School Projects Get Support from Wenham Voters

Voters at the polls in Wenham on Thursday backed a plan to spend $3.1 million to make improvements to two elementary school buildings.

With the backing of Wenham voters, the work to Buker Elementary School and Winthrop Elementary School has the go-ahead. Last month, Hamilton voters overwhelmingly supported the projects in a ballot vote.

The unofficial tally from Wenham Town Clerk Trudy Reid on Thursday evening was 204 voters in favor and 64 opposed to a Proposition 2-1/2 debt exclusion override to spend $930,000 to replace a boiler at Buker Elementary School.

Wenham voters also backed spending $2.24 million on replacing the heating system and windows at Winthrop Elementary School by a similar margin: 201-70.

A debt exclusion override means that the payments toward the bond will be outside the town’s requirement to keep the increases in taxes to 2-1/2 percent or less each year.

The total cost of the work is expected to be reduced by 43 percent with funding by the Massachusetts School Building Authority, making the actual cost of the work $1.8 million for taxpayers in the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District.

Turnout was just under 10 percent, with 271 of the town's 2,835 registered voters going to the polls at Wenham Town Hall.