Schools

Hamilton, Wenham and HWRSD Receive $90K Grant

The money will help the towns and the school district create the state's first combined Public Facilities and Infrastructure Department.

The towns of Hamilton and Wenham and the Hamilton Wenham Regional School District were recently awarded a $90,000 Commonwealth Community Innovation Challenge Grant.

"Wenham is pleased to have taken the lead on this creative grant opportunity," Wenham Selectmen Chairman Kenneth Whittaker said. "The Towns of Hamilton and Wenham have a rich history of sharing precious municipal resources in an efficient and effective manner. In a unique fashion, the Towns of Hamilton and Wenham and the Hamilton–Wenham Regional School District are endeavoring to build upon this high level of success by engaging in novel approaches to improving essential government services and creating the first in the Commonwealth combined Public Facilities and Infrastructure Department encompassing two towns and the regional school district."

The Patrick Administration developed the Community Innovation Challenge grant program in 2012. The program encourages and incentivizes regionalization based upon the belief that the most crucial and visible interactions between government and citizens occur locally. In two years, the program invested $6.25 million in 49 unique projects that involve 197 municipalities across the Commonwealth.

The Towns of Hamilton and Wenham, along with the Hamilton–Wenham Regional School District, received a first ever CIC grant award of $30,000 in 2013. This grant was used to engage the University of Massachusetts Edward J. Collins Jr. Center for Public Management to assist with legal and organizational framework for the creation of this new public works department.

"We are proud of the extraordinary efforts of our respective Boards of Selectmen, the Hamilton–Wenham Regional School District and our staff for their hard work in securing the second consecutive Community Innovation Challenge grant," Wenham Town Administrator Mark Andrews said. "We seized the opportunity to follow up on our initial award of $30,000 in FY 2013."

[For more on the grant award, click here.]


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