[Ed note: My Southborough accepts signed letters to the editor submitted by Southborough residents. Letters may be emailed to mysouthborough@gmail.com.
The following letter is from Al Hamilton.]
To The Editor:
I have recently posted to the Select Board 1/20/26 Packet a proposal to develop a plan to address the Neary School issue. I believe that this proposal is prudent and takes into account the needs of the school system, and tax payers. The outline of the proposal is that we would invest in the necessary repairs and upgrades to keep Neary as a viable school for the next 15 years. The identified repairs and upgrades are:
- Our PreK-8 school population is likely to increase over the next few years. We are seeing a demographic bulge which is the grandchildren of the baby boom.
- This demographic bulge is likely to be temporary. The long-term trend is for birth rates below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman. The current US birth rate is about 1.6 and Massachusetts has one of the lowest birth rates in the country. It is likely that after this bulge passes through our PreK-8 system, we will see school populations at or below our current levels. This is a trend that is being repeated throughout the industrialized word.
- If we engage in a building program now, we will likely find ourselves in the same position we are now with significant over capacity after the demographic bulge passes. Essentially, we would be making the same mistakes we made in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. This would be a poor allocation of our very scarce capital resources.
- The existing system has the capacity, if we repair Neary, to accommodate this bulge. The right time to reconfigure our PreK-8 system is in about 15 years when we likely will have a smaller school population and this is the proper time to “right size” our system
The key to this proposal is to avoid making the changes to the facility that would trigger much more expensive modifications. The layout would not be reconfigured, and the kitchen would remain a warming kitchen (as is has been for over a decade). The other part of this proposal is that it would have a budget cap to make sure that “feature creep” does not get out of hand. My current estimate is that $15,000,000 is a reasonable number for this program based on what I think the community can afford. If borrowed for 15 years at 3.9% that would lead to a tax impact of about $310 on a home worth $900,000.
Why do I believe we need to keep Neary “On Line” for 15 years?
There is more work to be done on this proposal but I believe this is a program that meets the needs of our students and taxpayers. I will have more to say as we move forward.
Al Hamilton
35 Pine Hill Road
[Editor’s Note: Click here for the proposal that Hamilton refers to as included in the Select Board packet, and here for the full agenda and meeting packet.]
Hi Al — while I appreciate your updated proposal to include a much needed fire suppression system in the Neary building, I do think it necessary to discuss an issue with your logic.
Your argument hinges on your theory that while we are seeing current population growth, you argue that it is temporary. You cite birth rates as your source for this theory. But you are not a professional demographer, and your assumptions are in direct conflict with the expert that was hired by our town.
Population growth is not determined by birth rates alone. Births are one component, but total population change is typically modeled as births − deaths + net migration. Ignoring migration makes the claim incomplete, since immigration and emigration can significantly increase or decrease population size without changing birth rates at all.
Ms. Dente
Since you asked me what my credentials are for doing this sort of analysis I will share them.
1. I am very familiar with the basic demographic model of Births-Deaths+Net Migration. I am trained as an economist and have an expertise and professional experience doing economic modeling which includes use of the basic demographic model. In the late 70’s and early 80’s I worked for a company, Data Resources, and built, for the State of New York it’s first econometric model which was used for revenue forecasting. This involved economic modeling, demographic modeling and modeling of the tax code. I performed similar work for the states of Wisconsin, Idaho, and Rhode Island. So, yes, I have done demographic analysis professionally.
2. I have worked with data from every decennial census since 1960.
3. In the late 2000’s I did a similar demographic analysis for the Advisory Committee. The result showed that we would see a steady decline in enrollments over the next 15 years. I presented this analysis to Town Meeting, much to the ire of the School Committee at the time. Later I found out through an FOI that the School Admin had a nearly identical forecast done by their demographer. Both my forecast and the school’s demographer turned out to be largely correct, our K-8 school populations have been on the decline substantially over the last 20 years.
I also want to make a few things clear:
1. I do not fundamentally disagree with the demographer hired by the Neary Committee. I believe based on all the data and analysis I have seen that our K-8 school population will likely increase over the next 10 years. From all the data I have seen this the result of the grandchildren of the baby boom entering our school system.
