AMHERST — Town officials intend to develop a new plan, prior to Town Meeting, that would show a way for Amherst to pay for new or renovated elementary schools, an expanded and renovated Jones Library and a new fire station and Department of Public Works headquarters.

With both Wildwood and Fort River schools still in need of significant improvements following the rejection of a $66.37 million twin-school plan, but losing $34 million that would have come from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the challenge to develop this financial strategy will be steep, said Town Manager Paul Bockelman.

“One of our tasks is to again have the conversation about how we’re going able to afford these four major capital projects,” Bockelman told the Select Board last week.

In September, officials unveiled a financial plan that would permit the town to spend around $100 million to undertake four municipal building projects, including constructing two, 375-student schools in one building at the current Wildwood site on Strong Street, enlarging the Jones Library to meet community needs and building a fire station to serve South Amherst.

Since then, though, Town Meeting twice rejected authorizing the borrowing for the school project and failed to approve $350,000 for a study that would have produced a partial schematic design and cost estimate for a new DPW building. After the failure of a townwide referendum on the school last week, town and school officials sent a letter to the MSBA informing its board that Amherst would forgo the award.

Bockelman said there is still a need to prioritize schools.

“We’ll develop a new path for addressing the needs of our schools,” Bockelman said, though he added that formulating a strategy, and how easy it will be to do, is unknown.

Immediate needs haven’t gone away, and Town Meeting will be asked to spend $500,000 on a new boiler for Wildwood and $115,000 for a feasibility study of the Fort River property.

Select Board Chairwoman Alisa Brewer said she didn’t know how realistic a financial plan without state support for school buildings is.

“We were planning on this being the way we were going to afford to do things,” Brewer said.

Select Board member Andrew Steinberg said there are many necessary expenses for the schools that will now depend on town money, but these won’t correct all the problems that exist at the schools that forced the town and schools to pursue the project in the first place.

Even if a financial plan is created in advance of Town Meeting, which begins April 26, the other concern is healing the rifts that exist between those who supported the school project and those who aimed to preserve the neighborhood schools.

“The level of vituperation is pretty high in the community,” Bockelman said.

Bockelman said the dialogue on issues during the school debate became “a little harsh, a lot harsh.”

“I just feel like this is an opportunity to push the reset button, have more civility in our public dialogue, (and) recognize that people are doing things generally for good reasons,” Bockelman said.

But people, he said, will disagree vociferously, and email and listservs allow people to be more aggressive in expressing themselves with inappropriate rhetoric.

“What I’ve experienced with some of our staff is that they’ve borne the brunt of some of these kinds of conversations, and have really suffered because of it, because it’s gotten personal with some of our senior staff, and that’s not OK, that’s not OK to do,” Bockelman said.

Brewer said staff and officials all supported the school project, so moving forward is a task. “It’s going to be difficult,” Brewer said.

“It will take a lot for us to regroup and get moving in a positive direction,” Bockelman said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.