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04/17/2018 03:25 PMAt a Wednesday, April 25 Town Meeting, voters will consider approval of a five-year capital spending plan approved by the Board of Selectmen (BOS) on April 3 and the Board of Finance (BOF) on April 11. The plan describes the selectmen’s capital spending priorities without committing the town to an appropriation to fund any of those projects.
On April 3, the BOS reviewed the capital spending requests that town departments asked be included in the town’s five-year capital plan. From among the requests, the BOS voted to give priority to these 14 capital plan items: a financial software upgrade, an Assessor Office software upgrade, Assessor’s Office revaluation funding, a marine patrol boat, replacement boat motors for the Fire Department, a replacement Zodiac rescue boat, a radio system for the Fire Department, town building security systems, Public Works fleet replacement, building and facility capital maintenance, a sidewalk improvement plan, a geographic information system (GIS) upgrade, dredging, and a waste water management program.
The BOS did not, however, attach any funding amounts for those projects included in the capital plan. As a result, when the BOF acted on April 11 to move the capital plan forward to Town Meeting, the capital plan lists the projects and purchases planned over the next five years but not the amounts the town estimates each will cost.
As Selectman John Hall told the BOF on April 11, “The [selectmen] have prioritized projects. What we’ve done [now] is sent you a list of projects we would like to fund.”
BOF Chairman Paul Connelly responded by clarifying Hall’s point.
“What [the capital plan] amounts to is that all of these projects are eligible for funding,” Connelly said.
Hall then explained that once the town approves the five-year capital plan, it will then take a series of meetings to find a path forward.
Those meetings and discussions between members of the BOS, BOF, and town staff would validate project and capital purchase cost estimates and suggest to decision-makers options for financing or paying for priority projects.
Capital spending plans guide town projects and purchases that are long-lived. Examples would be projects like roof replacement on municipal and school buildings, replacement of municipal or school boilers and windows, or the purchase of replacement vehicles for the Public Works or Fire departments. The capital line item in each annual budget is a contribution that the town’s leaders have agree to make to the town’s capital reserve or savings accounts for future purchases and capital projects.
Unlike operational budget funds, which must be spent in the fiscal year of the budget or be returned to the General Fund, capital contributions, if unspent, roll over into the next fiscal year. Each annual budget includes one or more line items listing that year’s contributions to the town’s capital reserve accounts.
At its April 11 meeting, the BOF approved putting $200,000 in the 2018-’19 budget for capital. No specific projects were identified or attached the line item; the allocation of the operational budget’s capital contribution will be made by the BOS at a future date.
Currently, the projects listed in the proposed capital plan, if all were funded, would total more than $6 million over the five-year period.
Finance Board Approves Budget Proposal
The BOF voted April 11, to approve and send to a Tuesday, May 15 Town Meeting a 2018-’19 budget for town and the Board of Education of $30,127,003, a spending increase of 1.3 percent over the current year.
Finance Director Donna Castracane told the BOF she would now send the Citizen’s Guide to the Budget
, a brochure to inform town voters, to the printer. The brochure will be sent to all town property owners in advance of the May Town Meeting budget vote.
Based on the projected revenues for next year, Finance Director Donna Castracane responded to the BOF question that the mill rate the town would need to pay for this budget would be 24.57 mills, up 0.2 mills or 0.8 percent from the current 24.37.
The BOF will formally vote on a new mill rate once the town has acted to adopt the proposed budget.