Many questions and concerns are swirling around the idea of a new library for Shutesbury. How big will it be? What will it cost? With the Small Library Pilot Project in full swing and the M.N. Spear Library Trustees planning to submit a Building Program later this month, these questions are more pressing than ever.
In comments made at meetings on August 3, 2021, with Shutesbury Town Officials and August 17 with Shutesbury residents, Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) Building Specialists Lauren Stara and Andrea Bunker noted that Shutesbury taxpayers will be asked to vote on funding the construction of a library before we have an actual building design. A recent NextDoor thread discussed this issue and a Library Trustee Co-Chair weighed in with some helpful information.
Though she did not have a square foot estimate or a cost per square foot estimate, she did note that the Trustees’ best assessment is that the MBLC will pay 64% of all currently unknown costs, eligible and non-eligible. Voters at next year’s Town Meeting will be presented with a “not to exceed” amount, though she didn’t know what that would be.
As to when taxpayers might expect a “robust” estimate for the project, this Trustee stated that Library officials hope to deliver that information “a month or so before Town Meeting.”
Deciding that next spring is too long to wait for such important information, I gathered information from various public sources, did some math, and came up with three “estimates” of what various sized libraries might cost the citizens of Shutesbury.
Disclaimer: The following information is for educational and entertainment purposes only—though I will be interested to see how close any of these estimates come to the one the Trustees and the MBLC eventually offer.
Without further ado...three cost estimates in order of ascending building size—and cost.
Formulas and figures used:
I will be using a per-square-foot cost of $729 based upon the recently completed Erving Library project:
$4,933,007 project cost as of January 2018 + $550,000 added June 2019 by Erving voters because of increased costs and plugging those numbers into the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator for September 2021 dollar values:
$4,933,007 increases to $5,459,271
$550,000 increases to $589,008
Erving library project cost adjusted for inflation: $6,048,279
$6,048,279 /8,294 s.f. = 729.2 rounded to $729.00 cost per square foot
Shutesbury’s share = 36% of total project cost
Funds available today = $520,326 ($252,700 pre-paid by taxpayers via an annual $25,000 budget line item + $267,626 fundraising)
An interest rate of 2.5% over 20 years for any borrowed funds
Estimate #1: A Library Sized for Shutesbury’s Population Today: 3,434 S.F.
Shutesbury’s Master Plan Executive Summary, circa 2005, speaks to a library sized to the town’s population, noting the town’s 2000 U.S. Census population as 1,810 which would require a library with “a minimum of 3,600 square feet”.
Taking Shutesbury’s most recent U.S. Census data on population, 1717, I adjusted the square footage to reflect this decline in population.
3,600/1810 = 1.988 or 2 square feet per person
1717 * 2 = 3,434 square feet
Next, I applied the per-square-foot cost to build Erving’s new library:
3,434 * $729 = $2,503,386 total project cost
Shutesbury’s share :
$2,503,386 * 36% = $901,219 - $520,326 = $380,893
20-year loan for $380,893 at 2.5% interest = $24,433 annual payment
Total interest over the life of the loan: $107,771
Plugging $24,433 into our trusty Cent$ible Tax Calculator shows an increase of $0.11 on the tax rate and an annual increase of $27.08 for the next 20 years on the tax bill of the average home valued at $250,434.
Note: The tax rate used for the Cent$ible Tax Calculator is the fiscal year 2021 rate of $22.61. The tax rate for FY 2022, scheduled to be set in a few weeks, will be $23.37.
Estimate #2: The Expanded Library Plan of 2001: 4,000 S.F.
In 2001, the Library Trustees proposed a renovation/expansion project which would have added 3,100 s.f. to the existing library, creating 4,000 s.f. of usable space. This design was based upon a future town population of 2,392 in 2020 and 2,490 in 2027.
This plan never got off the ground because of protests regarding the design’s impingement on the Town Common. As described in the MN Spear Memorial Library Building Program July 2009 document on page 4, “The Committee chose to maintain good relations between the residents and the library rather than divide the town over the location of the library.” If the project was reproduced today and we assume that the renovation costs to the original library building equaled the square foot cost of the new construction, the estimate would look something like this:
4,000 * $729 = $2,916,000 total project cost
Shutesbury’s share:
$2,916,000 * 36% = $1,049,760 - $520,326 = $529,434
20-year bond for $529,434 at 2.5% interest = $33,962 annual payment
Total interest over the life of the loan: $149,799
The annual payment of $33,962 will increase the tax rate by $0.15 and add an annual increase of $37.64 to the average single-family tax bill for the next 20 years.
Estimate #3: The 2011 New Library Design: 5,800 S.F.
Those who lived in Shutesbury in 2010-2011 may remember that the library project ended with the Friends of the Library taking the Town of Shutesbury to court. For estimating purposes, I will recycle Shutesbury’s new building design from 2011:
5,800 s.f. Library x $729 = $4,228,200 * 36% = $1,522,152 - $520,326 = $1,001,826
20-year bond for $1,001,826 at 2.5% interest = $64,804 annual payment
Total interest = $283,459
An annual payment of $64,264 will add $0.28 to the tax rate and increase the average single-family tax bill by $71.21 per year for the next 20 years.
Costs At-A-Glance
Price increases and/or cost overruns may increase the actual cost of a new library. Erving, for example, appropriated an additional $550,000 to its committed amount of $2,210,380 due to a “higher than anticipated cost of construction”. In addition, its budget for furniture and equipment was eliminated.
Although Erving saved $100,000 on its solar array re-bid and expected another $100,000 grant upon its receiving certification in Leadership in Energy & Environment Design (LEED), increases in project costs prevented the town from shaving $200,000 from its share of the build.
As I followed the construction process through the minutes of Erving’s Board of Selectmen, I identified at least 30 “proposed change orders (PCOs)” that changed various facets of the project. Though PCOs can add or subtract from the estimated project cost, I saw only one that was a deletion—and that was only to replace an original amount with a new, much higher one.
The Erving library project manager noted that PCOs are usually paid by the town, even when they stem from errors and oversights made by the architects. The standard is 5% of total project cost; for Erving, that would come to approximately $250,000.
Of the PCOs I was able to identify, the total came to $151,160. The amounts varied from several hundred to tens of thousands of dollars.
The annual operating budget for a new Shutesbury library will be larger than it is now. As noted in a previous post, Erving’s budget exploded from $66,004 in fiscal year 2017 to a fiscal year 2022 budget request of $175,549. The town’s insurance costs were also increased to cover the new building and its contents. Higher costs associated with a new municipal building will become a permanent budget increase, putting permanent upward pressure on the tax rate. If Shutesbury’s Library budget increases by the same percentage, we may be paying an additional $110,850 by fiscal year 2027—or a total of $174,628. At today’s tax rate, that would permanently add another $.49 to the tax rate and another $122.84 each year to the average single-family tax bill.
Supply-chain challenges continue to haunt the building industry, inflating costs.
No one yet has an inkling of how large a new library might be, but the MBLC’s Ms. Stara has encouraged Shutesbury residents to “think big”. As taxpayers, we need to decide if we want that catchphrase to apply to our tax bills, as well.
Do you want to know what these extra costs will do to your real estate tax bill? Use the handy Cent$ible Tax Calculator to find out.
Weekly Factoid:
From $2.6 billion to $14.5 billion to more than $24 billion: The legacy of “The Big Dig”.
Sources: The Big Dig: Learning from a Mega Project
True cost of Big Dig exceeds $24 billion with interest, officials determine
The Big Dig: Learning from a Mega Project
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