The School Committee’s longtime goal has been to keep the Bromfield School building well maintained and usable as far into the future as possible. A vote on Article 5 at Town Meeting next week could put Harvard in line to receive state funds to pay nearly half the cost of a new, energy-efficient heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system for Bromfield.
For the past decade, Bromfield’s HVAC system has been a major concern, because many of its units are well past their expected lifetimes. In 2019 the School Committee began asking Town Meeting voters to approve replacing one or two of the school’s 40 outdated rooftop HVAC units each year.
That piecemeal process kept the financial requests moderate, but it was difficult to find contractors who were willing to bid on such small jobs. And it was inefficient. Tim Bragan, the former town administrator, described it as “trying to eat an elephant one bite at a time.”
In 2023, the Capital Planning and Investment Committee rejected a School Committee request for $3 million to replace the rest of the aged HVAC units all at once. Instead, CPIC approved an engineering study to determine how best to move forward with the project. That study was carried out by the Boston consulting firm NV5, which presented several options for shifting Bromfield’s HVAC system from natural gas to electricity.
Then, last spring, the School Committee learned that the Massachusetts School Building Authority had a new Rapid Repair program that can help districts shift from fossil fuels to electricity. A grant from the MSBA would pay 49.5% of the costs for a new HVAC system at Bromfield. So last March the School Committee began the process of applying for an MSBA Rapid Repair grant.
MSBA grant
The MSBA will make its decision on Harvard’s application just a few weeks from now, during October. But if the MSBA accepts Harvard, the agency has asked for a more comprehensive study of the Bromfield School building, to be done by one of the firms the MSBA specifies. Forrest Hodgkins of the Harvard Energy Advisory Committee said the MSBA wants the study to make sure the building’s envelope is solid and to give greater confidence in the cost estimate for the project.
To pay for that more extensive study, the School Committee put forward Article 5 for the Sept. 27 Town Meeting. The article asks for up to $200,000 from the Capital Stabilization Fund to pay for the study, and CPIC has voted to approve that amount. School Committee Chair Abby Besse said the committee will be negotiating with the MSBA to lower the cost of the study because of information already gathered by NV5.
Besse wrote in an email to the Press, “I think it is important for everyone to be reminded that CPIC money will not add a further tax burden or increase, as the money has already been collected and is in the Capital Stabilization Fund.” Moreover, Besse said, spending any of the money is contingent upon being accepted into the MSBA program. “We will not spend any money if we are not accepted into the grant program,” she wrote. “Furthermore, if we are accepted into MSBA’s Rapid Repair Program, the money will be reimbursed to the town at 49.5%.”
