Madison students headed back to school this week, stepping into school buildings that may or may not look quite different in a few years time. After nearly three years of conversation, studies, and debate, the Board of Education (BOE) school utilization plan heads to referendum Tuesday, Sept. 26, a referendum that will determine the future of all three elementary schools in town.

Madison’s discussion about a long-term plan for its public school facilities began in October 2014 in response to growing concerns over declining enrollment, the age of the district’s buildings, and the need to ensure the buildings could support the structural vision of the district. The BOE settled on a five-school model in October 2016, but with the state budget crisis and growing concern over equity between elementary schools, the final arrangement within a five-school model had been a moving target.

In late spring 2017, the board voted to move forward with Option Three, a plan to address a total rebuild of Ryerson Elementary School and a renovation of Jeffrey Elementary School over the course of two referenda, rather than Option Two, which would have addressed Ryerson and Jeffrey in the same referendum, or Option One, which involved a rebuild of Ryerson and a more gradual renovation of Jeffrey over a 10-year plan. All plans involve a closure of Island Avenue Elementary.

The Ryerson project was submitted to the state this year, but a Jeffrey project won’t be submitted to the state until 2019 and minor capital improvements will be completed at Polson Middle School over a 10-year period. This option is the most expensive and has a longer overall timeline, but does still address the concern of equity (all elementary students will have new schools under this plan) and could have some bonding advantages.

The total estimated project cost comes to $65.8 million with an estimated district share of somewhere between $55.2- and $59.4 million and would be divided between the two referenda. The first referendum takes place this fall for $34.2 million and the second would take place in 2019 for $32.5 million.

While the Ryerson project, if submitted to the state in June, would be subject to the 2017 reimbursement rate for new construction of 17.5 percent, rates are very likely to change after this year due to proposed legislation. If they do, Colliers International, the board’s project manager, is only estimating a 15 percent reimbursement rate from the state for renovations if a Jeffrey project is submitted in 2019.

A new Ryerson would be designed and constructed from late 2017 through summer 2020 and the Jeffrey renovation would be designed and completed from summer 2019 through to summer 2022. Jeffrey would still be offline for two academic years, but the town and the district would not have to manage two construction projects simultaneously—possibly three with the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library renovation also on the docket for the coming years.

The Ryerson Question

The complete project involves two elementary schools, but the only question residents will vote on this month is the Ryerson build for a total of $34,284,000 gross cost. The district submitted paperwork to the state in June 2017 to seek project approval and capitalize on reimbursement. If the project is approved by the state, which consultants and board members have indicted is likely, the state reimbursement is estimated between $4- to $5.7 million.

The plan to completely rebuild Ryerson, located up on Route 79 on the same compound as Brown Middle School, raised a few questions throughout the study, with many residents asking about the need to completely rebuild rather than just renovate as is proposed with Jeffrey. BOE Chair Jean Fitzgerald said that a complete rebuild is more cost effective due to the poured concrete ramps at Ryerson that are not ADA compliant.

Even when building new, Superintendent of Schools Tom Scarice said the district is not looking to build palace-like structures, but is trying to build appropriate structures that provide the district, teachers, and students with a bit more flexibility. With both Ryerson and Jeffrey, a rebuild and a renovation, gives the district the opportunity to bring the aging structures up to code.

“Our buildings right now, we lock our doors, we keep our kids safe, we have basic safety in place, but I cannot say we have 21st century, state-of-the art security,” he said. “There is absolutely no way we have 21st century energy efficiency. We have our air quality tested, we do not have 21st century indoor air quality and anything that we try to do to modernize our learning environments whether it is technology or within the learning spaces itself, we are dealing with 20th century, 60-year old facilities.”

Trying to maintain the aging facilities has been a growing problem for the district. Throughout the studies, some residents have suggested that it might be better to spend $20 million over 10 years to maintain the building rather than put down a larger sum for the rebuild and renovation, but Fitzgerald said that is not a wise fiscal choice.

“We can stay exactly where we are, but you are still pouring money into to keeping the buildings exactly where they are, and then we are still missing out on the cost savings of closing a building and operational costs,” she said.

Additionally, by not working within a plan to renovate the schools and fix potential problems down the line, the town and the taxpayers are left in a precarious position of possibly having to spend a significant amount of money quickly if something goes wrong at one of the buildings.

“This is a way of budgeting,” she said. “In your house, if you know that within five years the roof and the boiler are going to reach their life expectancy, then you are going to make plan in order to do that…For the town it is going to be the same thing, so this is a responsible way to plan for the needs of the buildings without these unknown surprises that could hit at any moment…If you just wait ‘til things fall apart, there is no fund preparing for that.”

