private schools when its new high school opened in 2004."

Jane Lavender, a former city alderwoman who voted against razing the middle school, said she continues to be concerned about the project's price tag but said she isn't prepared to sign on to Snow's plan to consolidate the city's elementary students because she is a proponent of smaller, neighborhood elementary schools.

''I am very concerned about the increases we are seeing in the middle school project and I will continue to watch it even though I chose not to run for reelection," said Lavender.

Lavender noted that she tried unsuccessfully last spring to persuade her colleagues on the Board of Alderman to cap the project at $49 million.

''Putting a limit on a project like this is particularly important for city projects because we are spending other people's money," Lavender said. ''But I lost that argument."

Caroline Louise Cole can be reached at cole@globe.com.