u/BuildABetterSalem

May 5th Vote: If taxes are your main concern, vote YES

Many people are doing their research into the upcoming vote on may 5th. A yes vote would allow the city to pay for the bond that allows the creation of demolition of the old high school, and the creation of the new high school. There is obviously a significant cost associated with capital projects like this, so I wanted to outline what a yes and a no vote would lead to. Note I am not comparing the cost to surrounding school projects. The fact of the matter is that this design has been in the works for years and it is too late to make any substantive changes to the proposal. There will be work done on the school either way. We are paying more taxes one way or another. Tim Flynn has a post on his campaign page detailing the financials from school committee member Meg Stott: 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1568586367169737/permalink/1824276008267437/

Regardless of if you have kids that would benefit from the new school, YES is the only financially viable path we have forward at this point. If you want to pay less in taxes over 30 years - this is the correct option to take. You can use the calculator here to see the difference in what you will pay with either of these options: https://sites.google.com/salemk12.org/shs-building-committee/salem-high-school-property-tax-impact?authuser=0

What a yes vote would do

• Allow the city to pay the bond for the construction of the new school
• Apply a special override to property taxes above the 2.5% increase allowed annually by the state
• The city would be paying 239m over 30 years.
• The city would significantly reduce energy costs, with a new zero emissions building
• The school would have solar panels and geothermal it would pull on for heating and energy creation
• Due to said energy savings, we would be more economically stable with a world crisis like we are seeing at the strait of hormuz.
• The school would be able to have new trade education options like sustainable energy 
• The city may be able to open new funding sources by renting out the new spaces
• The city would have significantly better sporting options for students and the community
• Students will be less disrupted than with the rehab plan

What a no vote would do

• Decimate the city financially. We will have to start the rehab or risk losing accreditation. The city cannot current afford to pay one month’s worth of this project without the debt exclusion
• Massive cuts across the city - think the roads were bad this snowstorm? Think the cuts we just had for teachers were bad? Those will pale in comparison to future years. See the issues Beverly had with trash collection? That would be us and completely self inflicted
• The city pays MORE for the rehabilitation project. A full renovation would cost us 463 Million compared to 239 Million for a new school
• Since we no longer have a plan for fixing the current issues with the school, NEASCA will start the process to remove our accreditation
• Students will be significantly impacted by the in place renovations during the school year
• Everyone in Salem would be severely and negatively impacted by a NO vote.

 

Arguments

• We should raise taxes from elsewhere to fund this
  • If this was an option, I would agree! But theres not income stream that could cover this expense, it just doesn't exist.

   

• We can just apply for a grant for the rehab
  • We could do this, but it will take years
  • If our current plan falls apart, the NEASC will have to start the process of removing our accreditation. “…NEASC will engage with the district, which then must demonstrate a clear process for addressing the code violations and system failures identified both in the 2020 NEASC report and the architecture/engineering assessment conducted for the MSBA process. A failure to address these building failures will initiate the process of de-accreditation for Salem High School.”
  • I asked some NO voters about this and they said their plan was “Trust me we will never lose accreditation, its just empty threats” 
  • Construction costs continue to rise, and there's no guarantee we wont be paying the exact same cost, and voting on another debt exclusion in the coming years IF we can even secure the grant. 
  • Salem had been applying for this grant for almost a decade. We just got our turn. Not guarantees we would be a priority after voting down a perfectly good plan
• I don’t think we will need to rehab as much as they say - it will cost less than we expect
  • The valuation for the cost assessment was from the State. The state requires two independent agencies to conduct the valuation and they both have to agree on the final cost estimate. 
  • The argument here is that the experts the city paid were wrong and we don't actually have to fix as much as they said we did. I asked if they had an opposing expert opinion to validate this and they said they knew a facilities guy at Northeastern who said the current plan was not detailed enough and so he’s voting no.
  • I asked them if they could come up with a rough proposal that someone could explain why they think it would cost less. They said the city should pay for a new study (in addition to the current study the city did), for something we are voting on next month, and that we should wait for that vote no. This would mean we would be back to having no plan and risk losing accreditation.
  • Another glaring issue is that they argue that the remediation will cost less but that the new school will cost more than expected. There isn't consistent logic and they have nothing to back up any of this.

   

• We can just pay for the rehab by maxing out our 2.5% increase every year and cutting the city budget
  • The city cannot afford this cost without the debt exclusion. It would wipe out our entire reserves in the first month and would only get worse from there. That means we would need to cut the majority of the government's budget just to fund this one building. Which in turn means we will need to lay off more teachers to fund a building, but we won't have teachers to fill the classrooms in the building… 
  • The 2.5% is a permanent increase, as opposed to this debt exclusion. That means while we may pay less to start, we will be paying more 30 years from now compared to when this ends. The city can still do this increase every year, but that's something we can decide each year, and not be FORCED to do it to pay for this capex
• The old school isn’t that bad
  • If we go through this process of rehab, there is no guarantee that we will not have to do another massive rehab in 10 years
  • The old school accounts for over 30% of the heating budget for Salem. The one singular building. 
  • There is asbestos, falling ceiling tiles and a failing hvac system. Cooling does not happen in most rooms, The heating system is ancient and never worked right. 
  • The school is completely oversized for our school population  
  • The elevator will need to be rebuilt to be ADA compliant and will require massive disruption and cost to achieve this. 
  • The old building uses and outdated layout for teaching and will never be energy efficient. It was built in the 70s at the height of shoddy workmanship for schools. A rehab project would not be the final work we have to do on this school.
• The city was not transparent enough / they should have picked the rehab from the start
  • This has been a years-long process with multiple opportunities for public input. People concerned could have participated in the building committee if they felt strongly about this. The committee was composed of volunteers who wanted to participate. 
  •  Some of these folks shared these same concerns with the experts and building committee, and they still decided a new build was the best case scenario. 
  • You can see the entire timeline here: https://sites.google.com/salemk12.org/shs-building-committee/media?authuser=0

Vote on May 5th everyone! The fate of the city for the next 30 years depends on it.

https://www.salemma.gov/1274/Important-Election-Information-for-2026

Check your polling location here: 

https://www.salemma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9007/CITY-OF-SALEM-POLLING-LOCATIONS-2026