PHILLIPSTON — When the Narragansett Regional School District abandoned use of Phillipston Memorial Elementary School, it became certain that Phillipston would take ownership of the building, which was paid for by the town’s taxpayers. Just when the handover takes place, however, hasn’t been definitively determined.
On Wednesday morning, the remaining two members of Phillipston’s Selectboard (former member Kim Pratt recently resigned) met virtually with NRSD Superintendent Chris Casavant to determine when the town will officially acquire the building.
Board Chair John Telepciak said that correspondence recently received from Casavant seemed to indicate the building would become the town’s responsibility on Dec. 1.
“The School Committee took a vote — I want to say it was in October — to turn the building over, or to cease operations, however you want to put it, on Dec. 1. From our perspective, in terms of budgeting, that’s the date we used in preparation of doing one or two things.
“On one end, we’d of course have to hire someone to shutter the building; they would winterize it. There’s that, which obviously has not happened.
“And/or make sure we leave the building in the best possible condition. By that, I mean we filled the propane in November. Either today or Friday, Huhtala’s will be there to top off the oil — you know, that kind of thing. That’s how we were preparing to move forward.”
Telepciak said that, from the town’s perspective, a Dec. 1 handover is problematic.
“Back in March, you decided to move the students, which according to the regional agreement you had the right to do,” said Telepciak. “But that same agreement says you need to give us a year’s notice if you were going to turn back the school to us.”
From the district’s standpoint, a March handover would also give rise to some problems.
“If that were the plan,” said Casavant, “we would winterize the building and shut it down because there’s no need for us to pay electric, there’s no need for us to pay for the Simplex (alarms). Certainly, by February-ish — depending on how quickly oil goes, or propane — we certainly don’t want to keep heating the building for no occupancy. If March 1 is the date, then we’d winterize the building.”
That possibility didn’t sit well with Telepciak.
“These are all decisions the district has made,” he said, “without any talking with us about it, really. I mean, we use that building often. We always have; the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts — the town uses it. So, we certainly wouldn’t want it winterized. We don’t want the pipes drained and everything shut off.”
Casavant countered that the district is not in a position to pay the cost of utilities at the school, particularly if it’s not being used for district purposes.
“I’m still sending a custodian over there once a week to go through the building,” said NRSD Director of Buildings and Grounds Rick Moulton, “and I wasn’t budgeted for that.”
“I think we shouldn’t do anything until everything’s written on paper and approved by legal,” said Selectboard member Gerhard Fandreyer, “in order to make this official. I would recommend that we don’t proceed with anything until this is all on paper, everything is written down on what they plan to do, and in what order, so that we have time to follow up and pick up where we need to, and not do all of this verbally. I think we should really get a lawyer involved with this.”
“Again,” said Casavant, “we haven’t used the building since July 1 and, again, if it’s our building to maintain, there are no monies to do that. We’ve spent money to keep it going until December, but beyond that, if we had to keep it — for whatever reason — we would have to winterize it. It wasn’t a cost we had anticipated for the entire year.”
It was ultimately agreed that Casavant would put together correspondence detailing the costs that both the district and the town of Phillipston would have to split to keep the building open past Dec. 1 and until shortly after the start of the new year, possibly Feb. 1, when the town will take full ownership.
Phillipston Memorial Elementary School was constructed in 1948, with additions built in 1974 and 1996. The Narragansett Regional School District, consisting of the towns of Phillipston and Templeton, was created in 1955.