Question 4: Glover School Project

Another question that is back this year at a lower cost is the Glover School project, a proposal to build a new school for students in kindergarten through third grade. If approved, the new building would accommodate 425 students and would mean that The Eveleth Elementary School would be closed.

The question would authorize the expenditure of $25.9 million for the new school, but the state has agreed to send $10.2 million, or about 40 percent of the total costs, to Marblehead for the school construction.

That would leave the town to raise the balance of $15.7 million through bond sales.

The school building committee cut almost $2 million off the estimated costs that went to the Town Meeting last year. The savings were achieved with several design changes and relocating where the proposed school would sit on the site.

Proponents say that now is the time to approve the funding for the school. The driving force is availability of the state funding.

Opponents have jumped on the disclosure that funding for the reconstruction of the Village School has proven to be more expensive to the town because of change orders that the state would not agree to fund.

The Committee for Fiscal Responsibility has called for an audit of the funds used for the Village School “before voters approve any more spending.”

The project was approved at Town Meeting in May, where School Committee members described the building as deplorable and dilapidated. Before opening the floor to discussion, committee members presented residents with a slide presentation showing conditions inside the school and said it ranked 62nd of the 1817 state schools considered to be in poor condition.

The new school would be 79,108-square-feet and would be built on the same site that the school currently occupies.

The decision to approve the project, which was the last vote made at Town Meeting, passed by a margin of 605 to 38.