High School Faces Unexpected Bills

By CHRIS BURRELL

The regional high school has already racked up nearly $40,000 in
legal bills, negotiating a potential lease of school-owned land for an
aquatics center project that is still in the planning and feasibility
stages.

News of hefty legal costs connected to the proposed swimming pool
plan came amidst other troubling budget figures, showing roughly $90,000
in cost overruns so far this year.

School leaders said the aquatics center group, which has been trying
for eight years to build the Island's first public pool, will have
to shoulder half those legal fees, but the fact that taxpayers will be
hit with any bills for a pool surprised some committee members.

"Because we are bringing land to the table, any legal costs
should be borne by the petitioners," school committee member Tim
Dobel said at Monday's meeting. "I'm shocked. I
thought they'd be picked up by the groups trying to get
land."

Negotiations with two other groups who want to build a skateboard
park and a cable television studio on high school land have dropped
another $16,000 on the pile of legal invoices to be paid by the high
school.

School leaders this week denounced the high legal costs and promised
they would complain to Ropes and Gray, the Boston law firm hired by the
school. But administrators and school committee members also admit they
may have made a tactical error in assuming such costs in the first
place.

"No one anticipated the costs would be as high as they
are," high school principal Peg Regan told the Gazette yesterday.
"The school committee should not have taken on the cost of legal
expenses. And it's really something that Ropes and Gray could have
protected us against. I don't think we'll make that mistake
again."

But school committee member Ralph Friedman, who heads up the land
use subcommittee, defended the costs, saying that the deal struck with
the Martha's Vineyard Aquatics Center will be a boon for the
school if the pool is ever built.

"Do I think the billing was excessive? Yes, but the high
school is going to get a tremendous benefit long-term programatically
from the aquatics center," Mr. Friedman said yesterday.

Terms of the 10-year lease negotiated with the aquatics group would
give the school 284 hours of pool time per year plus an additional 72
hours a year for high school swim teams, said Mrs. Regan. In exchange,
the school would allow the aquatics center to use up to five acres of
land it owns near Martha's Vineyard Community Services.

But at this point, it's hard to gauge the odds of the aquatics
center ever becoming a reality. Two years ago, the group suffered
sticker shock when their planner handed them a proposal for an $8.85
million facility with an annual operation cost of $885,000.

This week, aquatics center president Ken Bailey told the Gazette
that his group is still considering the feasibility of several new
designs that range in construction price from $3.5 million to $8
million.

"We have been negotiating to get the land," said Mr.
Bailey. "We really haven't been doing much until that
happens. We've made no decision [which design] to go with."

Mr. Bailey said the good news from his group's perspective is
a new alliance with the YMCA. That association brings no fiscal support
but it does offer management expertise, Mr. Bailey said.

"We're a provisional YMCA, but the money comes from the
community," he said. "We're still working on
feasibility of fundraising; it's a big piece for us."

Mr. Bailey said he knew nothing about legal bills incurred by the
high school in the ongoing land use negotiations. But Mr. Friedman said
his committee is hoping they can make the aquatics group responsible for
the entire bill if the pool project is abandoned.

Meanwhile, in other budget news revealed Monday night, the high
school is already dangerously close to exhausting its surplus budget,
known as the excess and deficiency fund. Cost overruns are just one
reason.

School committee members noted that a lack of policy in the
athletics department led to extra costs for ice time at the arena.
Coaches were simply scheduling practices as needed without considering
the costs, school officials said.

"We need to have this under the athletic director's
control who should say to coaches, ‘Here's the budget. Live
with it,' " said Mr. Friedman.

In another instance of unforeseen costs, a replacement was hired for
the first five months of the school year to replace dean of students
Michael Halt, who was called into active military duty for much of last
year. The line item for Mr. Halt's salary is already $10,000 in
deficit.

High school business manager Margaret Serpa said that many of these
costs can be offset by other line items in the budget which have not
been tapped so heavily.

But cost overruns combined with some state budget cuts that have
already gone into effect this year mean that the high school is more
than $500,000 over budget and will need to use almost all of the
$566,000 in the excess and deficiency fund.

The high school typically enjoys healthy surplus accounts. By state
law, the school is allowed to carry up to five per cent of unused funds
into the following fiscal year. With this year's account quickly
drying up, school leaders are worried about the impact on next
year's budget when further state cuts are almost sure to come.

School committee members voted unanimously to reconvene their budget
subcommittee and take another look at next year's budget.
"This is not a panic situation," said Mrs. Regan, "but
it definitely is dire. Can we maintain the same level of services next
year?"