Wenham Finance Committee Moves Toward School Endorsement Based on Cost Comparisons

WENHAM -- January 23, 2025, Wenham Finance Committee moves toward endorsing new school as cheapest available option. Meeting Thursday, the five-member Finance and Advisory Committee worked through a spreadsheet model showing that bringing Cutler and Winthrop schools up to code compliance alone would cost an estimated $46 million to $48 million per building, roughly $94 million combined, for aging structures that would receive no modernization. A delayed two-school approach, built seven years from now, was projected at $204 million to $226 million before construction inflation. Against those figures, the proposed new consolidated school at a net cost of approximately $92 million to Wenham after a Massachusetts School Building Authority grant emerged as the least expensive path. "Net net, it's almost a wash," said committee member Jared, "but also we actually get something, we get a building." The committee plans to issue a written financial opinion in February, stress-tested across multiple inflation and interest-rate assumptions, before the April Town Meeting vote. Members reacted with frustration to the Select Board's unanimous conceptual endorsement of the project earlier in the week, with one member saying the board "acknowledged that they had no input as to the effect of the tax rate of their decision." The committee's next meeting is Wednesday, January 29, at 7 p.m.