Abington voters on Saturday have the chance to vote yay or nay on a $276 million proposal to build a new South Shore Regional Vocational Technical High School.
The town is one of nine member communities voting on the proposal Saturday; voters in Whitman, Hanson, Rockland, Hanover, Cohasset, Scituate, Norwell, and Marshfield will also head to the polls.
The outcome will be based on total votes received across the regional school district. Not every town has to approve it the ballot question for the project to pass.
Polls will be open in Abington from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Beaver Brook Elementary School. All registered voters are eligible to cast ballots in the election.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority has pledged to cover about $110 million of the cost leaving the member towns to pick up the remainder.
If the project is approved, Abington voters will likely later be asked to approve a debt exclusion override to pay for the project, as the town’s annual share of debt payments for the project — about $1 million — couldn’t be absorbed into the operating budget. A document posted by the school estimates that the new project will add more than $200 to the average Abington home’s annual tax bill.
Abington was one of the original member communities when the regional school district was formed back in 1960. South Shore Vo-Tech is the second oldest vocational-techincal high school in Massachusetts and still operates out of its original building which opened in 1962.
Tom Hickey, the school’s Superintendent, told the Abington Finance Committee the current building needs about $140 million in upgrades to remain capable of providing a quality technical education to its 685 students. A renovation would not be eligible for state grant money, and would likely result in a smaller school body in order to accomodate modern building code requirements.
“I believe the proposed project is the best investment for the next 60 years for vocational education in our region,” Hickey told Abington News.
The exact cost to Abington taxpayers is hard to pin down for multiple reasons. The district is still deciding which type of financing vehicle to use; the town’s annual share could fluctuate slightly depending on the number of Abington students who attend the school; and Hickey said other towns are interested in joining the school district, which could spread out costs across more communities.
South Shore Vo-Tech, as the school is also called, is proposing to build a three-story, 250,000-square-foot campus capable of eventually educating 900 students. It would be built behind the existing facility on Webster Street in Hanover. The school says it has to turn away 40% of applicants because of lack of space.
This past year, nearly 90 students from Abington applied to attend the school. Only about 17 will get offers to attend, Hickey told the Abington Select Board this week.
“Over my 30 years at the school, it’s pretty clear that Abington supports the trades because college right after high school is not for everyone and a vocational education is a viable path,” Hickey said. “Across the state and the nation, vocational education has never been more in demand than right now.”
In addition to providing space for the school’s current programs — Automotive, Culinary Arts, Carpentry, Cosmetology, Electrical, Design & Visual Communications, Computer Information Technology, HVAC-R, Allied Health, Advanced Manufacturing Electronic Technology, Metal Fabrication/Weldin, Horticulture & Landscape Construction — Hickey says the district plans on adding Plumbing and Veterinary Sciences to the curriculum.
If approved, the project would break ground in 2026, and open in time for the 2028-29 school year.
The debate for Abington taxpayers has been whether to take on another multimillion capital project. The town is in the midst of paying for its own $96 million middle school/high school project and just approved an override to fund a new $35 million central fire station and public works yard.
A tax calculator tool on the school project website says the average $551,000 home in Abington could expect to see a $231 to $287 bump in their annual property tax bill, if funded through an override. The full impact wouldn’t be felt until FY 29, when the school opens and the district borrows the full amount of the project. If the school district choose to pay back using a level principal financing structure, the cost would peak right away at $287 annually before slowly reducing over the 30-year payback period. If it chooses to go with level debt service, the cost would be $231 annually for the first couple years before dropping to about $226 annually over the full 30-year term.
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