One of the many bills that the state Legislature has tried to cram through before the July 31 deadline includes a review of the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s ability to meet the needs of current and future school-facility projects.
The Senate on Monday passed a bill that would create a special commission to study and make recommendations concerning the viability of the MSBA’s funding policy.
School building projects have become more complicated in recent years amid economic volatility and supply-chain issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The resulting escalation in construction costs has outpaced the growth in MSBA funding limits.
That led lawmakers and Gov. Maura Healey last year to increase the annual cap on the amount of grants the agency can award each year and make other changes meant to give the agency greater flexibility to deal with inflation.
Currently, the MSBA uses the School Modernization and Reconstruction Trust Fund to underwrite school building projects, which in turn is funded by taking one penny from every sales transaction in the commonwealth, which comes with sales tax of 6.25% tacked on.
The ambitious Lowell High School construction/rehab project serves as a prime example of the need to update the MSBA funding mechanism.
In March 2022, representatives from Suffolk Construction and Skanska told the Lowell City Council that building costs were going to be higher due to supply-chain increases caused by COVID.
On average, steel went up 139%, curtain wall by 38% and drywall by 24%. Those budget overruns raised the project to its current $381 million cost, with the $38.5 million increase the responsibility of the city and its taxpayers.
City councilors had long argued the unexpected costs should be the responsibility of the state.
State Sen. Ed Kennedy filed legislation to address the issue in January 2023.
“There are a lot of communities who went to the MSBA and got funding to move ahead with their project,” the Lowell Democrat said at the time. “They found out later that the building material costs had skyrocketed, and had raised the price.”
In addition to Lowell, other communities were over their MSBA-approved budget funding, such as Groton at $16 million, Stoneham at $19 million and Somerville at $30 million.
The funding in Kennedy’s bill came, not from the MSBA, but from revenue generated by the fair share amendment, also known as the “millionaire’s tax,” funds that are dedicated to transportation and public education.
The legislation included 30 school-building projects estimated to receive approximately $270 million in additional grants based on increased funding limits from the MSBA.
The supplemental funding was approved by the MSBA’s Board of Directors in October 2023.
But that emergency funding route represented a stopgap measure, not part of a MSBA policy to address the scope of unexpected construction overruns.
And due to the advanced age of many of the state’s school buildings, the demand for MSBA funds will only increase.
Sen. Brendan Crighton, a Lynn Democrat, has been a proponent of overhauling how the MSBA funds building projects.
“If you look across all of our districts, we recognize that we have, in many instances, crumbling infrastructure in our school system. In the city of Lynn alone, we have 12 schools — 12 schools — over 100 years old. Now, the best teachers in the world, the best families, best students, would still have a very difficult time learning and buildings that are far outdated, do not have the technology, do not have the public health protections there,” he said. “It’s a serious problem, and one that this body has time and time again sought to remedy by taking a deeper dive by rolling up our sleeves and having a hard conversation.”
The Senate has tried to address the MSBA issues by making the special commission language part of its budget in the last several years, Crighton said, “but unfortunately we’ve not been able to have it signed into law, which has significantly delayed our ability to address this issue through future legislation.”
“So I’m hopeful this bill will be passed once and for all, so that we can roll up our sleeves next session and take these recommendations and have an informed debate about how we can provide equity when it comes to our public-school facilities,” he said Monday.
Crumbling public-school infrastructure, as evidenced by the functional obsolescence and physical decay of many buildings in the Lynn school system, demands a more responsive and amply funded state agency to meet that expected construction/rehab demand.
Let’s hope this measure makes it to the governor’s desk in this legislative session.
