Now that Burlington voters have overwhelmingly approved a $165 million bond to help build a new high school, the school district said it will focus on completing design work and demolishing the old high school, which had to be shut down because of PCB contamination.
On top of those duties, school officials will take on a new role: lobbyists at the Vermont Statehouse.
With the 2023 legislative session starting in January, school officials said they will argue that Burlington deserves state help to clean up contamination from polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, in the empty Burlington High School about to be demolished.
“Our citizens of Burlington will mobilize,” school board chair Clare Wool said. “And we’ll address this head-on in January, because we are the only school that was completely shut down.”
On Election Day, about 76% of voters favored borrowing $165 million toward construction of a new high school at the Institute Road campus where the old high school is located.
The construction is estimated to cost $190 million and officials hope the building will be completed by 2025, the year that the lease expires at the former Macy’s department store downtown that’s now serving as the high school.
Wool said estimates for PCB cleanup and remediation at Burlington High School came to $22 million, which is now what the school district is asking from the state.
“Burlington’s problem is a state problem,” Wool said. “And the state has to embrace the fact that, though the voters approved this bond with ‘up to’ language, it was very clear in our messaging to all our citizens and voters that we will not shoulder this alone.”
Earlier this year, state lawmakers set aside $32 million for PCBs in schools after also launching an effort to test hundreds of schools for the hazardous chemicals. PCBs had many uses, including in electrical equipment, but environmental testing done at Burlington High School pointed mainly to window caulking and glazing. The chemicals have since been found in schools in Brattleboro and Cabot as well.
Ted Fisher, spokesperson for the Agency of Education, said on Thursday it was premature to comment on the level of state support for PCB cleanup while recommendations on how the money will be spent are still in the works.
Last month, the Vermont Emergency Board released $2.5 million in emergency funds for PCB mitigation. While the state made clear the money would not be available for remediation, which is what Burlington needs, the Burlington School Board wrote a letter requesting part of the emergency funds anyway.
“We ask that the (Agency of Education) reconsider this problematic limitation. The $2.5 million emergency PCB fund was set up to address ‘extreme conditions’ and it’s hard to imagine a more extreme condition than that which has impacted BHS and BTC,” the board wrote in the letter, referring to the high school and its technical center.
Superintendent Tom Flanagan said in a public post on Front Porch Forum that the state had denied the board’s request.
“Obviously, this was not the answer we were hoping for, but it gives us motivation to fight harder for an equitable response to our crisis in Burlington,” Flanagan said in the post. “If the state continues to tell us this is a local issue, which we have heard a number of times the past few months, I know the citizens of Burlington will stand up boldly and that this will make a difference.”
In a memo written after the Oct. 24 meeting of the Vermont Emergency Board, when the $2.5 million in emergency money was released, the board made clear that the remainder of the $32 million PCB fund has yet to be allocated.
Three state agencies — the Agency of Education, the Agency of Natural Resources and the Vermont Department of Health — are working together on a written plan, due to the Legislature by Jan. 15, that will make recommendations on how the PCB money should be spent. Any recommendations are subject to approval by the Legislature.
Jeffrey Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association, called the current status of PCB relief a “dynamic situation” and said that, while Burlington is at the front of the line in seeking state aid, “there are going to be other districts that will be interested in and are still wondering how they will contend with the fiscal pressures that are associated with this work.”
The Burlington School District’s efforts to obtain state aid is part of its efforts to reduce the burden on Burlington taxpayers. In earlier interviews about the bond, Wool said she and the board are also looking for state and local grants for costs such as stormwater remediation and energy efficiency. Wool also said they had been speaking with Vermont’s congressional delegation to identify federal grants as well.
Wool said donations are another possibility to reduce borrowing. In one interview before the bond vote, she said that, inspired by the University of Vermont’s fundraising and development, Burlington could make similar appeals to alumni, philanthropic individuals and corporations.
“We’re looking for investors to be able to sponsor the cost of the auditorium, sponsor the cost of the gymnasium, naming rights,” Wool said.
On Oct. 18, the district also announced it was planning to sue Monsanto, the agrochemical company that the district argues is responsible for damages caused by the PCB contamination at the high school. Officials said any money won in litigation would be used to pay down the bond debt.
Matt Pawa, an attorney with the law firm Seeger Weiss, is working with Burlington on the potential suit. He said Thursday that nothing had been filed in court yet.