The state’s $16 billion budget confirms something Concord officials had long dreaded: no state aid for school building projects will be coming to the city for at least the next two years.

It puts plans to construct a new middle school, nearly a decade in the making, in question: can Concord afford to build one without state help? Can it afford to wait?

As state lawmakers slashed spending this year to meet declining revenues, money to build new public schools was far from their list of priorities. The budget signed by Governor Kelly Ayotte includes only enough funding to cover what’s known as the “tail” of school building aid – ongoing debt and payments tied to districts that previously received awards. There is no money for new projects in this biennium.

For the last several months, architects for the Concord School District have been workshopping a design to replace Rundlett Middle School on South Street. After a ballot referendum drove a location switch last winter, the district agreed to pay $3 million more to HMFH architects for a new design.

By next month, the Concord Board of Education is expected to receive updated design options and cost estimates for a new school on South Street, according to a timeline laid out to the building committee, and be able to set a new proposed price tag in September.

“Following through on having a design does not mean we’re going to build a school,” Board Member Sarah Robinson noted at a school board meeting Monday. The board will have to decide whether to move forward now without the state’s help or to hold off, keep the design in their back pocket and invest in further tide-over repairs at Rundlett.

Even if building is returned to the state budget in 2027, which is considered a big “if,” waiting a few years may not deliver much savings because the baseline costs rise with inflation.

“The next biennium, we don’t know what will happen,” Board Member Jim Richards said. “We do know that costs will continue to go up three to five percent every year.”

A permanent renovation of Rundlett has so far been ruled out: Because of deterioration in the roof and structural upgrades required to make the building code, Department of Education and ADA compliant, project engineers have told the district from the beginning, and again this spring, that renovating the building could cost even more than building anew.

For Board Member Cara Meeker, the essential goal of the middle school project — all nine years of it so far – still holds weight.

“It is difficult to carry with us the vision of this long-term plan,” she said, “which is a beautiful new school that our community deserves and has earned through years of living through the existing building.” As the board reacted to changes in their financial landscape, she didn’t want that to be lost. “I’m hoping we can consider how we beg, borrow, and steal if we don’t get building aid, but we still want to move forward.”

At the same time, a new school with a six-figure price tag without any helping hand has started to feel less and less likely.

“I do not foresee a brand new middle school in Concord’s future in any real amount of time at this point,” Robinson said. “It’s just too steep of a tax ask from everyone.”

If the board does move forward with new school plans, their next step would be to whittle down what’s in the design until it hits a price point they can stomach. The full slate of what board members had previously hoped for has been estimated by their architects to come in north of $160 million dollars.

“It’s not sustainable the way it is,” Board Vice President Brenda Hastings said Monday. “It’s not a great environment for learning, and we’re going to need to do something at some point. So whether it’s building new or renovating what we’ve got and putting lipstick on that pig, then that’s what we’re going to have to decide.”

Concord isn’t alone.

The state building aid program, dating back to the 1950s, awards grants to school districts to help pay for new construction or renovation. But as a tide of schools built to accommodate the baby boom came due for major repairs or replacement, and as falling youth populations pushed more districts toward consolidation, state coffers were helping fund more construction than lawmakers felt they could afford. In 2008 and again in 2011, the state put a moratorium on building aid that lasted more than a decade.

During that time, many districts like Concord held their breath, patching up issues and holding off on major projects as they waited for the funding to be reinstated. When the moratorium was lifted in 2022, a point of pride for then-governor Chris Sununu, applications for aid flooded in from school districts across the state. A new, consolidated Derry Village School, an addition and renovation at Barnstead Elementary, an expansion in Amherst that would bring elementary and middle grades under one roof, all were placed in line for aid.

The 17 projects found eligible by the state in 2022 requested more than $230 million in help. A new ceiling on the program capped it at $50 million per year.

Applications were ranked in order of the district’s level of need, including the condition of the current building and the demographics of their populations. Aid money is awarded in lump to whoever is at the front of the line.

Concord’s plan for a new middle school currently sits second in line for aid. It had hoped for around $48 million, but was likely to receive no more than about $30 million. While the district isn’t stepping out of line, help won’t come any time soon.

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.