Town Support for Schools in Tough Times.

On June 14th, 2010, the citizens of Athol Massachusetts, in an open town meeting, voted 127 to 5 in favor of allocating up to $400,000 dollars toward a feasibility study on the options for managing an elementary school that is literally falling down around the teachers and children who attend it. The cost of the study was hotly debated with the school board and parents organization advocated the expenditure. In dissent were two factions, town residents who have no children and those who feel the limit funds could be better spent elsewhere.

One relevant question was why the town needed to spend so much money to study something so obvious. All one has to do is walk through the building to see the plaster falling off the walls, dust dripping from the ceiling and the exposed wires where hangers and wall board have given way. It is obvious to a casual observer that renovating or rebuilding is critically necessary at this school.

The answer to that question is that the State requires the feasibility study as a first step in considering where to assign educational grant money to the individual local governments.

This is a case where the local residents are so close to the problem that they are, at first, unable to realize that, at the state level, the questions a study would answer are necessary to prioritize the granting of monies to Athol over the hundreds of other places the money might be spent.

A useful explanation for why the study is necessary is written by the National Trust for Historic Preservation which provides a comprehensive white paper on the role of these studies in determining the options, refurbishment vs. rebuilding.

In the state of Massachusetts, these studies, while initially funded by the local government, are, if accepted by the state, reimbursed at a rate of up to 80% of the cost of the study. The means that if successful, the town will only have spent a little less than a quarter of the cost of the study. Once the study is completed, the next step is to apply for funding from the state to address the building, which we hope will result in a new school building for the town.