Dear Wellesley Residents,

There is a very cool calculator prepared by the Town of Wellesley. Add your address, it does the 2025 tax calculation by school….brings the reality of this crazy spending on our taxes. Please distribute as you see fit. Half of the tax increase is for Hunnewell and half is for Hardy. Multiply by 25 years to see your total payment.

You should know, Wellesley Public Schools presented enrollment projections to ADVISORY through the school year, 2025. As you know, we lost 284 elementary students last year, another 28 this year. The elementary school population fell from 2,094 pre-pandemic to 1,782 students this year. Elementary school population is forecast by WPS to decline to an estimated 1,586 elementary school students by the 2025 school year. That is a 25% reduction in elementary school kids 2025 versus the 2019/20 school year. These are WPS numbers…

At an average planned capacity of 380 students per school we need 4.2 elementary schools NOT 6. If these students were distributed evenly across the 5 schools that would be 318 students per school….or 84% average capacity, plenty of room to handle year to year fluctuations. These are the Schools numbers, look up the last school committee meeting on the Town of Wellesley web site.

The obvious solution here is to build only 1 new school….NOT 2. There is no need for it for at least the next 5 years and likely beyond. If we need more capacity in the future, existing plans can be pulled out, dusted off with only adjustments for code changes.

The obvious school to support is the Hardy School. The town will receive $13.5 million in state support to build the Hardy school so the net cost to the town is millions less than the Hunnewell School. State funding is non transferable, and the project cannot be delayed to sometime in the future. Hunnewell can be delayed until the school population merits the investment.

Building a new Hardy School is taking care of the kids in town. Building a second elementary school we do not need is a waste of critical town resources. Wouldn’t it be better to put that money into school curriculum and other town services???

This increase added to all other previous debt exclusions we are paying for, will mean that the average taxpayer will be paying around $2,000 more each and every year past 2030, not including any other projects in the pipeline.

Facts are important when planning the future.

Pete Jones
TMM Precinct B