LYNN — The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) voted unanimously on Wednesday to invite the city of Lynn into the MSBA Grant Program for School Building Construction and Renovation Projects in order to build a new Pickering Middle School.
The vote was based on a review of the district’s Statement of Interest (SOI) and staff due diligence and recommendation.
The city will enter a 270-day eligibility period to formalize and streamline the beginning of the MSBA’s grant approval process. That period will benefit the city by providing a definitive schedule for the completion of preliminary requirements, assisting with the determination of financial and community readiness, and identifying needs for planning and budgeting.
If all activities in the eligibility period are successful, then the city can enter the next phase: an MSBA invitation to conduct a feasibility study.
“I’m excited for our students, teachers and our community to move forward with the next required steps in this process to build a new Pickering Middle School,” said Mayor Thomas M. McGee. “When I took office in 2018, the city had an operating deficit that required us to borrow $14 million. Since then, I am proud of the work we have done to put a solid financial and capital plan in place, which has allowed us to create budget capacity to pay for a new school.”
McGee said the city has not yet identified a location, but noted that there are plans to form a school building committee in service of finding a location which Lynn residents will support.
“As we move forward, we’ll find the right location that there will be strong support for, recognizing that we won’t have to do an override to fund it,” McGee said.
The city applied to the MSBA program in 2018, but McGee said the financial crisis in the city at the time made it infeasible. The city’s application was ultimately rejected for monetary reasons.
McGee said if the city was to build a new Pickering in 2018, it wouldn’t have had the debt capacity to do so, meaning that the city would have had to ask voters to approve an override, which would have raised the average single-family tax bill by $200 for the next 25 years.
“We’ve been able to really stabilize our financial situation in the city,” McGee said. “It allowed us to put this proposal back on the table with the understanding that we’re going to have the debt capacity to build this school without doing an override.”
According to McGee, Lynn is one of 15 communities in Massachusetts that has been accepted into the MSBA program. About a dozen other communities applied, but were not accepted, he said.
State Sen. Brendan Crighton (D-Lynn) said all of Lynn’s students and teachers deserve a modern and state-of-the-art school.
“The MSBA decision on Pickering Middle School today is a major step forward, and is the result of a strong collaboration between state and local officials,” he said. “Thank you to Mayor McGee for leading these efforts and for making school improvements and construction a priority.”
McGee said he thinks the COVID-19 pandemic put a bigger spotlight on the challenges in the schools, which particularly highlighted the district’s large, overcrowded student population.
State Rep. Daniel Cahill (D-Lynn) said he is extremely excited and appreciative of MSBA’s invitation into its eligibility period.
“We look forward to collaborating with state and local officials, Lynn Public Schools, and the Lynn community in developing a state-of-the-art educational facility for future generations of Lynners,” he said.
City politicians and residents have previously said Pickering is the school with the largest need for replacement in the city. Residents expressed their excitement and hope for this acceptance into the MSBA program on Facebook, with some saying that it has been a very long wait.
Superintendent Dr. Patrick Tutwiler also expressed his excitement and appreciation for this endeavor.
“We are absolutely thrilled that we have been invited into the process, with funding support, to build a new Pickering Middle School,” he said. “This is an exciting accomplishment for not just the Pickering School community, but for the city of Lynn, as it is yet another step in providing all of our scholars with the facilities and resources they so deserve.”
State Rep. Peter Capano (D-Lynn) said he is relieved and thrilled to learn the MSBA voted unanimously to allow the city to move forward with the planning and construction of a new school.
“I greatly appreciate the hard work of state and local officials who have pushed to make this a priority, and I look forward to seeing Lynn students and teachers benefit from a modern and safe middle school,” he said.
McGee said the eligibility period will begin in the next few weeks, and from there the city will get to work on planning the construction of the new school.
To learn more about the MSBA Grant Program process, visit https://www.massschoolbuildings.org/building/prerequisites.