Council OKs Marshall question on ballot

LYNN – Voters will take center stage in the city preliminary election just over a month from now when they go to the polls to support or reject a City Council-approved proposal to borrow millions of dollars to pay for a new Marshall Middle School. Councilors voted 10-0 Tuesday night to place the $92 million Brookline Street project on the Sept. 17 ballot after Superintendent Catherine Latham called the new school a crucial education priority for the city.”A new Marshall Middle School will put Lynn on track for improving the schools and the city,” Latham said.The four-story, 1,100-student school is scheduled to open in September 2016 and would replace the 90-year-old Marshall, off Essex Street.State officials will be asked for approval later this year to reimburse the city for 80 percent of the new school’s cost, subject to final approval of the construction budget and site plans and voter approval.Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy and city Acting Chief Financial Officer Peter Caron said borrowing associated with building a new Marshall will not increase property taxes.Caron, in a memo to councilors Tuesday, said money to pay for construction will initially be borrowed on a “short term” basis in “two or three stages.””The actual bond for the project will not be issued until the school has been completed,” Caron stated in the memo.He noted in the memo that issuing the bond in three or four years coincides with the completion of payments on school bonds undertaken by the city 20 years ago to pay for construction or work on three high schools.”By Fiscal Year 2019, the City’s annual debt service will actually be significantly less than the current FY 2014 budgeted debt service,” wrote Caron.The Marshall project’s costs break down into a long list of expenses with some not reimbursed by the state.Project consultant Lynn Stapleton told city officials in July that the $275 per square foot state reimbursement rate means that $52.8 million out of an estimated $68 million construction cost will be reimbursed by the state.”It’s sort of misleading when they say they will pay 80 percent,” Stapleton told Marshall building committee members.Kennedy last week said she is hopeful Marshall’s per square foot building cost can be reduced to just over $300.Millions of dollars associated with the new school are not directly related to its construction, including $6 million in architecture design and engineering expenses; $4 million in land acquisition costs – including $1.3 million already approved by the council – and $2.6 million in school furnishings. Another $4 million is set aside to cover “construction contingency.”