State to chip in 40 percent of construction costs for new school in Marblehead

MARBLEHEAD – Marblehead can expect Massachusetts to provide 40 percent of the construction cost of a new Glover-Eveleth School.Sarah Young, director of facilities programming and planning for the Massachusetts School Building Authority, told that to representatives of the Marblehead Facilities Master Plan Committee at a meeting in Boston last Wednesday.Young said the baseline reimbursement is 31 percent, but that no community will receive less than 40 percent of the cost of a school project.Attending the meeting from Marblehead were Superintendent of Schools Paul Dulac, Amy Drinker and Patricia Blackmer of the School Committee, School Business Manager David Keniston, Glover-Eveleth Principal Mary Devlin, School Facilities Director David Dunkley, Finance Committee member Kathy Leonardson and Brooke Trivas. A representative from State Sen. Thomas McGee’s office also attended. Blackmer prepared a report on the meeting for School Committee members Thursday evening.The FMPC and School Committee have proposed closing the Glover School and rebuilding the Eveleth School as a two-story building for 400 students, the combined Glover-Eveleth enrollment. Under the new rules established for the MSBA, the proposal has moved into the Feasibility Phase, in which local officials and the MSBA will spend six-18 months discussing the project in detail, collaboratively.Young outlined the next steps in the process, which will include a letter reporting the membership of the town’s School Building Committee, school enrollment confirmation, a feasibility agreement and designer selection. Blackmer said Sean Walsh, the MSBA project field coordinator, will send the town more information on those steps.At the May Town Meeting the FPMC will seek approval of what Blackmer called “a reasonable estimate” of the cost of the owner’s project manager and cost of the design, percentages of the estimated total cost. Dulac said the cost of the manager appears to be “a lot smaller amount than the town had anticipated.”Amy Drinker noted that there are 49 communities following the same new process for school construction this year.