MARBLEHEAD — The bill for the Marblehead High School roof is already steep before adding another $8.6 million to it. Yet the necessity for proper heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) units in addition to the roof itself means more money will be added to the bill at the end of this project.
At the subcommittee meeting on Wednesday, Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Michael Pfifferling shared that the addition to doing the HVAC replacement in conjunction with the roof would cost an additional $8.6 million. Pfifferling recommended the debt exclusion override which the full school committee discussed during their Thursday night meeting.
Pfifferling added there is $1.6 million that was left unborrowed from the Brown School which can be used towards the roof replacement. This reallocation of funds will not be able to move forward until the 2026 town meeting if the town votes in approval.
Opening the discussion, Pfifferling expressed this has been a hot topic for the town. He said that during the first facilities subcommittee meeting approximately a month ago, both Left Field and Raymond Design companies came to the meeting and shared replacement options.
But after taking a trip to see the state of the roofing, both companies found a further issue with the HVAC units.
“When they got up there on the roof, they did identify that the majority of our HVAC system and HVAC systems were at the end of their life,” said Pfifferling.
The design companies laid out two options. One included buying new HVAC systems that are equipped with the latest refrigerant that’s on the market. The other is to put the old HVAC systems back on the roof charged with recovered refrigerant, which would allow two or three more years left with the current systems.
Pfifferling suggests going forward with the total debt exclusion override for a multitude of reasons, including cost increases in coming years.
“We should not take the old units off the roof and try to put them back,” said Pfifferling. “If we do and then try and get a debt exclusion a couple of years down the road, it’s been projected it would cost an additional $2.5 million beyond what it’s already projected now.”
In 2022, Town Meeting approved an initial $5.36 million for the project, but nothing was ever completed. Once the project got underway, the problems started to unfold leading to today’s $14 million price tag.
The school committee wanted to make clear that when making the bond for the 2022 debt exclusion, the HVAC problem had not been seen or addressed.
“No one had been on the roof,” said School Committee Co-Chair, Sarah Fox. “And now that they are, the information came out.”
The committee also addressed the recent report on the loan length being 30 years.
Town Finance Director Aleesha Benjamin punched the $8.6 million into a website that calculates debt exclusions. To get an average monetary number, Benjamin had to input a length of time for loan–she chose 30 years, according to Pfifferling.
The length, however, is not definite and will be determined at town meeting in May with the assistance of the town finance director. Once it is proposed at town meeting, the Finance Committee will recommend the best option. According to Pfifferling, that’s typically the option that is voted on.
The MHS roof project is now currently in limbo until funds are voted on at town meeting.
