Capital Improvement Policy Committee Meeting ~ December 20, 2022

2022-12-20 · Capital Improvement Committee · 1:27:43 · watch on YouTube →

The Capital Improvement Program committee met for the third time in the FY2023 cycle, the stage at which members have already reviewed the replacement schedules, the ten-year plan and the applications, questioned the fire chief and public works director in person, and scored each application on their own. Michelle (?) read out the collated rankings, which put the stream crossing first, fire station exhaust removal second and the Quint rehabilitation third, with the public works reserve eighth and the town office generator ninth. Members went through each project, tested whether any ranking should move, and concluded it should stand as scored. Much of the discussion was about a structural problem the committee kept returning to: the scoring criteria do not fit reserve requests, reserves are tracked on paper inside the undesignated fund rather than held separately, and the town's existing bond payments make saving difficult. A motion that the rankings be forwarded to the selectmen together with a conveyance memo was recorded four to nothing, with Paul to draft the memo, and a review of the process itself was deferred until after town meeting.

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. 0:17
   Opening and introductions

   Paul welcomed members to the third CIP meeting for financial year 2023 and asked for the usual round robin. Those introducing themselves included Michelle, David of Lewis Drive, Joe Tomm, Paul of Chesley Hill Road, Peter, and Town Manager Jerry Douglass.

2. 0:17
   Where the process stands

   Paul recapped that the committee had already reviewed the department replacement schedules, the manager's ten-year plan and the project and reserve applications, and had met the fire chief and the public works director at the fire station to put outstanding questions to them. Members then scored each application individually against the policy criteria and sent their scores to Michelle, who collated them into rankings.

3. 0:17
   Purpose of the meeting

   The evening's business was to look at the rankings, decide whether they matched expectations, decide whether the committee was ready to recommend them to the selectmen, and pick out points from members' notes worth carrying into a conveyance memo. Paul (?) said last year's memo had value because it travels on from the selectmen to the budget committee and others.

4. 0:17
   Rankings (?) read out

   Michelle (?) read the collated result. The numeric scores are garbled on the recording, but the order is stated twice: stream crossing first, exhaust removal second, Quint rehabilitation third, public works truck fourth, assessing fifth, fire chief's vehicle sixth, fire department generator seventh, public works reserve eighth, town office generator ninth.

5. 5:22
   Why the stream crossing ranked first

   Members noted the application picks up extra points for grant funding, which lifts it every year. Paul (?) added that the existing culverts will have to be replaced at some point, that the work will be in-stream and likely to involve Army Corps permitting, and that a replacement would probably be required to have a natural bottom, so the choice is pay now or pay later.

6. 5:22
   A first-year member's approach

   Peter (?) said he had tried to score without regard to where he thought things ought to land, and that grant funding and compliance with state law and regulation weighted heavily in his result, which also put the stream crossing first.

7. 5:22
   ARPA funds against the list

   Joe (?) said he had gone back through the list several times looking at which projects could be paid from ARPA funds and which would need money raised. He noted ARPA money cannot be combined with funds already raised or to be raised for the same project, so it has to go to a new one-time project or one funded entirely this round, and that on that basis the mix looked like a good deal for the town.

8. 10:57
   Members compare their own scores

   Several members said their individual rankings differed at the top, with exhaust removal, the Quint rehabilitation and the truck scoring almost identically for one member. Members were satisfied the collated order was reasonable.

9. 10:57
   Exhaust removal and the fire station visit

   Paul (?) said the site visit had changed his view: the bays are small rather than cavernous, the current ventilation exchanges all the air and loses the building's heat when the doors open, and the walls no longer look freshly painted. He argued the town has to do what it can for the residents who serve on the department, given the commitment involved.

10. 10:57
    Reserves ranked lower than members wanted

    Paul (?) said he was disappointed reserves had not ranked higher, but that they had not ranked higher on his own sheet either. He linked it to the town having had no clear reserve balance for the last two years, which makes a large reserve request hard to defend to the budget committee and selectmen until the reserve accounts are corrected. A member asked why funding reserves was not simply a given.

11. 16:36
    Why reserves are not automatically funded

    Members said the department schedules represent real needs but the town has limited resources and has to weigh the tax rate each year, and that most towns of this size do not automatically fund reserves. Paul (?) added that Durham has historically bonded its capital work rather than saving for it and is now servicing roughly a million dollars a year in bond payments, which makes saving hard.

12. 16:36
    Whether reserves and projects should be ranked together

    Members argued reserves and projects are different things being scored on one scale. If the public works reserve is not funded this year, Calvin's replacement schedule slips and the plow truck due in five years moves out; one suggestion was that once the town approves a schedule the reserve simply goes into the budget rather than being requested annually. Others said the committee should still review reserve requests to check the supporting documentation and queue the questions up for the budget committee and selectmen.

13. 21:48
    Immediate needs against saving

    Members said items with a compelling safety case naturally outscore money set aside for something five years out, and compared annual reserve votes to voting each year on whether to pay your mortgage. Level-loading the budget was raised as a way to keep the tax base steady rather than fluctuating.

