MSBA raises Salem High School award by about $10 million; committee lays out 2027–2031 timeline

The Salem High School Building Committee received an update Jan. 29 that put the project’s financing and schedule on a firmer footing: the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s estimate of its reimbursement came in about $10 million higher than the project team’s earlier estimate, raising the MSBA award to approximately $208,000,000.

“The good news is that their estimate of their reimbursement is about $10,000,000 higher than my estimate,” said Speaker 1, the committee’s lead presenter. He told the committee the MSBA review had moved quickly in the prior week and the agency’s staff were transitioning the project to the team that would work with Salem after a successful local vote.

The committee reviewed a multi-year timetable: schematic design will be on the Feb. 25 board meeting agenda, the team expects to continue design development and estimating through 2027 with the aim of putting work out to bid in 2027, beginning building construction in January–February 2028, and opening the new high school for the 2030 school year. Site removal and final site work were presented as likely to continue through about December 2031.

Speaker 1 explained the roughly $10 million difference fell into two main areas: MSBA moved some square footage the team had counted as ineligible into eligible status (including additional health and physical-education space tied to student counts), and a corrected sign in a prior 'clawback' calculation that had mistakenly altered the previous figure. "They moved a bunch of things that I had put in ineligible. They moved it into eligible," Speaker 1 said, adding that MSBA’s spreadsheet logic appeared methodical.

The presenter also walked through how the project will be packaged: an enabling package that covers site and utility work (beginning in 2027) to prepare the site, followed by the primary building package starting in early 2028.

On reimbursement rates, the committee was told the current calculations put the city near the statutory cap for base reimbursement rates. Speaker 1 noted the project’s current effective reimbursement combines a base percentage (73.89%) plus a 5.1% incentive; the legislative cap on base reimbursement is 80 percent, so only a modest change is possible and any change would alter the local share only incrementally.

Committee members also recapped recent local approvals: the building committee’s presentation to the City Council’s administration and finance committee and the full council resulted in approvals to move forward with a bond order and a debt-exclusion election in late January. A member asked whether the bond order listed a capped dollar amount or a full-project-cost reference; the reply was that the bond order references the full project cost per MSBA-prescribed language.

Action recorded at the Jan. 29 meeting: the committee approved the Dec. 11 meeting minutes by voice vote and later moved, seconded and passed a motion to adjourn.

Next steps identified by the committee include final MSBA comments (expected soon from MSBA staff), the Feb. 25 schematic-design agenda item before the board, continued design development through 2027, and community-facing outreach ahead of the special election.