Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 12/16/2019 - P23
Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing — 12/16/2019 Page 23
One of the things that we haven’t talked about tonight, | don’t think it was in the FAQ’s either is State aid. State
aid disappeared at some point after the high school project was completed. It has started to creep back up, |
am not aware of what is going on with that, but | know that they have solicited input from the school districts for
any projects that are planned and there is, it is not going to be full, back to where it used to be, because we
used to get like 30%, former Alderman Bolton can tell you that. Alderman Dowd was also there at that point on
the high school project. So it probably won’t be 30% but it'll be something. So whatever that bond amount is
that we are talking about as part of the issue of trying to figure out how much is that bond payment going to be.
We don’t know, not only we don’t know when we are going to be buying the bonds, but we don’t know what
other money is coming in. We don’t know about potential revenue if we do something with Elm Street. So
there are a lot of unknowns.
We have talked about the student population of Nashua decreasing it has been on the decline, and it has
been. | think when | got here there were over 13,000 students, now it is a little bit over 11,000 but it has
flattened out, | don’t see it going down anymore. So when we talk about designing, we have about 2,400
students in the middle school range right now, divide that by 3 and it comes to 800, so we are planning for 800
plus.
One of things we haven't really talked about tonight was the out-of-district placement. Actually Mr. Coffman
talked a little bit about dealing with these middle school population, which we tend to do with a new school.
The School District is looking at what to do with the high school and elementary schools as well. So part of the
thought process is if you build new schools, then they are going to become attractive for the Nashua residents.
So maybe some of those kids that are going to Charter Schools might come back, we don’t know.
Finally and probably most important is that Elm Street is well beyond its useful service life. It’s tough and the
systems in the building are gone. We have put money into it, it’s like owning a boat, a boat is something you
put in the water and you pour money into, that’s what we are doing at this point. Both the staff and the
students are working and learning in substandard conditions. If you try to go there in the seasons of May and
June and September and you go to the third floor and you try to concentrate on learning, it just gets too hot,
because they systems are so old we can’t really control the heat that well. We are dealing with old unit
ventilators and controls, it is just very, very difficult. We did say it was much more expensive to renovate than
to build new. There’s a saying about lipstick or a pig that has lipstick on it, that’s exactly what we’d have if we
renovated Elm Street. It is still going to be a school built in the 1930’s. You’ve got a pretty good estimate that
Harvey put together to renovate it, but we are still not going to be meeting State standards if we do that? So
why would we pour $93 million dollars into a building and still not meet State standards.
Finally security, so if you go to Elm Street now, you get buzzed in but then you can go anywhere you want in
the school, you don’t go past a main office, it’s a situation we corrected within the foundation of Sunset
Heights. So security at Elm Street, there are so many doors in the school, the security is a very tough issue for
us. So hopefully I’ve given a little insight.
TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION
Mr. Teeboom Any earlier question was asked, “what is the affect on the tax rate” which nobody answered. To give
you an idea, the City’s Budget is made of taxes and then grants and fees. The tax portion of the City is about $180
million dollars. That means 1% of the tax rate is $1.8 million, that number has been around for quite a while. |
mentioned earlier that the first payment of the bond is going to be $8.85 million dollars. That means unless you
find the money some other place, it is going to be between 4 to 5% on the tax rate. That’s a fact. Now as far as
suddenly nobody knows what is going now, the fact that an analysis of the bond, in the analysis, I’m not going to
read the whole thing but it talks about 3.5 interest rate, 25 years. It talks about the bond being $171,690,000.00.
That’s exactly correct, | read the whole analysis and that’s exact to the dollar. Figures don’t lie.
However, if you can’t answer the question, you shouldn’t be bonding this thing. If you can’t answer the question
about what to do about the existing facility at Elm Street, you don’t have a detailed analysis down to the detailed
design, you haven’t answered the question about the tax rates and done the bonding analysis.
