CIP Meeting (Public Test Livestream)

2022-12-20 · Capital Improvement Committee · 1:21:43 · watch on YouTube →

Third meeting of the Capital Improvement Program committee for fiscal year 2023, held as a public test livestream. Members had already reviewed department replacement schedules, the manager's ten-year plan and the individual applications, met with the fire chief and public works director, and scored the applications on their own; Michelle Rullo correlated the scores into a ranking. The committee reviewed that ranking, decided it was reasonable and made no changes to it. It then worked through the points it wants carried into a conveyance memo to the selectmen, chiefly the mismatch between scoring projects and scoring reserve requests, support for rehabilitating the Quint rather than buying a new one, and the need for a town-wide pickup truck hand-down plan. Paul agreed to draft the memo and circulate it to members for comment before sending it to Jerry with the rankings.

No written minutes could be matched to this meeting. The transcript records that the speaker changed but never who was speaking, so any name attached to a statement below is inferred from context and is marked (?).

What was discussed

1. 0:03
   Opening and where the process stands

   Members introduced themselves in a round robin: Michelle Rullo of David Lewis Drive, Joe of 1180 (road name unclear in the recording), and Paul of Chesley Hill Road. Paul (?) said the third meeting is usually short because the replacement schedules, ten-year plan and applications have already been reviewed and the committee has met with the fire chief and public works director at the fire station. The plan for the evening was to review the rankings, decide whether to recommend them to the selectmen, and discuss a conveyance memo.

2. 0:03
   Presentation of the rankings

   Michelle Rullo (?) read out the correlated scores: stream crossing first at 498, exhaust removal 493, Quint rehab 485, public works truck fourth (score not stated), assessing 454, chief's car 443, fire department generator 433, public works reserve 430, and the town office generator last at 409. The numbering as read did not match the number of items listed.

3. 5:03
   Stream crossing ranking

   Members said the stream crossing is elevated by the extra points for grant funding and for addressing state law and regulation. The existing culverts will have to be replaced at some point, likely as an in-stream job requiring an Army Corps permit and a natural-bottom crossing, so members treated it as paying now rather than later.

4. 5:03
   ARPA funds and how projects might be paid for

   Joe (?) said he had not taken funding source into account when scoring, then tallied which projects could use ARPA money. He noted ARPA money cannot be combined with funds already raised or to be raised for a project, so it suits a new one-time project.

5. 10:21
   Exhaust removal at the fire station

   Paul (?) said the visit to the fire station moved this up his list: the bays are a small space, the current ventilation exchanges all the air and loses the building's heat, and the walls showed discoloration from diesel exhaust. He tied it to supporting volunteer firefighters as the department moves toward a more professional standard.

6. 10:21
   Reserves ranked lower than expected

   Paul (?) said he was disappointed the reserve requests did not rank higher but that they had not ranked higher on his own sheet either, given that the town has not had a clear reserve balance for two years and would have trouble defending a large request. Another member said the public works reserve in particular needs to be higher because the trucks are coming up.

7. 15:35
   Whether reserves should be funded automatically

   A member asked why funding reserves is not simply a given. Paul (?) said department schedules represent real needs but the town has limited resources and has to balance them against the tax rate, and that most towns the same size do not fully fund reserves each year. He added that the town bought rather than saved in the past and is now servicing debt he recalled as close to a million dollars a year in bond payments, which makes saving difficult.

8. 15:35
   Projects versus reserves in the scoring

   Members said ranking a reserve against a project compares two different things, since funding the public works reserve this year is what pays for a plow truck five years out and a missed year throws Calvin's whole schedule off. There was discussion of whether an approved item should simply go into the budget rather than be requested annually, balanced against the view that reserve requests still need review for supporting documentation.

9. 20:47
   Handling the conundrum in the memo

   The committee agreed to point out in the conveyance memo that projects and reserves do not compare well, that the town needs to know what is being maintained in reserve, and that reserves should sit in a separate account. Paul (?) said keeping reserves only on paper inside the general fund makes an accurate undesignated fund balance hard to establish.

10. 26:38
    Scoring criteria do not fit reserve requests

    Members said the criteria, such as whether a project directly or indirectly produces income, do not map onto a reserve request covering a group of future purchases. The suggestion was to keep the current tool for projects and develop a small, separate set of simple criteria for reserves.

11. 31:49
    Pickup truck hand-down plan

    A suggestion attributed to Jerry was raised: buy a chief's truck, then reassign it to public works after six or seven years since it accumulates far less hard use in that role. Complications (?) noted were that the chief wants a crew cab and a service body that public works would not need, and that Calvin's truck is up for replacement next year and is already in poor condition.

12. 37:33
    Public works one-ton truck

    A member said the public works one-ton scored high for him because it is in service every day carrying crew, culverts and flaggers, and that road maintenance is preventive safety as against the immediate emergency need of fire and rescue equipment. It ranked fourth.

13. 37:33
    Retaining the old public works truck

    Members said clarity is needed on what happens to the truck being replaced. If the old truck is kept in limited service, the committee wants it made clear that it will not come back later as a request for a new vehicle.

