Northampton Campus Project: Expensive Mistakes and Falling Enrollment

Northampton County’s middle and high school project was supposed to be a fresh start. Now it is a lesson in what happens when a small, aging county takes on a big-city price tag without big-city checks.

Look at how the number has moved. In 2022, supervisors sent the project out to bid at roughly $61.5 million. A year later, after a first bid of about $84 million alarmed the board, they approved a cap of $82 million. Today, according to Shore Daily News reporter Linda Cicoira, construction costs are around $108 million and could reach $130 million. The project is short by somewhere between $12.5 million and $20 million. The Board of Supervisors is now considering a $30 million line of credit to finish the job and rebuild its contingency funds.

The most troubling part of the report is the cause. More than $13 million of the added cost for the school and the Career and Technical Education building came from builder and engineering errors, oversights, rework, and miscalculations. Taxpayers did not draw the plans, pour the concrete, or run the numbers. They should not pay for the people who did those jobs badly.

County officials say the final bill is still being negotiated, and that some of the cost of errors could be absorbed by the contractor, architect, or engineer. That “could” carries a lot of weight. Before the county borrows another dollar, residents deserve three things. First, a public, itemized list of every change order, showing who caused it and who is paying for it. Second, an independent review of the error-related costs, by someone with no stake in the project. Third, a public hearing before any vote on a $30 million line of credit. Borrowing should be the last option, used after every dollar owed by responsible parties has been collected.

Cost overruns would hurt any county. They hurt Northampton more because of who lives here now.

Northampton is getting older and smaller. Census estimates put the county’s population at about 12,000. Roughly 31 percent of residents are 65 or older, compared with about 21 percent in 2000 and about 18 percent statewide. Only about 18 percent of residents are children. The county’s median age is now above 50.

The schools reflect that change. The division enrolls about 1,300 students across four schools. When this project went to bid, officials said about 750 of those students would attend the new middle and high school. The school superintendent has also told supervisors that state aid was cut, in part because of declining enrollment. When state funding follows enrollment, fewer students means fewer state dollars, and local taxpayers make up the difference.

Housing is a big reason families are not replacing the students we lose. Waterfront and village homes increasingly go to retirees, second-home buyers, and investors. A regional housing study found the Eastern Shore has more than 10,000 vacant homes, and only a small share are available for long-term rent. Earlier this year, the county was tracking roughly 630 short-term rental listings, representing more than 500 separate units. Supervisors have themselves said the boom in short-term rentals turned homes that once housed working families into lodging for visitors.

A house rented by the weekend does not send a child to Northampton High. A retired couple who moved here from out of state pays taxes, but adds no students. Those are not complaints about our neighbors. They describe a county whose future school population is shrinking while its school debt is growing.

None of this means our children should go without decent buildings. The old 1954 and 1978 structures needed real work, and the students using them deserve safe, modern classrooms. But “decent” and “whatever it costs” are not the same thing. A project sized and priced for a growing county is a risky bet in one that is shrinking.

So here is what I am asking of the Board of Supervisors and the School Board:

Make the contractor, architect, and engineer pay for their own mistakes, and show the public the math. Hold off on any new borrowing until that accounting is done and residents have been heard. Take a hard look at whatever scope remains and cut what a county of 1,300 students does not truly need. And treat housing as school policy. If Northampton wants classrooms full of local kids, it needs homes where local families can afford to live.

We will be paying for this building for decades. The least we can ask is that we pay only for what we should, and that the people charged with spending our money plan for the county we actually are.

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Wayne Creed

Administrator

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