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02/20/2017 11:00 PMBoth the town and Board of Education (BOE) presented their operating budgets and requests for capital bonding to the Board of Finance (BOF) on Feb. 16. The combined bonding request total is about $6.6 million.
Capital bonding is held separate from the operating budget. Capital bonding is generally used for expenses that are expected to last more than a year and is directed toward larger projects. The operating budget, while it can include capital projects, tends to focus more on annual expenses such as salaries.
The town capital bonding request is $2,660,000 and includes projects such as inland roads reconstruction, an ambulance replacement, and improvements at Town Hall including a new elevator.
First Selectman Joe Mazza said the town tries to address capital projects through the operating budget, minimizing borrowing.
“We skip every other year for a bonding appropriation...Our requests for long-term financing of our major capital projects have decreased steadily over the years,” he said.
The BOE capital bonding request totals $3,963,831. The majority of the request is focused around Abraham Baldwin Middle School, which is currently undergoing a major window replacement project and is in need of electrical and HVAC (heating and cooling) upgrades.
“This comes under the heading of if we are not going to build any new schools, which I don’t think any of us want to do, we have to take care of our existing schools,” said BOE Chair Bill Bloss. “Baldwin is original equipment…It is at the end of its useful life. This cannot be postponed.”
While the bonding requests would be approved this year, the money would have no impact on this year’s budget increase. BOF Chair Matt Hoey said payments for these projects would be a few years out.
“Some of those we will not need to pay for until next year, 2018,” he said. “Some of the projects for the school are not going to get started right away—we have design work, engineering work, and architectural work.”
The town is still paying off the debt on the new Guilford High School, but according to projections from the Finance Department, the total debt service starts to drop off in 2021. Bloss said the BOE is cognizant of the current debt schedule when looking to go for new bonding.
“There would be not budgetary impact until the earliest the 2018-’19 fiscal year and that is when some bonds start to drop off,” he said. “We have been very careful to figure out what is coming off and trying to time it in a way that there aren’t any items coming on until something has dropped off.”