Letter this afternoon from the Massachusetts School Building Authority approving a grant to the town for the boiler replacement at the Wheelock School in the amount of $179,137 to $187,565 –
Massachusetts School Building Authority
Deborah B. Goldberg John K. McCarthy
Chairman, State Treasurer Executive Director
March 25, 2015
Mr. Michael J. Sullivan, Town Administrator
Town of Medfield
459 Main Street
Medfield, MA 02052
Re: Town of Medfield, Ralph Wheelock School
Dear Mr. Sullivan:
I am pleased to report that the Board of the Massachusetts School Building Authority (the
“MSBA”) voted to approve the Proposed Accelerated Repair Project (the “Proposed
Project”) for the Town of Medfield (the “Town”) for a boiler replacement project at the
Ralph Wheelock School.
The Board approved an estimated maximum Total Facilities Grant of $179,137, which
does not include any funds for potentially eligible owner’s or construction contingency
expenditures. In the event that the MSBA determines that any owner’s and/or
construction contingency expenditures are eligible for reimbursement, the maximum
Total Facilities Grant for the Proposed Project may increase to $187,565. The final grant
amount will be determined by the MSBA based on a review and audit of all project costs
incurred by the Town, in accordance with the MSBA’s regulations, policies, and
guidelines and the Project Funding Agreement. The final grant amount may be an
amount less than $179,137.
Pursuant to the terms of the MSBA’s Accelerated Repair Program, the Town has 90 days
to acquire and certify local approval for an appropriation and all other necessary local
votes or approvals showing acceptance of the cost, site, type, scope and timeline for the
Proposed Project. Upon receipt of the certified votes demonstrating local approval, the
MSBA and the Town will execute a Project Funding Agreement which will set forth the
terms and conditions pursuant to which the Town will receive its grant from the MSBA.
Once the Project Funding Agreement has been executed by both parties, the Town will be
eligible to submit requests for reimbursement for Proposed Project costs to the MSBA.
We will be contacting you soon to discuss these next steps in more detail, but in the
meantime, I wanted to share with you the Board’s approval of the Proposed Project for
the Town of Medfield for a boiler replacement project at the Ralph Wheelock School,
40 Broad Street, Suite 500 •Boston, MA 02109 •Tel: 617-720-4466 •Fax: 617-720-5260 • http://www.MassSchoolBuildings.org
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March 25, 2015
Town of Medfield PF A Board Action Letter
and the Board’s authorization to execute a Project Funding Agreement for this Proposed
Project.
Sincerely,
Cc: Legislative Delegation
Osler L. Peterson, Chair, Medfield Board of Selectmen
Christopher Morrison, Chair, Medfield School Committee
Dr. Jeffrey J. Marsden, Superintendent, Medfield Public Schools
Michael LaFrancesca, Director of Finance and Operations, Medfield Public
Schools
Alexandra Vresilovic, Owner’s Project Manager, Skanska USA Building, Inc.
Mike Trzcinski, Designer, Hesnor Engineering Associates, PLLC
File: 10.2 Letters
Medfield02052's Blog 
Pete-
I find it absolutely stunning that there is no coverage of school budgets, in particular the relationship of cost to rising and falling student populations. School spending represents, far and away, the largest item in any town or city budget, yet no one seems to want to deal with the issue. Also, I see nothing on the agenda that addresses the massive shortfall in the funding of employee benefits. I note that there’s a session on “Lessons and land mines”. Is this a tutorial to help public officials avoid facing the really important fiscal issues? Very disappointing.
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Charlie,
Thanks for your comments. i am catching up,so please excuse my delay.
First, town officials have absolutely no say or control over school budgets, so I would guess that is the reason that there are no MMA seminars on school budgets. The town as a whole can only approve or not the total school budget at the town meeting, but once a budget amount is approved by the town meeting it is then up to the superintendent as to how those monies get spent. While I am exceedingly interested in the school budget issues you raise, please know that i already probably spend about 20 hours a week already just trying to do my volunteer job as a selectman (and i also have a full time job as an attorney), so I have yet to find the extra time to study the school budget issues. Also, those issues really are the purview of the school committee, not the selectmen, despite my interest.
I see that the school committee meeting to discuss the budget got postponed by the storm, and so i encourage you to go to the re-scheduled meeting to raise your school budget issues with them.
Second, I certainly did hear about OPEB liabilities again this year at the MMA annual meeting, although I did hear more about it last year. The MMA is seeking to be part of the solution, crafting legislation to improve the OPEB situation. Governor Patrick’s commission on the OPEB issue made recommendations over a year ago, but the MMA opposed them on the basis that they both did not do enough and also what id did do would make things worse for towns. Look at the MMA’s website (www.mma.org) and you should find the action item that the membership voted on this past Saturday morning to ask the legislature to enact OPEB reforms.