By Philip R. Devlin
(September 7, 2026) — Haddam Elementary School was built in 1948 with additions made in 1952 and in 1989. Also built in 1948, Killingworth Elementary School had additions added in 1958, 1962, and 1989. Burr Elementary School was built in 1969. The original Haddam-Killingworth Middle School was built in 1958 with additions added in 1962 and in 1974.
The original middle school (then called a “Junior High”) cost $395,000 in 1958; the state picked up $175,000 of that construction project, leaving the town about $220,000 to pay for it. Burr School cost $1,600,000 in 1969. Town residents paid just over 50% of that total or about $900,000. The approximate total cost to taxpayers for all district school construction projects—including subsequent multiple additions usually for modular classrooms— for a 22-year period from 1948 to 1970 was less than $1.5 million.
Haddam-Killingworth High School opened in 1974. The land on which the high school was built was farmland (mainly a 64-acre orchard) purchased from the Waibel family for $40,000 on March 2, 1967, by town leaders with foresight. Shortly after regionalization, the Region 17 Board paid the Waibels $73,000 for the last parcel of land on the site, including the white house and the recently dismantled large, white barn. Touted widely in the press as a “showcase” school, HKHS had amenities such as an indoor track, a swimming pool, a seminar room, a TV production studio, a “Cougar Café” for food service, and a cosmetology lab; additionally, the school was slated to have an indoor ice hockey arena, but the Inland Wetlands Commission cut back the site’s usable land for construction by five acres, and the hockey arena was scrapped.
As reported in the Hartford Courant on January 3, 1975, the total revised cost of the new “showcase” junior-senior high school occupying 288,000 square feet was $12.9 million, of which the state paid an incredible 80%! District 17 had to pay only $2,500,000 under a then-existing state law that actively encouraged the building of regional schools. Recently, a $10 million renovation bond for HKHS was passed by the towns in September of 2016 to install a new roof, replace the boiler, fix the auditorium, re-surface the fieldhouse floor, and install over 1,400 solar panels on the new roof. The District will continue to pay $893,500 for interest and principal per year on that bond until it is retired in 2031.
The largest recent District building project occurred in Killingworth with the construction of the HK Intermediate/Middle School, which opened in January of 2007. The new 160,000 square foot HK Middle School cost $48.3 million dollars. Of that sum, the district’s share was $25.3 million dollars, amortized over 22 years. In a Hartford Courant article on November 23, 2006, then- Superintendent of Schools Gary Mala said this: “It is not often that somebody like me can say words like “on time and under budget,” so I’m very proud of the diligence of our team. This is how it’s supposed to happen, but as the public well knows, it very rarely does.”
The total cost of more than a dozen building projects in the district from 1948 to the present is just over $40 million. The current estimate for the high school renovation project to be voted on at a referendum on September 24, 2026 is just over $151 million; of that figure, the district cost after state reimbursement is $77 million, a sum that is almost two times the total cost of all school construction work from 1948 to the present.
Additionally, 100% of the local tax implications to homeowners of all the construction costs since 1948 were known to District residents before they voted—except for one. So far, local residents have not been told of the impact that the high school renovation project will have on their local tax bills.
Image provided by Philip Devlin: Postcard Photo of the Early HES (c. 1948), Public Domain
The $77.2 million figure estimated for the local cost of the proposed Haddam-Killingworth High School project is not a one-year expense; it represents a debt obligation that will be added directly to our annual town budgets for many decades. Although RSD17’s project page describes the building’s physical requirements, taxpayers are just as entitled to a clear understanding of the exact amount this will add to their property tax bills each year.
It is not anti-education or anti-student to raise financial questions; the question is whether the residents of Haddam and Killingworth will get a clear tax analysis on a town-by-town and household-by-household basis before being asked to approve this kind of project on 24 September.
Key questions/concerns remain unanswered:
* The demographic situation has seen district enrollment fall from about 2,493 students in 2007–08 to less than 1,700 at present, with the number of students at HKHS being 465. Is the school currently being scaled down to match the present and future student population, or are we instead building it for a student body that no longer exists?
* Other facilities also need attention: three of the four schools in RSD17 are more than 50 years old and require or soon will require substantial infrastructure work. How will taxpayers fund future repairs to elementary and middle schools when they have to deal with the huge debt at HKHS?
* The true cost of alternative plans can only be assessed by having voters compare this proposal with a more modest and appropriately scaled one or with a clearer, analyzed actual cost of delaying maintenance and carrying out essential repairs.
Choosing ‘no’ on 24 September can be a responsible decision—this does not mean ignoring the needs of high schools, but insisting that a plan align with enrollment figures and be accompanied by clear tax figures. Because of the impending tax rise, many residents are deeply worried, as they should be. RSD17 should provide a complete, easy-to-understand financia/tax breakdown well before voting day so voters can make up their minds with confidence.