Back to Capital Outlay Committee Minutes

Capital Outlay Committee
Meeting Minutes

2/28/2011 at Town Office Building

Attending:  Chairman Ray Eisenbies, Libby Claypoole, Lucy Hancock, Tom Pyles (representing the Advisory Committee), Sue Nickerson (Interim Town Accountant)

Ray Eisenbies called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM in the 3rd Floor South Hearing Room.

Review of FY 2012 Capital Budget

The original capital requests for FY 2012 amounted to about $3.6M.  COC members discussed the latest recommendations and made format and administrative changes as listed below.

• Move Assessor’s car ($14K) from FY 2015 to FY 2014 and eliminate the Car Battery ($5K) from FY 2014.

• Correct the amount for the Elder Services van from $12,541 to $12,341. Assume that the Town will receive grant money for the remaining cost of the van. (The Town has never failed to receive the grant.) The back-up plan is to use a Reserve Fund transfer.

• Move Landfill Cap and Hersey Street project from Accrued Liabilities to Project Engineering. (Still in FY 2012; no change in dollar amounts.)

• Remove the line item for a new Police Station and add a note about this project.

• Insert a cost of $120K instead of TBD as a placeholder for High School Boilers in FY 2013.

As a result of line item changes on 2/28, the total capital budget total was $1.98M.

COC members voted unanimously to recommend to the Board of Selectmen and the Advisory Committee a total capital budget of $1,983,118 of which $1,693,668 is supported by the tax levy and $289,450 is supported by user rates / charges.

School Department

Guests representing the School Department included Ray Estes, Esther Healey, and John Ferris.
Ted Alexiades (Town Administrator) also joined the meeting for the School Department discussion. COC members inquired about the status of the Depot buildings. The School Department plan was to renovate Building 179 and move the Traces Program there from Building 12, with the idea that Building 12 would be razed.  A total of $80K was requested for Building 179 renovations in FY 2012. The Town, however, has proposed that Building 12 and Building 179 be renovated at a cost of approximately $1M and that the Town would borrow the funds for both buildings. Building 12 then would house Traces plus a maintenance facility. The use of Building 179 is TBD, but it might be used for the Recreation Department. Given the uncertainty about the utilization of the facilities, the COC declined to recommend the $80K expenditure for the FY 2012 capital budget. School Department representatives expressed concern over the safety of Building 12 and the future of Traces, especially since renovations to Building 12 would not be complete for the 2011-2012 school year. Dot Galo and John Ferris will meet with Roger Fernandes and Ted Alexiades to discuss safety issues.

COC members again discussed the proposal for a public / private partnership to fund some / all of the High School athletic complex improvements, the most urgent of which is the track. One or more investors have stated a willingness to contribute to the track project, but they will not commit funds until the Town allocates an initial amount for this project. The COC praised the partnership idea but agreed that there are no available capital funds to allocate to the track for FY 2012. No one is willing to sacrifice the other FY 2012 School Department capital requests in order to pay for the track. In addition, the current proposal lacks details and requires clarification.

Other Business

COC members approved the minutes as amended from the 2/17/2011 meeting.

The COC budget numbers for FY 2013-FY 2016 will be checked / confirmed before publication in the Town Warrant.

The COC meeting with the Board of Selectmen is scheduled for 7 PM on 3/1/2011.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Lucy Hancock, Secretary