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Date: 8/30/2022
HADLEY – The Hadley School Committee unanimously approved a 10-year capital plan on Aug. 22 featuring $12.5 million in improvements dedicated to Hopkins Academy and Hadley Elementary.
Chris Phillips, a senior project manager with Colliers, presented the plan following meetings with Superintendent Anne McKenzie and Hadley Public Schools Business Manager Chris Dejardins. McKenzie said the trio took a facilities audit with recommendations over the next 10 years and separated each project into a fiscal year and paired them with a funding source.
With the committee’s approval, McKenzie said she and Dejardins will now bring any projects that require town capital funding for fiscal year 2023 (FY23) to the town for approval that same week. According to the capital plan, the only project listed for town capital funding in FY23 is $160,400 to replace ceiling tiles in Hopkins Academy classrooms.
“We identified projects not only related to what we saw in the conditions assessment, but additional items that were known in town,” Phillips said. “For instance, the elementary school roof is under consideration, the athletic fields phase two, and then also district-wide technology upgrades that are targeted for the next several years. We wanted to make sure we start to put together a comprehensive plan, not just recognizing the needs from the conditions assessment of Hopkins Academy.”
Areas in need of improvement like the school’s electrical and plumbing sources identified in the Hopkins Academy conditions assessment total $9.4 million or 76 percent of the total $12.5 million estimated need identified. Phase two of the work on the athletic fields is estimated to cost $1.5 million or 12 percent of the need, and the roof replacement sits at $1.1 million or 9 percent.
Funding sources include $6 million or 48 percent from Town Capital, $2.5 million or 20 percent from Massachusetts School Building Authority for the roof and $1.7 million from school choice.
“There is a big bump in year two, most of that is outside funding for the fields and particularly the elementary school roof,” Phillips said. “The rest of it, as you can see is relatively flat between $1.5 and $2 million dollars moving forward and also trying to keep a nice split on funding as well.”
Other improvements outlined on the Hopkins Academy implementation plan include minor repairs, the cafeteria roof, a locker room refurbishment and a new HVAC system replacement in the first three years. Later years include interior finishes upgrades, repaved parking lots, and remaining roof repairs.
For the elementary school fields, phase two begins in year two of the upgrades while IT upgrades are planned to take place between years two through seven. Upgrades include laptop replacements, projectors and whiteboards, server replacements, Chromebook replacements and camera replacements.
Committee member Paul Phifer asked how they determined which funding source to assign to projects. McKenzie said sources like MSBA or Community Preservation Act have very narrow eligibility criteria that limited what they could use those funding sources for. The committee briefly entertained the thought of building a new building instead of funneling millions for repairs into the same building.
“The reality is that if you start thinking in terms of new construction, you’d be talking about $25 to $30 million minimum for the size building you have and that would be all at once so here we are spreading out $12.5 million over 10 years, plus inflation it gets up closer to $16 million in the end. Especially early on, we’re looking at some pretty significant inflation in the industry,” Phillips said.
Phillips also affirmed that the Hopkins Academy roof, scheduled to be replaced in the final stages of the 10-year plan, should be more than able to hold up for the required seven to 10 years given the work that’s been put into maintaining it.
“Overall, part of the reason that we are in a position of being able to renovate existing facilities is the hard work that our facilities staff puts into these buildings and taking care of them,” McKenzie said. “I just really want to acknowledge, it’s a small school with a very small and mighty team in the facilities staff and they’ve done a wonderful job over the years of keeping those facilities up.”