As the plans for the voter-approved renovations and building projects pick up momentum, members of the New Elementary School Building Committee (NESBC) are asking residents to continue to get informed and be involved in the project. The overall plan, which calls for a new elementary school to be built along Mungertown Road and for significant upgrades to both the Polson Elementary and Daniel Hand High schools, is steadily beginning to formulate, according to Committee members.

The NEBC is charged solely with collating ideas and plans for the elementary school and is not involved in the process of the other two projects. However, the funding for all of the projects is comingled and can be shifted between these projects with BOS approval, according to Graham Curtis, chair of the Building Committee.

Curtis said the project is on track for a 2024 groundbreaking but that there is still much ahead for his committee and the community before any decisions are set in stone. The hope is that, despite anticipated production and supply interruptions, the school will be ready to open for the 2025 school year. That date is not definitive and could shift as the process moves forward.

“Overall, this design process is a 12-month duration, and we are just past the schematic stage, which means we are just about 15 percent of the way through the design process. So, we are still early in this,” said Curtis.

There were community concerns raised about the budget, but Curtis cautioned not to read too deeply into financial factors this early in the design. According to Curtis, entities such as the NESBC often overestimate budgets to ensure that there are no cost overruns in the process.

“We are still very early in this process…and the earlier you are in the process, the more contingencies and escalation factors get plugged in. It was not shocking that we came in above in this stage. That’s the nature of the process; you are always going to be a little higher, but you certainly want to know about where you are at each stage of the design,” Curtis said. “At this point, we’ve identified that the number produced was going to be higher than the budget. I would’ve been shocked if it wasn’t higher, but that is our task. We are looking at a number of factors, such as tax credits and other reimbursements…that will get us where we need to be.”

According to Curtis, who was also chair of the Scranton Library Building Committee, the project is still evolving.

“We’re going to be coming before the Board of Selectman probably at the end of February or early March and updating the plans. We will go through and present the current plans, but the process is still evolving,” said Curtis. “We are working collaboratively with the staff, with the neighbors, and parents. There are a lot of stakeholders to satisfy. You can never have enough input on a project like this.”

Curtis said that there are plans for more public meetings and feedback sessions with the community in March and April.

“People will have plenty of opportunity to see the plans and comment on them,” said Curtis. “We have hosted a number of workshops…but you can never have enough public outreach, and we are proactively making sure that all involved have an opportunity to discuss this and to have a voice in this before we bring it to Planning and Zoning.”

The plans currently call for the entrance to the new school to be accessed via Mungertown Road, according to Curtis. The chair also said that residents should understand the fiscal details of a large construction project like this one and note that increases in costs don’t always translate into budget overruns or shifts in the taxpayer burden.

“The thing we want to covey is that the referendum allows us to move money between the projects for this very reason,” said Curtis. So, potentially there might be reallocation of some of the money, but we haven’t made that decision yet because we are still working out all the details. If anything, we would simply be asking to move money from one project to another. There is also a pending update study of the elementary school student population, so there is still a lot the Committee needs to determine before a final cost is projected.”

Curtis added, “This is all part of the effort and fine-tuning. We have $4 million of design contingency now, that when we finish the design,that we won’t need. This is a process, and it is not unexpected that we would have to deal with factors like this. We’ll continue to look for ways to economize and reduce costs wherever we can.”

To view the committee’s full charge, visit madisonct.org and find their link under the Boards and Commissions link.