BEVERLY — A state official is warning Beverly not to develop a "wish-list mentality" in its quest to build an expanded new middle school that would include fifth-graders.
Massachusetts School Building Authority Chief of Staff Matthew Donovan said officials should not be pitching a plan to build a more expensive school before they even know if the city qualifies for state aid.
"They come to us and tell us what the problem is, not the solution," Donovan said. "Don't come to us with a whole reconfiguration plan."
Donovan's criticism comes as Beverly is preparing to submit a "statement of interest" to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by a Jan. 11 deadline for communities seeking state aid for school building projects.
Beverly officials say they plan to ask the MSBA to help pay for an expanded and renovated middle school that would include fifth-graders. The current Briscoe Middle School includes only grades six through eight. The School Committee on Wednesday hosted a public meeting on the grade five-through-eight plan, which has been endorsed by Superintendent Marie Galinski, School Committee members and Mayor Bill Scanlon.
But Donovan said MSBA officials want communities to work with them on building projects, not create their own plans independently, in order to avoid the kind of cost overruns that shut down the state's previous school building assistance program and led to the creation of the MSBA by the state Legislature.
"The former program ran up $11 billion in debt," Donovan said. "Cities and towns were doing their own thing and leaving the bill to the state. Now we build the most cost-appropriate schools."
Scanlon, who is helping write the statement of interest, said the city is not tied to the grade five-to-eight model. He said he does plan to include the concept in the city's application to the MSBA but said it is nonbinding.
"To submit a lengthy statement of interest and not express your best current thinking is inappropriate," Scanlon said. "It seems to me they ought to understand as much as they can about our thinking. We're trying to be as informative with the MSBA as possible."
The School Committee is scheduled to vote to endorse the statement of interest at its meeting on Wednesday. But School Committee President Annemarie Cesa said a vote on whether to officially adopt the fifth-grade middle school plan is still a ways off.
"It's definitely too soon," she said. "More research would have to be done, and a conversation with the state is appropriate."
Cesa said Beverly officials have a good relationship with the MSBA stemming from the $81 million high school project, for which the state paid 58 percent. At last November's ribbon-cutting ceremony, then-state Treasurer Tim Cahill praised Beverly as a "model" for how to construct a school within a reasonable budget.
Officials want to renovate and expand the former Memorial Middle School to become the city's middle school of the future. The cost has been estimated around $40 million, but including fifth-graders would increase costs anywhere from 10 to 20 percent, officials have said. Briscoe, which was built in 1923, would close and most likely be sold.
School officials say fifth-graders would get better instruction and more extracurricular offerings in the middle school and would benefit from updated technology. The change would also free up space in the overcrowded elementary schools for preschool, kindergarten and special education programs.
The new school, if it is built, would not be ready for four or five years.
Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or by email at pleighton@salemnews.com.
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