Briggs to get money for feasibility study
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

The Town of Ashburnham and the school district may have just taken a step forward in getting funding for a feasibility and design study for renovating or rebuilding John R. Briggs Elementary School.

A small group of school officials and members of the John R. Briggs Building Committee met with state officials on Friday. They believed the meeting would be an interview, but ended up as a proposal for conducting a feasibility study that the Massachusetts School Building Authority would pay 55.6 percent of the cost.

"It was a very good meeting," said Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School Committee Chairman David Christianson.

"We're moving to the next step, which is the feasibility step," Christianson said. "There is no guarantee of funding yet. We are really excited, this is a really big step."

Town officials are not sure where they will get the money for the project or when they are asking voters to appropriate the money for the feasibility study.

Selectman Mark Carlisle said they will be looking at all of the options. It is expected the entire feasibility study will cost between $200,000 to $250,000, with the local share coming in under $100,000.

"They are going to run this as a very tight ship," Ashburnham Selectman Chris Gagnon said.

Christianson said the MSBA officials have walked them through the process of the first few steps of the new building process. The MSBA, which is now under the State Treasurer's Office, is just starting to fund school building projects after a multi-year moratorium on state funding for these projects.

Ashburnham is set to receive at least 55.6 percent of the funding for the building project from the state, said Christianson. The percent is based on issues such as property values, income level of residents and other issues. The percent of funding can increase if the town and the district meet certain guidelines as the project continues.

"It will be very different then what people in Ashburnham remember from the Oakmont and Overlook projects," Christianson said.

The new process should avoid having large differences between the estimated prices and the construction costs, he said.

The state will be paying for there share of the costs upfront at each stage of the project from the feasibility to the actual construction costs, if the project makes it that far in the approval process.

The MSBA told the local officials that they would offer guidance and that each step in the process would be subject to their approval.

After a feasibility study is completed with a preliminary design, a schematic design is created and then the project would have to be approved by the MSBA Board. At this stage the final reimbursement level will be determined for the project.

The MSBA will increase their contribu- tion to projects if they follow green practices, alternative energy forms and have share community uses that don't alter the use of the building. Christianson said they will also increase their contribution for using parts of the existing building.

Christianson said this will be hard but the building committee has looked at possibly reusing the cafeteria or the gym. He said the plumping and the electrical work all need to be upgraded through the whole building.

"There are no cheap construction projects," he said. "We will break our back to get the right project at the right price. There is a lot of motivation to get it right the first time."

He said that the goal is to get the state to pay somewhere over 60 percent of the project.

The town will have 120 days after MSBA approves the project to appropriate the money to cover the town's share of the project.

"Hopefully we can get it to fall into the normal (budget) cycle," said Christianson.

Christianson said there will probably be a building committee meeting shortly after the new year starts and that part of the next part the project will be to create an agreement between the MSBA and the local government groups.

"I want a business agreement," Gagnon said.

The MSBA has also asked the district and Ashburnham and Westminster to be able to answer questions about potential sending students to the different elementary schools, potential impacts on the tax rate and public support.

"They are going to be very cautious about over building schools," Christianson said. "I think we have some very compelling reasons to keep the kids from each town in the elementary schools (we have now)."

But he said there need to be answers when the MSBA asks.