December 1, 2020 ~ CIP Meeting

2020-12-01 · Capital Improvement Committee · 1:50:11 · watch on YouTube →

The capital improvement committee's session with the department heads, working through the questions it had drawn up at its previous meeting. Three of five members were present, which gave a quorum, and the meeting opened with thanks to Chief Moore and to Calvin for their work through the storm the night before. Calvin took questions on the public works replacement schedule and defended his request for a 1.5-ton dump truck that would be added to the fleet, saying the town has six plow trucks for six routes and no spare; he offered to push the 2008 one-ton further down the replacement schedule if the new truck is funded. Chief Moore (?) explained why he cannot pin down the timing or cost of replacing Engine 21 without a third-party fleet assessment, and why 20 air packs must now be bought from the town's own reserve after a second failed grant application. Ruth answered questions on the town office reorganisation request, which the select board wants the incoming town manager to take up after March. No scoring was done; the committee meets December 15 to discuss the applications and scoring.

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, storm thanks and roll

   Paul (?) thanked Chief Moore and Calvin for their work the previous night, with trees and lines down across town and power only just restored. He restated the committee's charge: review capital expenditure applications for the coming budget year, score them under the town CIP policy, and give the selectmen a ranking recommendation to help them build the warrant. Joe, Michelle and Paul were present, making a quorum of a committee of five; Curtis and Brian Pike were not, and Mark Farren was expected to join late. Calvin (?) confirmed his formal title is road commissioner.

2. 6:15
   Road bonds and paving

   Asked whether the shim and overlay work in coming years would need bonding, Calvin (?) said it is scheduled to come out of operating funds and he does not see any bonds until somewhere around 2031.

3. 6:15
   The cluster of replacements around FY26

   Because the department was set up in 2014 and bought a number of vehicles at once, several come due together. Calvin (?) said he had tried to stagger them, with one in 2020, then 2022, then 2026, 2027 and 2028, and that he and Ruth worked the schedule out together against a chart she was preparing of when the town's bonds come off. Paul (?) noted that 2026 to 2035 is a heavy stretch with a major vehicle due almost every year, and that emphasis on the reserve now makes sense.

4. 11:46
   Public works reserve balance

   The application shows $68,321, which Calvin (?) said was already out of date: the current figure is $121,821. The 2021 line starts at about $310,000, of which $188,000 is already committed. The request is to put $100,000 into reserve for 2021.

5. 11:46
   Unspent operating money rolls into the reserve

   Unexpended public works operating funds go into the department's equipment reserve rather than to undesignated funds, an arrangement set at a past town meeting when the department was created. Ruth (?) confirmed it is automatic and would take another town meeting vote to change. Calvin expects $50,000 to $60,000 to roll this year, which is not reflected in either his schedule or the combined schedule, a point Mark Farren had raised at the previous meeting.

6. 17:00
   Six trucks, six routes, no spare

   Asked whether the 2001 International is a spare or still on a route, Calvin (?) said the department started with seven wheelers and the select board asked him to take one off the schedule, which he did. He now runs six trucks on six routes with no spare, and if one breaks down he drops to five and overlaps routes. Six, he said, is the absolute minimum, and six is what is running this winter.

7. 17:00
   Why an extra employee was added

   Calvin (?) said splitting the crew was in the original plan agreed with the committee and the select board, but the start was delayed while the crew worked as a single team for a couple of years to get their feet under them. Sending crews to two sides of town is what lets them complete the workload. The crew is five full-time plus himself, two or three part-timers for plowing, and a summer part-timer for mowing, parks, outbuildings and picnic tables.

8. 22:33
   The truck the split with Pownal removed

   Calvin (?) explained that when the arrangement with Pownal began, Pownal brought its own pickup, which the road commissioner used, and the pickup he now drives was an extra truck the crew could work with. When the towns split, Pownal took its truck back, which removed a vehicle from the fleet.

9. 22:33
   Whether it is a shortage of trucks or of capability

   Asked which it is, Calvin (?) said both. In summer it is a shortage of trucks; in winter the one-tons are overtaxed and were never designed for the amount of plowing they do. He said he recognised in his first plowing season that the town needed something bigger than a one-ton with a wing but smaller than the wheelers for the small developments. He confirmed the new truck was not part of the negotiation over taking a wheeler off the schedule.

10. 22:33
    Running parts and moving the crew

    Highway work is linear, with signs and the work site moved every half hour or hour, so a crew that has to wait for someone to fetch them or fetch parts is at a standstill. At present someone must go collect the mechanic and shuttle him to and from the job site. Calvin (?) said even with the added truck it would still be shared with the mechanic and the grounds crew, and that a larger single axle seven-yard truck would be too high and too heavy-tailgated to serve as a site truck.

