FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                           Contact: Carrie Sullivan

July 18, 2008                                                                                             (617) 720-4466                                      

TREASURER TIM CAHILL AND MSBA ANNOUNCE “MODEL” SCHOOLS

Using proven, effective designs to create 21^st century educational environments

BOSTON, MA-State Treasurer Tim Cahill, Chair of the Massachusetts School Building Authority (“MSBA”) and Katherine Craven, MSBA Executive Director, announced that the MSBA is undertaking a pilot Model School Program to effectively adapt and re-use the design of successful, recently constructed high schools. Model Schools will be efficient in design and easy to maintain, will incorporate sustainable, “green” design elements when possible and will be flexible in educational programming spaces while encouraging community use. The MSBA Board, led by its Chairman, Treasurer Tim Cahill, will select the model on the basis of applications, site visits, interviews with school officials, and a review and audit of the already constructed Model School candidates. 

“The Model School approach will allow communities to move forward in a fiscally responsible manner that benefits taxpayers, administrators, teachers and students,” said Treasurer Cahill.

"The MSBA is undertaking a pilot Model School Program to effectively adapt and re-use the design of successfully constructed high schools. The adaptation of Model School designs will simplify the design process and improve cost control," said Executive Director Craven.

Benefits of using a proven design include incorporating successful elements of existing schools, confirmed by local students, teachers, administrators, and facilities maintenance personnel; perpetuating best practices for flexible, environmentally sustainable and easy to maintain school building design; and reducing likelihood of change orders, therefore improving cost control.

The adaptation of Model School designs should simplify the design process, reducing the amount of time projects are in design and lowering design fees. Use of a previously designed Model School should allow projects to begin construction faster and reduce the uncertainty construction cost inflation will have on the construction costs for the project. Reduction of design and construction time will lessen the impact of a major construction process on students, teachers and other building occupants. At least a year of design work can be saved by using a Model School. Local support from taxpayers may be more likely when stakeholders visit and walk through Model Schools which were effectively constructed on-time and on-budget.

Districts selected to work with the MSBA during the Pilot Program must meet the following specific criteria:

• The district has been issued an invitation to conduct a feasibility study by the MSBA’s Board of Directors;
• The high school has an enrollment of approximately 900-1300 students;
• The estimated cost of the Model School construction is less than the cost of stick-built new construction; and
• The district has an available site that is not problematic in terms of wetlands, ledge, or environmental contamination upon which a Model School could be built.

The MSBA will work in collaboration with the selected school districts participating in the Pilot Program to select one of the pre-qualified model schools and its Designer. The Designer of the selected model school will adapt the design to a suitable site within the school district and tailor the design to the required design enrollment and programmatic needs of the district. The goal is to minimize redesign of the selected Model School and maximize the value of an existing proven design. Use of Model School designs may lead to more reimbursement points for a district.

During the next five years, the MSBA will collaborate with municipalities to equitably invest up to $2.5 billion in schools across the Commonwealth by finding the right-sized, most fiscally responsible and educationally appropriate solutions to create safe and sound learning environments.  The MSBA is committed to protecting the taxpayer’s dollar by improving the school building grant process and avoiding the mistakes of the past in the funding and construction of school facilities. 

To date, the MSBA has made approximately $5.4 billion in reimbursements to cities and towns for school construction projects inherited from the former program -- $3 billion of which are accelerated “payments-in-full” to districts which had been waiting years for a partial payment from the state prior to the creation of the MSBA.  Those payments have saved municipalities millions of dollars in interest costs and reinvigorated a system that once had $11 billion in outstanding obligations. In its three year history, the MSBA has successfully contained the Commonwealth’s formerly rampant and unsustainable financial liability for the costs of 1,150 local school construction projects and last year was able to reopen a sustainable, reformed grant program as a result of programmatic reforms and sound fiscal management.