2. What I have difficulty with is believing that the 10 year trend is sustainable. The Neary demographer is silent on this issue. All of the data I have seen suggests it is not a sustainable trend.
a. The US Census Bureau in it’s 2024 long term forecast shows a decline in the National K-8 Population.
b. Our national Fertility Rate is about 1.6 births per woman of child bearing age. A rate of 2.1 is required for a population (net of migration) to remain stable. Massachusetts has one of the lowest birth rates in the country. This is not a unique situation it is a clear trend in the industrialized world.
c. The Donahue Institute at UMass, does demographic analysis for the state. They show a similar pattern, but they do show the demographic bulge of the grandchildren of the baby boom. The most recent analysis (2024) that I found included a forecast for Southborough. The show a 2025 age 5-14 population of 1398, rising to 1,845 in 2040 and then falling to 1,616 in 2050. When you then control for the actual school populations (not all 5 year olds or 14 year olds are in our K-8 system and not all children in the age brackets attend our schools), our K-8 school populations would go from 1,197 in 2025 to 1,580 in 2040 and then fall to 1,373 in 2050, about 175 more students in 2050 than the current level. We have an existing infrastructure that can accommodate the expected increase of 383 students in 2040 but if we build a new infrastructure to satisfy the 2040 student population, we will likely find ourselves in the same situation we are in now paying for empty classrooms.
d. Finally, let’s talk about migration. It is the most difficult thing for a demographer to get their arms around. On the national level we have pretty good data but below that that the data gets sketchy fast. At the town level we have excellent, timely data on births and deaths. We don’t really have any formal data on in or out migration. When I started looking at the town census it is clear that it undercounts our K-8 population and that undercount is likely the result of migration. The average undercount vs our school population is about 22% but it varies a lot by year. The one clear trend that I think we can rely on is that the size of the new families that move into town will reflect the same underlying trend towards smaller family sized that is manifest in the general population.
So, I am focused on a Neary plan that focuses on dealing with our deferred maintenance and the upgrades that are absolutely necessary to keep Neary “on line” for the next 15 years. I believe this will avoid over investing is capacity that will not be needed in the long term. I am ever motivated by the fact that every dollar we spend servicing debt is a dollar we will not be able to spend on teachers. Servicing unnecessary debt means spending less on teachers.
While I appreciate the ongoing discussion of options, I remain deeply concerned about town board and committee members offering informal, personal cost guesses in place of reliable estimates.
If our officials believe their own rough guesses are reliable, it defeats the purpose of voting to fund feasibility studies—studies meant to determine whether proposed plans are workable on our existing sites and verifiable, detailed cost projections.
The accuracy of Mr. Hamilton’s $15 million guess is not something he or our Select Board has the expertise to determine, and I fear these made-up numbers will confuse voters and undermine the entire concept of feasibility studies.
Ms Haranis
You may be surprised to hear that I share a concern about specifying an “arbitrary” number as well. Let me explain what I am trying to accomplish.
Assuming that the voters approve some form of the full Neary renovation, as currently envisioned we are likely to be looking at a program in the neighborhood of $60,000,000. I base this on the very rough estimates that the Neary Building Committee expressed during the prior debate and assuming that the state will not reimburse us for a portion of the construction costs. This would require about $820 in tax increases on a home worth $900,000 ($60,000,000, 4.2%, 30 years, $3.9 Billion Equalized Value). This is a number on the same order of magnitude as the failed “New Neary” where the cost and tax impact were the principal objections. I support putting this sort of option before Town Meeting and the Voters but I believe they also deserve a less expensive option as an alternative.
The less expensive option that that I have proposed is, to quote Ms. LaVault the “Minimum Viable Product” that would keep the building viable for the next 15 years. That list is the one I have gleaned from all the conversations about the deferred maintenance and necessary upgrades. Along with Mr. Fling, we have met with our Building Commissioner and one of the Neary code consultants to try and understand how the building codes interact with these items with an eye towards limiting the risks that we would trigger additional changes required by the building codes. We have more work to do in this area.
I spent 12 years of my professional career as a project and program manager in technology companies bringing new products to market. One of the most challenging aspects of this activity is managing “feature creep”. We saw examples of that last night where one person wanted to upgrade the Neary gym as part of this program and another thought we should have a full kitchen. Both features would add substantial costs and, at least based on my current understanding, may trigger other code compliance throughout the building. Managing feature creep is hard. I chose to impose a financial limit as a tool to manage feature creep. Without a hard stop, on the program, in this case a budget number, this option it will likely evolve into something indistinguishable from the full renovation option. That is the reason I have advocated for a budget limit. If you are aware of another way to manage this I am more than willing to reconsider.
The voters deserve to have the option of a “Minimum Viable Product” and providing that option requires strong set of project management tools to assure that this option is meaningfully distinguishable from the full renovation. A budget guideline is one of those tools. If someone has better data on what that limit should be or different tool set I would be happy to use them.
Massachusetts is losing population due to unaffordable taxes, high housing prices, a millionaire’s tax that is deterring new companies from picking Massachusetts for its investors who want to make money. Southborough is unlikely to attract new immigrants with children who are school aged. Wealthy people from crumbling foreign nations may seek the tranquility and beauty of Southborough. If they have young children, these wealthy foreigners lean toward private schools. I think the school population will decline and temporary classrooms are our best bet. If the Neary lands are contaminated, we should build the temporary classrooms on the safe land. The contamination study must be determined with authenticity as Carl has written. I certainly hope no one has tried to hide the contamination results from the citizenry to try and get a big construction project built.