The Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School Building Committee is recommending the region’s five member towns hold another election for the $288 million request to fund a new facility that failed to pass in November of last year.
Old Colony Superintendent Aaron Polansky revealed in a meeting with officials and project planners at the school on January 27 that this recommendation is set to be approved by the Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School Committee on January 28 as the first step to a “revote” election in June or early September.
Polansky said the building committee approved the revote option after reviewing a total of five alternative plans. These included just repairing and/or upgrading the current building to address the district’s needs without the state reimbursement of project costs that a larger project would garner. He said a revote was the district’s most viable and fiscally responsible option. “A ‘no’ vote does not eliminate costs to the taxpayers,” he noted. “It shifts 100 percent of the financial responsibility to them.”
A revote is not ignoring the previous outcome, he added. “It is providing taxpayers with information relative to the financial impacts of a no vote,” he said. “The bottom line is every alternative to a revote costs more locally and delivers less value.” He added the best path is the one that secures state funding and fixes the school’s problems and inadequacies all at once with long-term solutions.
The first questioner from the audience asked what the building committee would do differently this time. Polansky said they will seek to be collaborative with voters and officials and disseminate more information to help taxpayers better understand the most fiscally responsible approach.
Rochester Finance Committee member David Arancio said more should be explained to voters about the financial and tax impacts on their vote either way. Project engineer Chad Crittenden of PMD Consultants said not all the ‘What Ifs’ in every aspect of the project’s costs and debt costs are predictable. Polansky said there will be more time to educate residents on what they need to know.
The state School Building Authority’s reimbursement for the new school’s price tag was projected to be $129 million. The remaining total cost that the school district members would share was estimated at approximately $159 million. Rochester’s share of that price tag would have been $28.4 million. But both the $288 million request to fund the building project and a proposal to pay for Rochester’s $24 million share of that cost with a debt exclusion resulted in a resounding No vote in the November 2025 election. The question to approve the building project failed across all of Old Colony’s member towns, Acushnet, Carver, Lakeville, and Mattapoisett.
The money would have funded a larger, more modern building that replaces the serious infrastructure deficiencies of the current facility at 476 North Avenue in Rochester.
Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School Building Committee
By Michael J. DeCicco