The Bristol Warren Regional School District learned last week during their meeting that the state Department of Education (RIDE) had signed off on reimbursing only up to $157,368,562 in total projects undertaken from a $200 million bond that was passed by voters in November, with the maximum state share of that borrowing coming in at around $130.6 million.

That number came as bad news to some on the committee.

“Back in October, the approved project was $183.8 million of eligible costs, now we’re looking at $157 million … Almost a $43 million difference between project costs and the bond,” said Jessica Almeida.

Chad Crittenden, a lead consultant from the district’s Owner’s Program Manager (OPM), PMA Consultants, said that when applying for state reimbursement in school construction, it was expected to not get the full scope of what they hoped for.

“We shot for the moon, and RIDE came pretty close,” he said. “They only have so much money to go around to all the communities and once it’s out and it’s spread, there’s no more in the pool to go out. Fortunately, we’re pretty close so it’s not an insurmountable gap; it’s something that we can close.”

What it all means is essentially that the district and their consultants and financial managers will have to adjust moving forward to prioritize projects and the design of those projects in order to pare back the scope of the borrowing in order to maintain a tax impact that voters agreed to take on during the election last year.

“We’ll start with the tax impact and work backwards to meet the tax impact,” said School Committee Chairperson Nicky Piper at the school building committee meeting last week. “We’re sticking to what we promised.”

Throughout the next year, the district and its team will work on a couple of priority projects that need to begin by July 1, which includes drainage work at Rockwell in order to build a grant-funded outdoor learning space and playground, and site improvements at Hugh Cole and Kickemuit Middle School.

They will also begin to refine the design of the new Mt. Hope High School. The review process for the district’s entire construction schedule begins in January of 2025.