The Hampden Selectboard will meet with the Wilbraham Select Board on Sept. 23 to discuss the regional agreement and memorandum of understanding on Wilbraham Middle School.
Photo credit: Town of Hampden, MA
HAMPDEN — The Hampden Selectboard discussed its opinions and made revision suggestions on a memorandum of understanding from the Wilbraham Select Board covering costs relating to Wilbraham Middle School at its meeting on Sept. 15.
The MOU covers around $86,000 in capital repairs for the middle school, which both boards agreed to in July.
The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District School Committee voted to incorporate the funds into the district’s FY27 assessment on July 30. The towns will need to approve the budget increase at fall Town Meeting.
It also covers emergency costs that may occur while the middle school is still in use and the core program is explored, feasibility costs and design costs.
Attorney Brian Winner initially spoke through the MOU at the Wilbraham Select Board’s meeting on Sept. 11.
Winner said Hampden’s counsel felt the capital needs were “water under the bridge” and emergency, feasibility and design costs were already covered in the existing regional agreement.
Wilbraham Select Board Chair Marc Ducey said he spoke to Hampden Selectboard Chair John Flynn, with the belief that Flynn thought there was no reason for an MOU or any further regional agreement amendments.
Ducey said Flynn didn’t have that perspective, and Flynn told him he believed the MOU had some issues in the way it’s written but is an “appropriate document.”
Hampden Town Administrator Brian Domina said both boards agree on the long-term goal of establishing a new regionalized middle school owned by the district on Sept. 14.
He said the tool for implementing that is the regional agreement, which needs to make sure both towns can share the building like the other regional buildings, while also detailing cost sharing, planning and constructing the building.
“The intent is it’s treated the same way as we do [Minnechaug Regional High School],” Domina said. “That gets us through the long-term goal of building a new regional middle school, which is obviously a long-term process that’s going to, we’re going to have to go through the Massachusetts School Building Authority.”
Domina said there’s also questions about the short-term plan, in terms of how the middle school can be made “the best educational environment” considering the age of the building and a potentially short remaining life span.
He added both towns are aligned in not wanting to make significant capital investments to building that may only have five to 10 years left, and that Hampden doesn’t because the town doesn’t own the building.
The towns have also created an improvement plan to identify “critical deficiencies” in the middle school, and Domina said Wilbraham will bring funds to Town Meeting to cover repairs. The towns still need to figure out how to share additional costs.
Flynn said the MOU doesn’t discuss the future and only covers what the two boards did this year.
He said it didn’t talk about how the process should be repeated on an annual basis, and Domina said it does “miss the mark in that respect.”
“It’s different from the one we saw before where it was a blank check going forward,” Flynn said. “Instead of modifying the blank check to say ‘repeat the process,’ they dropped any year after this. This is nine pages on what we’ve already accomplished.”
He said having the agreed-upon $86,000 in the MOU makes it seem like that number covers the middle school’s entire interim plan and not just for this year.
Selectboard member Erik Vanderleeden asked what would happen and who would pay if the boards were not in agreement and a “major thing happens” at the middle school. Flynn said it’s covered a little bit in the MOU and Domina said Wilbraham would pay for it.
Flynn said he likes the language in the MOU’s emergency repairs section because it doesn’t put any responsibility on Hampden to participate or pay for repairs.
He said the MOU takes care of the middle school and suggested adding language to repeat this year’s process for subsequent years and removing specific number amounts.
The board touched on the regional agreement, which Domina said needs to allow for cost sharing during planning and construction of a new regional middle school.
The Wilbraham Select Board and Hampden Selectboard will hold a joint meeting at the Hampden Town Hall on Sept. 23 to further discuss the regional agreement and MOU. Coverage of that meeting will be in the Oct. 1 edition of The Reminder and at thereminder.com.
