SALEM – While many school district warrant articles attracted little debate, the proposed high school renovation project dominated the discussion at the Salem School District’s recent deliberative session.

“This plan needs to be done now,” said Facilities Committee member Jeff Wildfeuer, whose support of renovating Salem High School drew applause from some of the residents at the Thursday, Feb. 7 meeting.

The School Board is asking voters to approve a $1,511,000 warrant article in March to fund architectural and engineering plans and specifications and other preliminary work for the renovation. If the article is passed, School Board members intend to ask voters next year to approve a bond article to carry out the renovations, which would address safety, security and program needs, and cost roughly $40 million.

With $250,000 available in impact fees and an additional $600,000 being paid by Windham to send its students to the school, the cost to Salem taxpayers for the engineering and architectural work is $661,000.

Several residents said the time for the renovations is now, and that the work will only get more expensive if it’s put off.

“Let’s get it done,” urged Selectman Arthur Barnes. “The sooner we do it, the more of our residents it will benefit.”

Laurie Rhind, a mother with two kids in school, said the community has a habit of procrastinating on taking care of its most important buildings.

“Let’s move forward, let’s stop procrastinating, let’s do the right thing,” she said. Another woman, who said she believes the project’s price tag scares some taxpayers, wanted to amend the article to require that the renovation work be done in phases. But she later withdrew her request.

The Budget Committee is not recommending the article. One of its members, Stephen Campbell, said that if the article fails at the polls, the School Board should reconsider its plan and come up with a project residents can afford.

“We can renovate this building and do it in a way that doesn’t break the back of taxpayers,” he said. Earlier in the evening, Campbell said ballot items are at risk of being defeated because passage of a $53.5 million operating budget and the other warrant articles would lead to a 9.57 percent increase in the school portion of the property tax rate.

“People are not getting nine-and-a-half percent raises,” Campbell said. “Times are tough. People are worrying about losing their jobs and their homes.”

Another warrant article, if approved, would allow the School Board to create a capital reserve fund for renovations and put the $600,000 from Windham into it. The article will be null and void if the previous article, which provides the $1.5 million needed for architectural and engineering work, is approved.