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Date: 3/14/2022
BELCHERTOWN - On March 7, Belchertown residents voted to approve a feasibility study for Jabish Brook Middle School and Swift River Elementary School for potential renovations, repairs or the prospect of building an entirely new school in town during a Special Town Meeting.
As it was the first article in the warrant, the feasibility study was the first topic discussed during Town Meeting.
Lynne Raymer, the director of the finance committee explained that the work entailed for Article 1 is simply a feasibility study and not a deal that would set a project in stone.
“It is to do a feasibility study to determine if there is going to be potentially a new building, renovation or add onto the current existing structure. This is not about building or moving about this point, it is about the current location and the feasibility of that location,” she said.
One sticking point for the residents that spoke during the discussion about the article was the cost of $990,000 for the feasibility study. Belchertown Public Schools Director of Buildings and Grounds Eric LeBeau went over what exactly went into the high dollar amount for the study.
“This is the rate that was given to us as an estimate from the Massachusetts School Building Authority based on the building’s size. It is the full cost to have engineers and architects to come in and do a full study and let us know the issues of the building what it is going to cost to renovate or rebuild the building and we will have an in-depth document to tell us the next steps and what our options are moving forward,” he said.
Raymer also explained the reimbursement process for the feasibility study.
“This would potentially be a bonding that we would have to take out for the full $1 million as well as looking for the reimbursement from the state after the fact, so the net cost to the town would be closer to $400,000,” she said.
Because of a decline in enrollment across the district since 2011, one resident was against expanding any of the schools in town.
“I am at a loss at why we need to expand any school in this town, especially when this school was built with a plan of adding 200 more kids because we were the fastest growing town when we built the school 23 or 24 years ago,” he said.
LeBeau reiterated the proposed work is merely a study.
“We are not looking to expand the building at all, this is just a study of the current building and to look at what the needs are for the building and what, if any renovations or repairs should be moving forward,” he said.
The motion carried with a 90-18 vote following a headcount due to requiring a two-thirds majority to pass.
After approving the feasibility study, Article 2 was a request to create and approve the salary range of $75,311 to $96,139 for a Human Resources (HR) director and Town Administrator Gary Brougham detailed some of the duties for the new position.
“The town has approximately 700 employees between the town and the schools, the plan at this point is to have this HR person manage all the benefits for all the employees but work directly with the town side employees on training, new employee orientation and any of the other relative HR functions,” he said.
With the benefits coordinator retiring, Brougham said now was the time to implement the position.
“The reason we are doing this now is that for many years the town worked with a number of departments managing worker’s compensation, employee health benefits, new employee starter packages and at the end of 2021 our longtime benefits coordinator retired opening the door for this opportunity, which has been discussed for several years,” he said.
Brougham added that it would be safe to assume the plan is to expand the HR department.
“In the years to come it would not be in anyone’s best interest to arbitrarily think that one person is going to manage 700 employees, it is just not possible, particularly when there are four collective bargaining units in town, personnel bylaw employees, five collective bargaining units in the schools and the school administrative team,” he said. “In years to come it might be that we have a more extensive HR department that manages all of the benefits, but we are not at that point yet.”
Conservation Administrator Erica Larner raised her concerns about the salary being higher than other department heads.
“We have four other department heads whose starting salary range is approximately $4,000 to $5,000 below this new position, is there specific duties that this position would carry out that the personnel board felt warranted a higher salary scale than the other existing department heads?” she asked.
Brougham said the salary range came from an analysis of the job requirements from the Personnel Board.
“Personnel Board looked at the essential functions and job description approved by the Select Board, and they used the evaluation implement that was provided by management consultants some years ago and that is where the essential functions stacked up to the salary range,” he said.
With a near unanimous vote, Article 2 passed, approving the position and salary range for the HR director.
Following the discussions about Articles 1 and 2, Articles 3 through 8 each passed near unanimously with little discussion.