14. 21:48
    Reserves in the conveyance memo

    Paul (?) proposed the memo set out the conundrum between projects and reserves, and make the case for holding reserves in a separate account. He argued that tracking reserves on paper inside the undesignated fund makes it very difficult to get an accurate undesignated fund balance over time, and that the memo should restate that reserves are for future years while project money is spent in the coming year.

15. 26:51
    Scoring criteria do not fit reserves

    Joe's note said the public works reserve scoring seemed skewed by the categories and that the categories need reassessing. Members agreed a reserve covers a group of future purchases rather than one project, so questions such as whether it directly or indirectly produces income cannot be answered sensibly, and suggested a short separate set of criteria for reserves.

16. 26:51
    Stream crossing note for the memo

    Members agreed the memo should explain why the stream crossing ranked high, given how much the state is putting in and that the project stays within its bounds. Cost had been the problem with it last time round.

17. 32:04
    Sharing pickups between departments

    Members debated whether to comment on the fire chief's vehicle and the public works pickup together, and on the most efficient way to pass trucks down through the fleet. The idea, which a member attributed to Jerry Douglass without being certain, was to buy a chief's truck that after six or seven years of lighter use is reassigned to public works still in good shape.

18. 32:04
    Limits of the hand-down idea

    Calvin's truck is up next year and is already in poor condition. Members noted the two vehicles are used for different things: the chief wants a crew cab to carry firefighters and a service body, which is more than public works needs and is an added cost that would be paid for again on each cycle.

19. 37:42
    The public works one-ton

    A member said the one-ton pickup had scored high for him because it is in service every day putting in culverts, ditching and carrying crew, equipment, flaggers and cones, and was surprised it landed fourth. Members contrasted the immediate public safety case for fire and rescue equipment with road maintenance, which is preventive but constant.

20. 37:42
    Clarity on the truck being retained

    The old public works truck is to be kept in limited use rather than retired, at some added expense. Members said the memo should make clear that if the old truck is retained it should not come back in a future year as a request for a new one without more justification.

21. 42:49
    A town-wide pickup plan

    Members thought a written plan setting out which vehicle is bought in year one, year five and year ten, and how each is handed down, was a good and doable idea but needed vetting. They agreed the right place for that work is with the town manager and the department heads over the coming months, not with this committee.

22. 42:49
    The chief's vehicle and his hiring

    A member recalled hearing at the fire station visit that the chief had negotiated a town vehicle as part of taking the job, so he would not have to use his own. Members said it was not clear whether that was explicit in the hiring, that nobody present had been there, and that it is a separate discussion from the CIP ranking.

23. 48:14
    Whether the chief's request is reasonable

    Asked directly, members said the request as presented is completely reasonable and that the truck could later be repurposed as a runner for public works. They noted the chief's vehicle is regularly used to block traffic at scenes before the apparatus arrives, and that if it is disabled the department loses it.

24. 48:14
    A command vehicle, not a personal one

    Members understood the chief's intention as a department command vehicle available to the assistant chief or others when he is away, rather than a vehicle assigned to him personally. They also observed a fire vehicle can last roughly twice as long as a public works truck because of how it is used and cared for.

25. 53:28
    What the chief actually asked for

    Members noted the chief described a utilitarian vehicle able to pull a trailer, rather than the SUV-style command vehicle with a pull-out command centre in the back that other departments buy and that is far more expensive.

26. 53:28
    Assessing and the revaluation

    Members weighed whether to move the chief's vehicle above assessing. The town's assessment is at 80 percent of value and cannot fall below 70, and at 80 percent the town may not be fully using the homestead exemption; a revaluation is coming, possibly around 2025, and will be a significant cost the town needs to be saving for.

27. 53:28
    Rankings left as scored

    Paul (?) said he heard nobody eager to change the ranking and members agreed to leave it as it came out, while noting in the memo that the chief's request is reasonable and that there are many compelling projects this year. Members added that both the chief's vehicle and the public works truck look like ARPA candidates, which is a decision for outside this committee.

28. 59:16
    The selectmen's discretion

    Members noted the policy preserves the selectmen's ability to pick and choose, which the committee does not want to promote but which the selectmen asked for when the policy was written, and that the town has the final say at the vote. The committee's job is to bring forward the most appropriate mix.

29. 59:16
    Fire department generator against exhaust removal

    The current fire station generator is not big enough to run the exhaust removal system that ranked second. The chief had said at the previous meeting the department could work with it for a few years; members thought firefighter health the more pressing case, while noting the station serves as a warming station and that a recent storm had left parts of Oxford County and western Cumberland without power for four or five days.

30. 59:16
    History of the Quint

    Paul (?) said the Quint was part of the reason the committee was formed, the town having been split over it and asking what planning was being done for capital spending. It had sat on the replacement schedule as a $750,000 placeholder that was never enough, a new one being well over a million; last year Kathy (?) and Chief Tripp (?) proposed instead investing in the existing Quint, which is in good shape, to get another ten years of service.