11. 27:58
    What the alternative would be

    Paul put the committee's want-versus-need question directly: if this is not funded, what would you do? Calvin (?) said they would be forced to carry on as they have, inefficiently, and that he saw no real alternative. Asked about retiring another vehicle, he said he could live with moving the 2008 one-ton dump further down the replacement schedule and keeping it a few more years if he got the new truck, and that he would much rather do that than go without. The 2008 could not be replaced by a pickup because it hauls reclaim for driveways and riprap for culverts, and the GMC 2500 is committed, carrying a fuel tank all summer and a sander all winter.

12. 27:58
    What the new truck could and could not do

    The proposed truck would carry a 10-foot plow and a wing of about six feet, letting it clear a development in one pass, where the one-tons roll snow over the plow onto the windshield and have to be driven faster than he would like to beat the school buses. Calvin (?) said he would not use it to push back snow banks; a big truck would come in the day after a storm to set the banks back.

13. 33:17
    Basis of the truck price

    Calvin (?) said the figure comes from the outfitter at Viking, which is working with several other towns, and from dealerships, and that they are solid numbers. Asked about state purchasing, he said the town has used it for fuel and a loader elsewhere, but that on bigger trucks the way the state specifies them made it incompatible with what Durham needs.

14. 33:17
    Fire replacement schedule and Engine 21

    The schedule carries replacement of Engine 21 in 2024 at $625,000. Chief Moore (?) said he has been pushing since last year for a third-party assessment, and that without a soup-to-nuts evaluation of the truck and the fleet he cannot give a defensible replacement year or cost; he expects several items on the list to shift once it is done. The 20-year cycle came from the previous chief's plan and the truck is in good condition, but he wants it left where it is until someone with more experience gives him hard reasons to move it.

15. 38:45
    Who maintains the trucks

    Engine, transmission and general truck maintenance is done by Mid Coast Truck Repair in Durham. The pump and fire equipment side, including annual testing and repairs, is contracted to Greenwood Fire Apparatus in Brunswick. The chief noted the pump numbers have been good and that in New England it is rarely the pump that fails: the truck corrodes around it.

16. 38:45
    Why the cost estimate may understate

    The base quote was done this year, but Chief Moore (?) warned the town has a false sense of what apparatus costs because the vendor honoured a 2015 price on the engine bought in 2019. The town paid $495,000 for it and he said the same engine could not be bought now for less than $600,000. Engine 21 is also a specialty unit carrying the department's primary vehicle extrication equipment, so its replacement is probably not the same type of truck and could cost more or less.

17. 43:45
    Splitting the pumper from the extrication gear

    Asked what that would look like, the chief said he would spec portable, largely battery-powered extrication equipment that could be moved to another apparatus if the truck went out of service, since at present the department's capability is very limited when Engine 21 is down. A dedicated heavy rescue truck of the kind Gray runs along the interstate is not justified here on call volume or staffing. Engine 21 rolls first due to every automobile accident and second due on structure fires, because it carries the tools and can also stretch a hose line.

18. 43:45
    Chief's vehicle and the forestry truck

    Chief Moore uses his own personal truck and is reimbursed mileage; a department utility pickup would be welcome someday but is not on his radar. Forestry 28 carries 250 gallons of water and the forestry equipment on a heavy duty four-wheel drive chassis and can tow the boat, but as an extended rather than quad cab it carries only three people.

19. 48:49
    Keeping the cost estimates current

    Paul (?) described a town where a chief escalated a stale base figure by an inflation factor for years and found the requote nearly double when the year arrived. Chief Moore (?) said he speaks regularly with the salesman who sold the town Engine 22, a town resident, about manufacturing and cost changes, and that both that vendor and the maintenance vendor put fire apparatus inflation at 5 to 7% rather than the 3% carried in the schedule. Paul (?) suggested the factor is worth reconsidering next year.

20. 54:39
    Fire apparatus reserve request

    Rated priority two, this asks that money be placed in the fire department reserve earmarked for future apparatus replacement, against a current account balance of $223,141. The justification says years of defunding capital savings have left the town bonding expensive items, and that buying an engine and a rescue in the same year should serve as notice. Paul (?) noted the $100,000 sits in the total estimated cost box and belongs under amount requested, and that the form still says budget year 2020; the chief agreed to correct both.