Scarice said that through the many studies the board underwent to look at the facilities, the district knows that certain elements of each building are aging fast.

“We know we are reaching the end of our useful life of certain systems,” he said. “…We had a problem last year where during rain we had buckets in the classrooms collecting water dripping from the ceiling. I don’t think it is too much to say that is beneath our town.”

Not an Either-Or

In looking at the study and the reaction from the public, Fitzgerald said she sees that some residents believe investing in buildings will in some way cut back on investing in classroom education.

“When you start to talk about the argument people are making in terms of putting money into curriculum and putting money into teachers, if you keep three schools open when you don’t need three schools, that is where that comes into play,” she said. “The money that could be used for all of these things is now being diluted because of the operational costs of that one building. That is where it is not an either-or; if you have to take our operational budget and use funds to keep a building open that we don’t need, then it will start to impact our budget.”

Scarice said the priority of the district has been and will always be education and that updated facilities will only add to the quality of education happening in the classrooms.

“There is no perfect school district and there is no perfect school, but our school system is one of the best, if not the best, in the whole state, and we don’t want to compromise that,” he said. “By having a longterm plan for our facilities, our goal is to keep that maintained and keep that predictable so annually we can continue to do that work in the classroom.”

The Future of Island Avenue

No matter what happens on Sept. 26, officials say Island Avenue Elementary School is going to close. In the era of declining enrollment, the nearly $1 million cost just to run Island is no longer feasible or responsible as the number of students in the building continues to shrink according to Fitzgerald.

Keeping in mind that the community was very clear that they wanted to maintain a school in the town’s north and south ends, school officials found Island Avenue is the best option for closure because of the size and age of the structure as well as its location.

“Island itself, without the portables, cannot really facilitate our needs as one of the two elementary schools left,” Fitzgerald said. “For the town, there has been a very clear request from us that the property that could be sold and bring revenue into the town on a yearly basis...would be south of the Post Road and that would be Island.”

Cost estimates suggest that the town could take in approximately $2.95 in revenue from the sale of Island as is and a redevelopment of the site could result in close to $90,000 in property tax per year. Island also lends itself to closure as it is the only school in town that stands alone—Brown and Ryerson share a north campus, and Daniel Hand High School, Polson Middle School, and Jeffrey sit in close proximity for a south campus.

If the referendum is defeated, the BOE will still close Island and all other capital projects for the remaining schools will have to roll into the Capital Improvement Program (CIP), according to Fitzgerald, who said placing that many big-ticket items in the CIP will be a financial challenge.

“We have systematically started to put some of the projects needed at Polson into the CIP program,” she said. “If the referendum fails, we will then have to start putting some of the major projects into the CIP program which our fear is that those projects will not be able to be done because there just isn’t enough money in the CIP in order to accomplish everything that needs to be done.”

The Whole Picture

Both Scarice and Fitzgerald said that the town and the schools can’t be thought of as mutually exclusive entities, that one can not prosper independently. By investing in school facilities, Scarice said the whole town is committing to a long-term plan to help the town thrive in the coming years, no matter the fiscal condition of the state.

Fitzgerald said the board is well aware that almost all support has run out from the state, but as state aid runs out, the town needs to figure out a way to invest in itself.

“The reality is when you look at Connecticut in 10 years, there is very little hope that we are going to come out of our tough economic times and if that is the case, then it is not going to be up to the centralized government in Connecticut, it is going to be up to individualized towns to start to try and make a difference,” she said. “We talk about industry and business coming into town, what comes with that are families.”

Numerous elements came in to play throughout this study and in the final decision, but Fitzgerald said at the end of the day, it is still all about the students.

“For the board and for the district, our number one priority is children,” she said. “All we are trying to do is find a way to still maintain the quality of the education in this town, create facilities that match our vision, and not impact taxpayers in a way that will hurt them in terms of their ability to maintain their homes in Madison.”

The Debt Structure

To finance both Ryerson and Jeffrey, the expected town share of the project is $59,885,000. The tax impact, considering a median household assessed value of roughly $400,000, is on average $455 over the life of the financing, according to figures presented by the town bond consultant Bill Lindsey at an April BOE meeting. The town is continually organizing bond projections, factoring in potential future debt for both the town and the schools and cash flow changes, which include and a shift in timeline for the library renovation project.

The first bond for Ryerson would not be issued until fiscal year 2019-’20 and town finance officials and the town bond consultants are attempting to stage the debt so that new debt comes on as the high school debt drops off.