14. 42:46
    Where the fleet plan should be developed

    The committee said a written pickup progression, showing what is bought in year one, year five and year ten, needs to be drawn up, but that the work belongs with the town manager and department heads rather than this committee. A cost noted against the hand-down idea is that an expensive service body and crew cab would have to be bought again for each new chief's vehicle.

15. 42:46
    Whether a chief's vehicle was part of his hiring

    A member said he understood the fire chief negotiated a town vehicle as part of taking the job, in place of using his own, and that it was not clear during the hiring process that this was a commitment. Members agreed that if so it is a separate discussion from the CIP scoring and could not be resolved here.

16. 48:55
    Chief's vehicle found reasonable

    Members said the request as presented is reasonable and that the vehicle could later be repurposed as a runner truck for public works. Points (?) raised were that the chief's vehicle is exposed at incident scenes blocking traffic, that it could serve as a command vehicle available to others, and that what was requested is a utilitarian truck that can pull a trailer rather than an expensive command SUV.

17. 54:14
    Whether to adjust the rankings

    Paul (?) asked whether members wanted to move the chief's car, the public works truck or assessing relative to one another. On assessing, a member noted the town is at 80 percent of value, cannot fall below 70 percent, may not be fully using the homestead exemption at that level, and faces a revaluation that could come around 2025. No member pressed for a change and the rankings were left as scored.

18. 59:19
    Fire department generator

    The current generator is not large enough to serve everything at the station, but the chief said at the last meeting that it can be worked with for a few years. Members noted the station functions as an emergency warming centre, pointing to the storm that weekend which had left parts of Oxford County and western Cumberland without power for four or five days.

19. 59:19
    Quint history and rehabilitation

    Paul recounted that the Quint carried a $750,000 placeholder on the replacement schedule which would not have covered a new one at over a million dollars, that the town was split over it, and that the disagreement was part of why this committee was formed. Kathy and Chief Tripp (?) proposed instead investing in the existing Quint to get another ten years of service, which members supported.

20. 1:04:38
    Town office generator

    Members discussed whether the existing generator can be kept running with maintenance, noting it failed to start when it was last called on and that a service call was made at the time. Nobody present was certain whose responsibility the generator is, and there was discussion of whether the public works mechanic could cover it, offset by the mechanic being busy with equipment during storms.

21. 1:10:01
    Consequences of a town office outage

    Paul (?) said the worst case if the town office generator fails is closing the office and sending people home, which ranks below the fire station's role in emergency operations, though the issue will have to be addressed before long. Members noted the longest recent outage they could recall was five or six days, seven or eight years ago.

22. 1:15:18
    Conveyance memo and distribution of scores

    Paul (?) said he would draft the memo after the meeting and circulate it to members with a note not to reply to the group because of FOAA, asking for concerns to come to him directly before it goes to Jerry. The practice discussed was that the selectmen receive the one-page rankings with the memo, while individual member score sheets go to Jerry for the file in case a selectman or department head wants the detail.

23. 1:15:18
    Motion to forward the rankings

    A motion was raised that the rankings be forwarded to the selectmen together with a conveyance memo. The recording of what followed is garbled and does not plainly state the result.

24. 1:20:37
    Revisiting the process next year

    Members agreed to come back in late summer or fall to look at separating project scoring from reserve scoring, after the budget process, since the town manager and Joe will be occupied with the budget. Paul (?) thanked the department heads for their applications.

What was decided

• 54:14
  Leave the scored rankings as they came out, with no adjustment to the chief's vehicle, public works truck or assessingpassed
• 1:04:38
  Say in the conveyance memo that the committee supports reinvesting in the existing Quint rather than buying a new onepassed
• 1:15:18
  Forward the rankings to the selectmen together with a conveyance memo; the wording of the vote is garbled in the recordingoutcome unclear
• 1:20:37
  Revisit the scoring process, including separating projects from reserves, in late summer or fall after the budget seasonpassed

An outcome reads "unclear" where the recording does not state it plainly. The recogniser drops short words, and "the motion does not carry" is one missing word from its opposite.

Worth knowing

• 15:35
  Paul (?) said the town is servicing debt he recalled as close to a million dollars a year in bond payments, and that it is very hard to save into reserves while making payments that size. He also said the town has not had a clear reserve balance for two years.
• 59:19
  The Quint had been carried on the replacement schedule as a $750,000 placeholder, which members said would not have been enough to buy one, a new Quint being over a million dollars. The committee backs rehabilitating the existing truck for another ten years instead.
• 54:14
  A member said the town's assessment is at 80 percent of value and cannot fall below 70 percent, that the homestead exemption may not be fully used at that level, and that a revaluation could be needed by around 2025.
• 26:38
  Members said repeatedly that the scoring criteria do not fit reserve requests, which is part of why the public works reserve ranked eighth despite equipment coming due, and asked for separate criteria before next year's round.

Elsewhere

← 2022-12-20 Capital Improvement Committee2023-10-25 Capital Improvement Committee →All meetings