As York town officials begin in earnest to find a solution for the overcrowded and inadequate town hall, one serious option that is rising to the fore involves town use of the Village Elementary School building, housing all elementary-aged youngsters at Coastal Ridge Elementary School.
This issue was broached Monday night at the Board of Selectmen’s meeting, and will be discussed by the School Committee at its Oct. 18 meeting.
Town Manager Steve Burns proposes that funding for a study be included in the Fiscal Year 2019 operating budget. He said the issue came up at a recent Capital Planning Committee meeting, “and the consensus was, what would it take to move municipal facilities to VES? It’s not a question of should we, but if the school department is going to make the building available to the town, what would it take to retrofit it?”
The study would investigate costs associated with consolidation of the elementary grades and renovating VES for municipal needs.
Burns said an expansion of the current town hall, or construction of an annex or a completely new town hall would be “a multi-million dollar project.” Therefore, “it makes logical sense to see if this option is feasible before we proceed down another path.”
Currently, kindergarten and grade 1 are at VES, while grades 2-4 are at CRES. Burns said, “in all likelihood,” for the students to be under one roof, the school as well as the parking lot would need to be expanded.
According to Burns, this issue “has been lingering for 20 years or so. This is the opportunity to put it to rest, one way or the other.”
He has suggested an amount of $50,000 be placed in the town budget, rather than splitting the cost with the schools, for fear it might pass in one place and be turned down in another. Also, he said the school department is dealing with a tight budget that has little margin for items not directly related to education. In fact, funding for a capacity study of all four schools was cut last year in order to bring the school budget down.
In board discussion, Selectman Dawn Sevigny-Watson asked if the funding for the project could be taken from the sale of tax-acquired property. While Burns said that’s possible, there will be little money left in that account if the bathhouse project passes voter muster next month. Still, that does leave the winter for additional sales to take place.
Robert Palmer questioned whether $50,000 was going to be enough. He suggested Burns work to get more detail about cost. The last thing the town needs is to underfund the study, he said.
“We need to make sure our numbers are as reasonable as can be,” he said. “But I really support this. We need to utilize all the buildings we have.”
Selectmen took no action Monday night. Burns will bring the matter back before them at a future meeting.