Hartford
“We have gone before this town before in a rushed fashion on bond votes, and we didn’t have all of our ‘I’s dotted and ‘T’s crossed,” School Board Chairwoman Lori Dickerson said during a meeting Wednesday night, “and I have grave concerns about just saying ‘we’ll get these numbers by then, and then we’ll put it before the voters. We have been burned by that before.”
During a presentation by Director of Special Education Elizabeth Barker, program staff members and architect David Laurin, the cost of a program to completely renovate the building was estimated at $5 million, which includes the cost of renting space to host the Hartford Regional Alternative Program during a year of construction.
Laurin said some of the more critical infrastructure issues within the building include a failing furnace, exposed radiators that have burned both staff and students, code-deficient doors, asbestos and a failure to comply with federally mandated accessibility standards.
Board members, including Paula Nulty, said they’d like more evidence that renovating the 104-year-old historical building is better than other options, such as relocating the program to an existing school property, building an entirely new structure on another site or just doing minor repair work.
“I wish I had something else to look at,” Nulty said to Superintendent Tom DeBalsi. “Even those things that you don’t think were good ideas, I wish there were numbers that proved they weren’t good ideas.”
While the cost of the project was estimated at $5 million, board members were left with questions about what the net impact would be on taxpayers, because it appears the move also could generate revenues and savings that would partially offset the bond payments.
Board member Peter Merrill noted that “a significant portion of the cost will not be borne by the town.”
DeBalsi has proposed folding Hartford’s Autism Regional Program into the building, which would increase the total student population to about 50 and allow the district to defray the cost of the bond by about $71,000, the amount that HARP currently pays to rent space in its Palmer Court location.
Under DeBalsi’s proposal, the district would also recoup some of the bond costs, which were roughly estimated at between $250,000 and $365,000 per year over the next 20 years, by raising the tuition rates for the program.
Estimated tuition next year is $87,681 at HARP, and $42,664 at the Regional Alternative Program, totals that reflect the high number of specially trained staff members required to meet the needs of these students; increasing those rates by about $4,500 per student would reduce the cost of the bond by about $200,000 per year.
Roisin Viens, director of the Regional Alternative Program, and Jessica Poludin, director of HARP, both told the board they maintain waiting lists for their program, and that demand is increasing for the services the programs provide.
While board members agreed on the value of the program, and unanimously voted to direct DeBalsi to bring them more detailed financial information during their Jan. 11 meeting, the comments of individual members made it clear that the members are leaning in different directions on the question of a bond.
It seemed clear that Nulty and Dickerson were more focused on finding less expensive options, and they expressed doubt that taxpayers would approve the bond.
“Right now it’s sort of being presented as an all or nothing,” Dickerson said. “Is there something that we could do, interim kinds of things, that’s not wasting our money but can certainly address some of these issues?”
Merrill, who has previously said he is disturbed at the prospect of providing students at the Wilder School with an educational environment that falls short of the one enjoyed by the mainstream students, seemed more supportive of the renovation, referring to it as “a very heroic and important thing.”
“My devout hope is that they would decide that this is an investment in all of our futures,” he said, “that this is one of the things that would indicate what we are as a community,”
Board member Kevin Christie gave no hint of which way he might vote on a bond, but said he would like more insight into the finances.
“What would it look like at the end of the day?” he asked. “If we were going to do the complete project, what would it cost the Hartford taxpayer over time?”
Member Nancy Russell’s position was unclear. She said it’s “an outstanding program and I back it 100 percent,” but she also echoed calls for more information, saying “I, too, am a little uncomfortable with the rush.”
During the discussion, board members said that the district’s attorney had assured them there were no legal impediments to selling the property, addressing a previous concern about legal stipulations made at the time the school received the property 100 years ago.
It seems the district is backing off consideration of another potential bond item, a paving project of the crumbling parking lot outside Hartford High School. After hearing that Laurin, rather than giving a price estimate, was recommending a $60,000 engineering study, Merrill said he would agree to defer action, which concluded the board’s discussion of that topic.
Former School Board member Jeff Arnold urged the board to consider reconfiguring students at the Ottauquechee and Dothan Brook schools, so that the program could be folded into the Ottauquechee School building. Program staff said that option wouldn’t be ideal, in part because RAP students, some of whom are “large men” with track records of violence in an educational setting, shouldn’t be taught in the same building as mainstream elementary school children.
The Jan. 11 meeting at which the board will next consider the bond falls two days after a Jan. 9 legally mandated public hearing on items that will come before Town Meeting voters in March. DeBalsi indicated he would make a preliminary presentation to taxpayers at that time.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.
Correction
Tuition at Hartford’s Autism Regional Program next school year is estimated to be $87,681, and at the Regional Alternative Program, an estimated $42,664. An earlier version of this story provided numbers related to administrative and allocated costs, not tuition, for those programs.