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07/25/2017 04:00 PMThe Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Committee sat down July 19 to start planning for fiscal year 2018-’19. Before delving into projects and funding for the next year, committee members took a look back at the prior year, highlighting certain project difficulties and the need to possibly change the regulations of the committee to prevent projects from being re-directed after approval in the future.
The annual capital needs of the town are compiled in the CIP and voted on in the budget referendum each year. The CIP program is designed to create one comprehensive planning document for all of the town and public school’s capital needs for the next five years and evaluate possible funding options.
For items to end up in the CIP, departments submit requests to the Finance Department; requests are then complied and sent to the first selectman. The first selectman then considers the projects, prioritizes them, and eliminates those he does not wish to recommend; the remaining projects are sent forward to the CIP for further review. Together, the members work to prioritize requested expenditures and will submit a recommendation to the Board of Finance (BOF) and Board of Selectmen (BOS) for their consideration.
At the meeting, committee members considered possibly changing the regulation so that the department requests are reviewed first by the entire BOS and not just the first selectman. However, the main point of concern among committee members was process: What should be done when the scope or intent of a project changes after being recommended by the CIP and approved by the voters?
“We have established process,” said CIP Chair Jean Fitzgerald. “There is a way in which where the public sees the consistency and the transparency and that it doesn’t just land on one board’s decision. If the process exists, then the process should exist for all scenarios. I think that is fair and I think that is a distribution of power.”
Certain projects in the prior fiscal year stirred up questions of that nature, particularly the Town Campus baseball field and the Arts Barn roof, both of which were altered after leaving the CIP. Committee members said while the BOS or first selectman should be able to make minor changes to the project, if the project completely changes scope from what was printed in the town budget, it needs to go back to the CIP for further consideration.
“This goes back to the clarity for the public if we say, ‘Let’s go back and look at it again,’” said Fitzgerald. “Let’s get the paperwork for it again—no rash decisions on funding it or not funding it until we have facts.”
Committee member Bennett Pudlin said when certain projects went awry this year and residents packed the audience at board meetings, having the process in place to say the project needs to go back to the CIP would have given the boards and citizens a lot more clarity.
“If you think about the examples we are all familiar with, they all seem to have their origin in the executive not recognizing that there isn’t the authority to spend the money on different things,” said Pudlin. “…While I guess the executive has the inherent ability to not spend money, I don’t think the executive has the inherent authority to spend appropriated money for some totally different purpose—that’s clear.”
The project committee members kept coming back to the Town Campus baseball field. Robert Kach said he couldn’t understand how that project, which went through numerous iterations after it was approved in the CIP, could have ended up in its current state.
“How the hell does a project, after all of that work is done, get enacted and it goes awry like that?” he asked. “There is a problem—not just we overlooked something, there is a big problem there. That comes down almost to the state of a misappropriation of funds.”
Member and Selectman Bruce Wilson said that with the field project, multiple authorities were trying to approve parts of the project and the department was getting mixed signals. Fitzgerald said that, in general, when the scope of a project changes, the project should come back to the CIP for the sake of clarity and transparency.
“We all know when we go to change our minds, if you take some time and you review information and you get other peoples’ input, it is a much more valid decision than if you just off-the-cuff say, ‘I can save $50 there or that is not really a safety issue,’” she said, apparently referencing First Selectman Tom Banisch’s decision to divert from the approved project at the baseball field. “You are making a decision in a vacuum and there is no reason to do that in this town when it is a small town and we are all goal-oriented to do what is best for the town. The more transparency we can have, a process we can maintain and honor, I think benefits all elected officials and benefits all constituents.”
The CIP regulation falls under the authority of the Board of Finance. That board is expected to discuss the possible changes at a future meeting.