State Supports Middle School Roof Replacement; Project To Cost $11 Million

Voters at annual town meetings in Chatham and Harwich will be asked to approve funding to replace the roof on the Monomoy Regional Middle School.
School officials announced last week that the project had been approved for reimbursement through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) accelerated repair program. Based on the $11,801,239 total project estimate, the state grant will cover 37.32 percent of reimbursable costs, up to $3,766,390, putting the projected cost to the district at $7,484,569.
The final amount of the state funding will depend on the actual project cost, according to district business manager Michael MacMillan. He noted that all costs are eligible for reimbursement. 
Because the middle school is considered a district asset, the cost of the work will be shared by Harwich and Chatham based on the regional agreement financial formula, which currently allocates 77 of district costs to Harwich and 23 percent to Chatham, based on enrollment.
Voters in both towns will be asked to authorize borrowing of the funds by the district. Chatham’s portion of the debt will be folded into future annual district assessments, while Harwich will bond its share of the cost and will thus require approval at both town meeting and the annual town election.
The towns will be asked to approve borrowing of the entire $11,801,239, according to MacMillan.
The roof replacement is the second major capital improvement for the Crowell Road school. The $6,983,000 replacement of siding, trim and windows is “on the cusp” of beginning, expected next month, MacMillan told members of the Chatham Select Board Feb. 25. Over the past several years, failures of the siding, windows and trim have allowed water intrusion into the building envelope and interior, creating air quality problems.
“Now that we’re doing the siding, it’s even more critical that we do the roof,” he said. The recent snowstorms “really brought home to us how important it is to fix that roof, because we’ve got water coming in at multiple locations now.”
If the roof replacement is approved at the town meetings, final designs will be completed and the project put out to bid. The work would not begin until summer 2027, MacMillan said, with debt payments starting in fiscal 2028.
The maximum reimbursement allowed for the project by the MSBA is lower than expected, according to a memo from MacMillan, because the state agency determined that a section of the roof replaced in 2018 due to storm damage does not meet the age requirement for the program.