Voters Back Spending for Roofs, Other Elementary School Building Work

Voters backed $2 million in capital improvements to the elementary schools in the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District on Tuesday.

The projects, which include work ranging from the replacement of the roof on both Cutler Elementary School and Winthrop Elementary School to the installation of a fire suppression system at Buker Elementary School, will be paid through a Proposition 2-1/2 debt exclusion override. A debt exclusion override means that the payment on the bond for the project will be outside the taxing limits of Proposition 2-1/2.

The Cutler project was Question 4 on Tuesday's ballot and the remaining capital work was Question 5. The Cutler project was separate because the School Committee expects to get as much as 43 percent of the cost of that project paid by the state School Building Authority, which requires that full funding for the project be voted individually.

Both questions were put on the ballot with the backing of greater than two-thirds of voters at a Special Town Meeting in both towns earlier this fall. Tuesday's vote required a majority to pass.

Both questions passed with support from about 63 percent of the voters, according to unofficial numbers from Wenham Town Clerk Trudy Reid and results fom Hamilton posted by the Boston Globe.

Question 4, the Cutler project, received 3,930 yes votes and 2,306 no votes. Question 5, the remaining work totalling about $1.5 million, received 3,942 yes votes and 2,268 no votes.