The City Council must soon decided on how to proceed with Watertown Middle School’s renovations: completely redo it or do basic repairs. The catch is a complete renovation (or rebuilt) would required cutting funds planned to go to other areas.
City Manager George Proakis outlined what it would take for the City to afford to completely renovate or rebuild the Middle School during his Preliminary Budget Overview for the Fiscal Year 2027 City budget.
A big caveat in this plan is the Legislature approving Watertown’s Home Rule Petition that would provide tax relief to residential property owners, and would prevent tax increases of 11 to 18 percent next year (see details here).
A feasibility study on the building a new middle school found that the cost of the full project was $112 million, which was well above the $87 million that the City budgeted for the project. He provided a scenario that could be possible to increase borrowing to $98.2 million, instead of the $70 million originally used when looking at the project. This scenario would not require a Proposition 2 1/2 debt exclusion, which Proakis said he does not favor during the recent State of the City Address.
FY 2027:
- Reduce contribution to OPEB (other post employment benefits) from $4 million to $2 million
- Reduce Senior Center stabilization from $6.5 million to $3.6 million
FY 2028:
- Reduce contribution to OPEB from $4.6 million to $1.5 million
- Reduce contribution to Senior Center from $7 million to $3.5 million
FY 2029:
- Reduce contribution to OPEB from $4 million to $800,000
- Eliminate Senior Center stabilization payment of $6 million
- Eliminate open space contribution of $1.1 million
- Eliminate affordable housing contribution of $250,000
Taking these steps would have impacts on the City’s budget flexibility, Proakis said, including: not being able to borrow to build a new Senior Center, delay the final paying off of the OPEB deficit, and in FY29 there would be limitations for open space and affordable housing funding.
Building a new Middle School could even be possible if the Home Rule Petition does not pass, Proakis said, but the cuts would have to be more drastic including cuts to existing programs. They include:
- Substantial reductions in the City Council reserve
- No contributions to open space, Senior Center, affordable housing, and Watertown Square between FY 2027-2029
- No contributions to OPEB FY27-29
- Program cuts in FY28 and beyond
The Council has some big decisions to make, Proakis said.
“I think it’s important for the Council, at the end of the day, to give manager guidance, give me guidance, to give the City administration guidance, to give the School Department guidance, so that we all know where we are with this situation,” he said.
One reason to look at constructing a new Middle School now is the Watertown Schools has swing space available immediately in the modular classrooms set up on Moxley Field for the high school project. City Council President Mark Sideris noted that each month the rental cost for the modulars is $136,500. He added that the middle school still has not been designed, so it could not start by the fall of 2026.
“We’re already three months, four months behind. So we need to make some decisions. Make them quickly,” Sideris said. “And as you can see from this 202 page presentation, this is a challenging time going forward with some options that the manager has laid.”
Proakis said the City could seek to do a new middle school at a later date and release the modular classrooms. In this scenario Watertown could seek state reimbursement from the MSBA, as it did with Watertown High School. However, he is not sure that Watertown would be able to get funding so soon after getting the funds for the new WHS.
Watertown could also use the money set aside for the Middle School project, about $17 million, to purchase land in town to build a new school. In this case, the City would not upgrade the current school and wait until the funds are available to proceed with the project.
The Council will discuss which way to go with the Middle School at its Oct. 28 meeting, Sideris said. The meeting will begin an hour early, at 6 p.m.
“We’re going to try to focus on prioritization so that when the Budget and Fiscal Oversight Committee meets that the expectations for additional programs and additional staff might be somewhat tempered because of these remarks tonight, so I think it’s important,” Sideris said.