SOUTH DEERFIELD — Ahead of the Oct. 6 ballot vote on the proposed new building at Franklin County Technical School, about 40 Deerfield residents gathered to hear from a panel of town officials and Franklin Tech representatives on the ins and outs of the vote and its consequences for the town.
To start off the conversation at Deerfield Town Hall on Sunday, hosted by the citizens group Engage: Deerfield, Franklin Tech Superintendent Ryan Rege and Franklin Tech School Committee Chair Richard Kuklewicz outlined the need for a new building.
Amid electrical issues, buckets collecting leaks in classrooms and equipment worth more than $500,000 getting wet, the School Committee submitted a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) in 2022 conveying that “we need to look at our facility, we need to figure out what we should do,” Kuklewicz recalled.
Day to day, Rege said students spot water dripping between ceiling tiles at the school, learn in classrooms within the former auditorium due to space limitations and sport hard hats in certain areas of the building due to low pipes.
“There’s no zero-cost option,” Kuklewicz said. “Something needs to change, something needs to happen.”
On Oct. 6, residents of the school’s 19 member municipalities, including Deerfield, will vote on whether to approve borrowing $236.6 million for a new building. Of that sum, the MSBA will reimburse up to $113.8 million in eligible costs, leaving $122.8 million for the member towns to pay off over the next 30 years, starting in fiscal year 2028.
Rather than requiring the majority of towns to approve the building on Oct. 6, the new building requires a simple majority vote.
Deerfield Finance Committee Chair Julie Chalfant broke down the cost of the new building for the town, which would cover 9.08% of the project, or approximately $695,000 annually over 30 years, if voters approve it. For Deerfield taxpayers, if the project cost that the towns must cover remains at the projected $122.8 million, the annual property tax bill for the average single-family home would rise by $285, or 4.5%.
Alternatively, though the cost of renovating the existing building is expected to come to $125 million, the loan would likely only stretch 20 years, leading to a higher yearly increase in taxes, Chalfant noted.
“My understanding is, for the same roughly dollar cost, you could have the new building with more square footage and really meet the needs of a growing population and equipment,” Deerfield resident Jeff Upton said.
According to Owner’s Project Manager Tim Alix, renovations would require ensuring the existing building and any fixes meet building codes, and with a faulty building infrastructure, he said, “We’d have to really redo everything.”
Alix added that the existing building is likely too small for the repairs to be eligible for reimbursement from the MSBA.
“The MSBA wants to see the building match your needs and meet your goals of educating your students, not to figure out a way to make do with what you have and squeeze [students] into a building that really isn’t appropriate for your program,” Alix said.
When asked if the town could save money by leaving the Franklin Tech consortium, Darius Modestow, superintendent of the Frontier Regional and Union 38 school districts, said it would cost the town more money to educate students at Franklin Tech if Deerfield is not a member municipality, and advised against it.
According to Modestow, 16 students from Deerfield attended Franklin Tech in 2016, a number that grew to 29 students in 2025. He noted that other districts north of Frontier lost “quite a few” students to the technical school.
Assistant Town Administrator Greg Snedeker painted a picture of declining enrollment across Franklin County.
“You could be spending the same amount, but your per-pupil expenditure is beginning to skyrocket,” Snedeker said. “It’s not just a regional problem, it’s not a state issue, it’s now a national problem. We’re going to see colleges closing, which we already are. We’re going to see more schools closing, because the economies of scale do not work and we need to build them back, and that means increasing enrollment.”
“How will this [new building] impact the other districts that are struggling to figure out how they’re going to be viable?” Deerfield resident Rita Detweiler asked the panel.
In response, Kuklewicz said the school is not aiming to increase enrollment with the new building.
“We all own a piece of the tech school, don’t forget that — it’s not a competitive school to Frontier, it’s a Deerfield school,” Kuklewicz said.
A few residents asked about the feasibility of Franklin Tech incorporating “satellite schools” for certain classes.
Although Modestow said Frontier is working to expand its technical education through the Innovation Career Pathways program, he added that between the equipment and level of expertise at Franklin Tech, “The idea that Frontier can take on what [Franklin Tech] does is not really realistic. … It’s a very different type of skill set.”
“Even how our teachers teach the students math or geometry, they approach it from a different perspective,” Kuklewicz said, adding that students learn these subjects through the lens of carpentry, auto mechanics or other trades. “That’s what really helps develop that group of students into the students that remain in our communities and that stay here, and really value the education from [Franklin Tech].”
Early on in the forum, moderator Emily Gaylord of Engage: Deerfield asked Selectboard member Tim Hilchey about the value of Franklin Tech’s education for Deerfield.
“Obviously, the education is a critical component. It gives students who are coming out of junior high an opportunity to focus on a career path, whether it’s [electrical], carpentry, aviation,” Hilchey answered. “In order to accomplish that, we need an environment where the students can be safe and have all the equipment that they need to study the things that they want to study. … Long-term, this is offering a generational path for students in the next five or six or so generations to pursue careers so that they can come out of high school and start working.”
