New Concord Middle School Design ‘Community Q&A’ Meetings Booked

CONCORD, NH — The SAU 8 Concord School District Board of Education and new middle school building committee will be hosting “preliminary design” meetings and a work session on cost estimates this month as well as a special board meeting to “establish a cap for the middle school project” in mid-July.

Preliminary design meetings, billed as “Community Q&A,” will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 11, at the Mill Brook Primary School and 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 18, at the Christa McAuliffe Auditorium at Concord High School. The board of education and building committee will host a work session to review cost estimates at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 20, in the district office meeting space. A special board of education meeting will be held to establish the cap for the middle school building project.

Despite both opposition to the project and opposition to the project being built in East Concord, the district and building committee have been meeting extensively to reach a construction start date of January 2026, with a slated opening in Summer 2028. The district is floating a “total project cost” of between $136 million and $166 million. But these figures are only construction and design costs and do not include state aid or interest on the debt.

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All involved have been tinkering around the edges to find savings — reducing gym size ($1.2 million), reducing the size of the proposed 900-seat auditorium to between 400 and 600 seats ($1.1M to $1.8M cost reduction) or even removing the auditorium entirely ($6M); eliminating a proposal for ground canopy solar panels ($4M); and reductions in athletic field installations. At the same time, the building committee added a nearly $1M hybrid ground source heat pump, a $3.7M exterior ramp to the second floor of the massive three-story structure — the proposal is nearly a third larger than the current middle school despite declining enrollments, and more than $675,000 for a snow melt system.

School Superintendent Kathleen Murphy, in an email Saturday to district parents, said during the next six weeks, “costs will continue to be refined, and the board will make decisions on major cost drivers such as the size and scope of the auditorium, gymnasium and multi-purpose rooms, and the heating and ventilation systems.”

View all the documents for the new Concord middle school project linked here. The latest financial estimates can be found here.

Car Salesperson Finances

While the construction of a school may not be a consumable item, when looking at the cost to the taxpayer, the same cautionary tone needs to be considered as when a person buys a car.

Many salespersons, for example, will point to the monthly lease cost or payment for a new or used vehicle but not focus the customer on what they are actually paying for the car. A vehicle purchased with $20,000 financed at 5 percent will offer a monthly payment of $377 for 60 months. But the actual cost of the vehicle is $22,645. The car did not “cost” $20,000; it cost $22,645. If the same vehicle is financed across three years at the same interest rate, it is a higher monthly payment, $599, but a lower final cost, $21,579. The customer paid about $1,000 more for the same vehicle for a lower monthly payment. Leases are worse because they feature upfront costs and monthly payments, but the buyer does not own the vehicle at the end of the lease (although they can sometimes offer tax advantages).

The Concord School District and its board, when floating construction and other projects during the past two decades, have rarely spoken about the actual final cost of anything — they only talk about the monthly payment or the amount financed. Some in the media have not challenged this in the past.

Many people in Concord, as an example, still believe elementary school consolidation “only cost” $28 million or $46 million, whatever the newspaper published before the buildings were consolidated, when the actual total cost of the project was $90.8 million. The project also knocked down several perfectly sound, historic buildings. It took the local newspaper until 2012 — years after the project had already been decided, to report the correct final cost amount. The city is still paying for this project and will be through 2041. Taxpayers were also promised by prior boards that there would be no middle school until the elementary school consolidation bond was paid off.

Last week, the district floated three potential financial scenarios — one without state aid, one with state aid, and one with state aid and a raid of the district’s “facility trust fund,” essentially, money set aside in a trust after prior project bonding expired instead of lowering property taxes like every other community in the state is required to do (Concord has an autonomous school board with its own taxing authority, outside of the purview of a town meeting, city council, or mayor).

The first financial scenario presumes no state aid with the district’s property taxpayers shouldering the entire $136 million and $166 million cost. With interest payments based on a 4 percent loan coming in at between $98 million and $119 million, the complete cost of the project would be around $234 million to $285 million. The district estimates the property tax impact to be around $1.60 to $2.09 per thousand for 30 years. On a $350,000 assessed home, a $560 to $732 increase in property taxes for the first year.

In the second scenario, the state will contribute 40 percent of the “eligible costs.” Eligible costs can vary depending on the state. An auditorium would not be paid for but classroom construction would, as an example. State aid, estimated at around $49 million, lowers the district’s project costs to between $88 million and $118 million. The final costs, when including the interest, would be in the $200 million to $252 million range. The tax impact would be between 82 cents and $1.31 per thousand or $280 to $455 for the first year for property taxpayers in a $350,000 home.

The third proposal seeks to use the district’s trust fund to “mitigate tax impact,” although the latest documents do not provide any specific information on how much taxpayers in the district have been overtaxed to fill this trust fund with cash. It presumes the same amount of state aid and project costs but lowers the tax impact significantly, to 9 cents to 59 cents per thousand annually or $32 to $207 annually for the first year on a $350,000 house. Along with interest, the final costs would still be in the $200 million to $252 million range.

These amounts would be added to the already historically high property taxes being paid by residents of Concord, including the highest education tax rate in more than a quarter of a century despite the district receiving millions more in state aid.

The last estimated cost to repair the current Rundlett Middle School was in the $8 million to $10 million range.

Also, there has been no movement by anyone, it would appear, on a potential merger of the Concord School District with the Merrimack Valley School District despite declining enrollments and possible savings to taxpayers in operational and construction costs.

Concord NH Patch has submitted several questions to the school district clarifying some of the financials — including how much money is available in the facility trust fund, expected or potential interest rates, and debt payment amounts. I will update this story when the questions are answered.

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