31. 1:04:53
    Supporting the Quint rehabilitation in the memo

    Members agreed the memo should say something positive about reinvesting in the current Quint rather than buying a new one, which a member had noted as cost prohibitive.

32. 1:04:53
    Town office generator

    Members said the town office generator is the one item that arguably affects income directly, by keeping the town operating, and that it matters most in a long outage. The open question is whether the existing generator can be kept going with maintenance, given that it failed to start last time; the fire chief has been looking after it and called the service company when it went down.

33. 1:10:02
    Why the town office generator ranked last

    Members said the low ranking reflects competing priorities rather than unimportance: the worst case is closing the town office and sending people home, against the fire station's role as an emergency warming centre and part of the town's emergency operations. It was also noted the generator was a late addition to the list, only put forward because it failed to start.

34. 1:10:02
    Whether public works should maintain the generator

    A member asked whether the town office generator might sit better with public works, which has a full-time mechanic who would be easier to reach in a storm than a generator technician. Others noted the mechanic already supports five crews and is likely to be tied up during a winter storm.

35. 1:15:22
    Drafting and circulating the memo

    Paul (?) said he would draft the conveyance memo after the meeting and send it to the committee, asking members not to reply to the group because of FOAA and to raise any concerns with him directly, before submitting it to Jerry Douglass.

36. 1:15:22
    What goes to the selectmen

    Members confirmed the practice of sending the selectmen the ranking sheet together with the conveyance memo, with the individual member score sheets going to Jerry Douglass for the file so a selectman or a department head can see why a project ranked where it did. Paul (?) said he has usually presented it at a select board meeting and tries to make the memo self-explanatory so it also serves the budget committee and residents.

37. 1:15:22
    Motion to forward the rankings

    A motion was made that the rankings be forwarded to the selectmen together with a conveyance memo, and a tally was called.

38. 1:15:22
    Reviewing the process next year

    Members had discussed refining the process, particularly separating projects from reserves and revising the criteria. Paul (?) said that work should wait until after town meeting, in the late summer or fall, because the town manager and Joe will be occupied with the budget.

39. 1:20:51
    Closing

    Members noted the selectmen may have input on splitting projects from reserves, thanked the town manager and each other, and a motion to adjourn was made.

What was decided

• 21:48
  Agreed the conveyance memo should set out the difficulty of scoring reserves against projects and make the case for holding reserve money in a separate account rather than tracking it on paper within the undesignated fund.passed
• 26:51
  Agreed the memo should note that the scoring categories do not fit reserve requests and that a separate, simpler set of criteria for reserves should be considered.passed
• 26:51
  Agreed the memo should explain why the stream crossing ranked first, given the amount of state money attached.passed
• 42:49
  Agreed that a town-wide plan for buying and handing down pickup trucks belongs with the town manager and the department heads rather than this committee, and that the chief's hiring terms are a separate discussion from the CIP ranking.passed
• 53:28
  Agreed to leave the rankings as scored, with no changes made to the order, and to note in the memo that the fire chief's request is reasonable and that there are many compelling projects this year.passed
• 1:04:53
  Agreed the memo should support reinvesting in the existing Quint rather than buying a new one.passed
• 1:15:22
  Agreed Paul would draft the conveyance memo, circulate it to members with a request that they not reply to the group because of FOAA, and then submit it to the town manager.passed
• 1:15:22
  Confirmed that the selectmen receive the ranking sheet and the conveyance memo, and that individual members' score sheets go to the town manager for the file.passed
• 1:15:22
  Motion that the rankings be forwarded to the selectmen together with a conveyance memo. The tally is given on the recording as four to nothing.passed
• 1:15:22
  Agreed to defer any review of the CIP process itself, including separating projects from reserves and revising the criteria, until after town meeting, in the late summer or fall.passed
• 1:20:51
  A motion to adjourn was made. No second and no result are audible on the recording.outcome unclear

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

• 16:36
  Durham has historically bonded its capital work rather than saving for it and is servicing roughly a million dollars a year in bond payments, which members said makes it very hard to build reserves at the same time.
• 21:48
  Reserve money is tracked on paper inside the undesignated fund rather than held in separate accounts. Members said this makes an accurate undesignated fund balance hard to establish and has left the town without a clear reserve balance for two years, weakening any large reserve request.
• 53:28
  The town's assessment sits at 80 percent of value and cannot fall below 70. At 80 percent the town may not be fully using the homestead exemption, and a revaluation is expected within a few years, possibly around 2025, at significant cost.
• 59:16
  The Quint sat on the replacement schedule as a $750,000 placeholder that was never enough, a replacement being well over a million dollars. Rather than replace it, the town is being asked to rehabilitate the existing one for perhaps another ten years of service.

Motion language found in the transcript

Located by pattern matching, with no model involved: "I move that", "I'll second", "all those in favour". This is an independent check on the summary above: 1 passage of motion language, against 11 decisions summarised.

Elsewhere

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