Essex and Manchester officials map out the Nov. 16 school votes: room for 600 and 800, a two page handout, and what happens if one town says no

Officials from Essex, Manchester-by-the-Sea and the Manchester Essex Regional School District sat down together Thursday morning to plan the two town meetings that will decide the new Essex Elementary School on Monday, Nov. 16. No votes were taken. The meeting was a working session on how the night will run in each town, what voters will have in their hands, and what happens if the two towns split.

What happened

• Essex expects about 600 people at its Fall Town Meeting, which starts at 6:45 p.m. The school article is Article 7, after six zoning articles. Manchester is setting up for 700 to 800 at its 7 p.m. meeting, where the senior center article comes before the school.
• Voters in both towns will get the same two page handout, not the district's 10 page booklet. The state's campaign finance office has told the district it cannot mail the booklet to homes.
• Essex will keep its presentation short: read the motion, a three minute explanation, then questions. Manchester will hear a few slides from the school building committee and a short statement from its finance committee.
• If one town approves the project and the other does not, the question still goes to the Dec. 10 ballot in both towns, and the town that said no could vote again at a later town meeting, most likely in May.
• The district's first draft budget for next year goes to the School Committee Dec. 7, with a budget hearing Dec. 9.

How each town meeting will run

The two meetings are the same night, and the district's team will split. Professionals from the project's construction manager, owner's project manager and architect will be in both rooms, along with school representatives. The district's leadership plans to be in Essex first and then move to Manchester, since the Essex article comes up earlier.

In Essex, the moderator said the practice is to read the motion and hand it in, give a brief introduction, and get right to questions. The Essex rules allow five minutes for the person presenting an article and two minutes for each speaker, who may speak twice. Essex officials said their community meeting the night before showed residents want to get to their questions, not sit through a presentation. The town will have a list of the people ready to answer questions so the moderator can introduce them.

In Manchester, officials said the town has not had as many public forums on the project, so a short presentation makes sense: how the district got from 2023 to the current plan, what options were studied, and the state school building authority's role, with one aerial view of the site. The school building committee's representative will make the motion and present a handful of slides, and a finance committee member will speak for a couple of minutes. One official's rule of thumb: if you speak for five minutes people get tired, and if you speak for 15 they vote against you on principle.

Manchester expects its opening business and clicker instructions to take about 15 minutes, the first three articles to move quickly, and the senior center article to come up around 7:45 p.m. The school article could come up around 8:15 to 8:30 p.m., though no one could say how long the senior center debate will run.

Any handout on the tables in Manchester needs the moderator's approval, working with the town clerk. Both towns agreed a 10 page handout is more than voters can take in on the floor, so the two page version will be used in both, with its title changed to make clear it describes the town meeting article, not the December election.

Why nothing is coming in the mail

A district official said the district asked the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance twice whether it could mail its project booklet to every home. The answer was no: because both towns' finance committees have already placed the debt exclusion question on the Dec. 10 ballot, a mailing would be treated as campaign activity. The booklet remains available at meetings and online.

What Essex taxpayers asked about old debt

Essex officials said residents at the Nov. 4 community meeting asked what happens to their tax bills as the town's existing school debt is paid off. As described at the meeting, the town's current school debt, for Memorial School and the middle high school, costs about $0.89 per $1,000 of value this year. The middle high school portion, about $962,000 in fiscal 2027, falls to about $628,000 in fiscal 2033 and is retired in 2034. When it is gone, roughly $0.45 per $1,000 comes off, worth about $158 a year on a million dollar home at today's values.

Officials were careful to add the caveat that retiring debt does not simply lower a tax bill by that amount, because budgets, other debt and property values all change. Essex expects a four year overlap, from full borrowing on the new school around 2030 until the middle high school debt ends in 2034. The two towns and their financial adviser chose a level debt schedule, with the same payment each year, because it is easier for voters to follow.

If the towns split

Officials walked through the scenario where one town meeting approves the project and the other does not. The ballot question stays on both towns' Dec. 10 ballots either way; the election happens regardless of the town meeting result. The town that voted no could bring the article back at another town meeting within a reasonable time, which town counsel has read as six months, so its May town meeting. The town that voted yes would not have to vote again. Neither moderator plans to pass over the article because of news from the other town, and both said they cannot stop residents from sharing that news during the meeting.

The district's budget calendar

The district's business office said the budget for next school year is just getting started. The School Committee takes up early assumptions on Nov. 17. On Thursday the business office said the first draft goes to the committee Dec. 7, with the first public budget hearing Dec. 9. (At its Nov. 3 meeting the School Committee had been told to expect a first draft Nov. 25; the Dec. 9 hearing date is the same in both.) Negotiations with the teachers union begin Dec. 16, so the first draft will carry the current contract terms as a placeholder.

The district's new facilities manager starts Monday. Essex officials noted the town has openings for a town accountant and a public works superintendent, and will soon need a full time fire chief.

What happens next

• Monday, Nov. 16: Essex Fall Town Meeting, 6:45 p.m., Essex Elementary School. Manchester Special Town Meeting, 7 p.m., Memorial School. Each needs a two thirds vote on the school article.
• Thursday, Dec. 10: ballot votes in both towns on the debt exclusion.
• Nov. 17, Dec. 7 and Dec. 9: School Committee budget discussion, first draft and public hearing.

Where to find the records

• Joint Collaboration Meeting agenda, Nov. 5, on the district's meeting agendas page
• Meeting recording

Earlier coverage: Manchester Essex schools cannot mail the Essex Elementary booklet to homes, state campaign finance office says (Nov. 6), the School Committee's Nov. 3 meeting. Cape Ann's three school budgets, side by side (Nov. 1), the budget series.

How we did this: Cape Ann Current watched the meeting online and checked dates and figures against the district's agenda and its posted budget calendar. These are our meeting notes, not the district's minutes.