The public will hear the final proposed cost of the Nauset Regional High School building project in February, according to Greg Levasseur, chairman of the building committee.
Levasseur told the Eastham Select Board on Oct. 23 that the Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA) will vote to fund the project in February at a final proposed cost.
“That will be the number we will be using to go forward for the town meetings next May,” he said.
The initial proposal for the project came in at $139.3 million. Levasseur said the final cost can’t be any more than that, but it could get lower as the plans and budget are refined.
The building committee must file a submission with the MSBA in December for the preliminary schematic design of the new high school for review. The MSBA will then vote in February.
The MSBA has set its allowable cost, or the highest amount they are willing to reimburse the district for the project, at $41 million. Levausser said the MSBA put four percent more on the table for reimbursement because the project is a renovation and not a rebuild.
“They’re trying to encourage towns to renovate instead of building an entirely new school,” he said.
Ultimately, all four towns in the school district must vote to approve the project at their spring town meetings for it to go forward.
“Any one of the four towns not voting for it would kill the project,” Levasseur said.
If the project is rejected, the district has 120 days to tell the MSBA that the vote failed and then come up with a plan on how to deal with that failure. The committee would most likely have to start over.
“We’d go to the back of the line and the back of the line for a while,” he said.
Tee-Time Committee
The town received 25 applications to join the 4790 State Highway Committee that will help determine what to do with the former Tee-Time property that the town now owns.
The select board will rank the applicants and potentially meet with some of them before they decide who will serve.
The select board will also vote on how many members to include in the committee, perhaps nine with two alternates. The committee will serve for two years.
Openings in Town
The town is seeking qualified applicants for the full-time position of firefighter-paramedic or EMT and the full-time position of administrative assistant to the town clerk. Both positions remain advertised on the town’s website until Nov. 8 at 3 p.m.
Applicants can apply by visiting eastham-ma.gov/human-resources/pages/job-opportunities.