21. 54:39
    What the fire department expects to roll

    Chief Moore put unspent FY20 operating money at $25,000 to $30,000 at most, less than he had expected when he built the budget, because four months without training or meetings and limits on staff response to avoid exposure changed the picture. Call volume is up 36 calls on the same point last year. The non-emergency lines have about $12,000 left while the emergency response line had about $800 left at the end of November.

22. 54:39
    The projection for the new pumper

    The combined schedule carries $703,440 for a new pumper to replace Engine 21 and builds the reserve to about $663,000 ahead of the purchase, which needs roughly $100,000 a year going in. As an alternative, the chief said full inspections by Greenwood and Mid Coast could tell them whether the truck can be pushed out; as long as it passes state inspection and its annual pump test it could be. He noted the old Engine 22 was originally due in 2015 and was carried until it was not going to pass its next inspection, which is what carried the case at town meeting.

23. 1:05:06
    COVID costs and the grant to cover them

    The chief said the higher call volume is not COVID related, but the EMS line is over by about 25%, roughly $3,000, entirely because of personal protective equipment. He has applied for a supplemental fire act grant aimed at volunteer and combination departments to recover what has been spent and to carry the department into next year, since he does not expect response tactics to change much even once a vaccine is available.

24. 1:05:06
    Whether truck maintenance could be combined

    Joe (?) asked whether sending both departments' general truck work to one shop might save money. Calvin (?) said public works has its own full-time mechanic who does nearly all the work in house and is already up to his eyeballs, and that in-house work is much less expensive than sending a truck out, so there would be no benefit.

25. 1:05:06
    SCBA replacement request

    Rated the chief's top priority, this asks to buy 10 Scott self-contained breathing apparatus and masks. It was filed as a reserve request but is a project, which the chief said was not intended and would be corrected. It is not on the replacement schedule. Last year's request was for the air cylinders, which had a DOT deadline; he applied twice for a fire act grant to replace the packs and was turned down both times, in a compressed process that ran only eight award rounds this year where it has sometimes run into the twenties or thirties.

26. 1:10:34
    One capital account for everything

    Paul's concern was structural: there is a single fire department capital account, so if the plan is to build it towards a fire engine while also spending from it on air packs and other items, the balance will never reach the target. Chief Moore agreed it is a complicating factor and added that his department is unlike others in also taking in EMS revenue, which Ruth has estimated at $40,000 a year. Paul (?) said sorting the account structure out is for the administrators and the select board rather than the committee, and asked for patience given how new the process is.

27. 1:15:50
    How the air packs will be paid for

    The application suggested the purchase might avoid the warrant if this year's operating funds could be used. The chief said that is not going to work out as he hoped, so the operating money will simply roll into reserve and the packs will be bought from reserve rather than from taxation. There are 20 packs to replace in total, split across this year and next to be compliant when the standard turns over in 2022.

28. 1:15:50
    The 15-year air pack rotation

    Chief Moore (?) said Captain Adam Salves (?) drew up a replacement plan in 2017 that he intends to follow. After FY21 and FY22 bring the department into compliance, the goal every 15 years is to buy 10 new packs and upgrade 10, since the standard is reviewed every four years and a pack cannot go beyond five revisions, or 20 years. That keeps the packs from all expiring at once as they have now.

29. 1:15:50
    What comes after vehicles

    Asked to rank his largest capital costs, the chief put vehicles first and air packs second. Turnout gear is no longer a capital problem because he has people compliant and set up a rotation the operating budget can absorb. After that it is facilities: a furnace, a truck exhaust system or an addition to the building. Paul (?) asked him to fold the non-vehicle items into the larger replacement schedule.

30. 1:21:22
    Uncertainty in future standards, and the RFP

    Michelle (?) asked how many compliance upgrades to expect across a 15-year cycle. The chief said there is no way to know: a revision might require three bottles per pack instead of two, or night-vision-capable masks, and what was a simple piece of equipment 20 years ago is now complicated technology. The packs he is buying are basic. The purchase would go out to RFP under the town's purchasing policy but restricted to vendors of Scott packs, because every mutual aid department around uses the same type and compatibility matters for filling bottles and for rescue.

31. 1:26:32
    Town office reorganisation request

    Rated priority three, this asks for $10,000 into the town office municipal account this year against a total estimate of $20,000 to $30,000 described on the form as an uneducated guess, with the first step being to hire someone to make recommendations. Ruth (?) explained that unspent administration operating money goes to the undesignated fund, and that the municipal capital account has traditionally been fed by interest earned on town accounts: about $22,000 last year but only $11,000 or $12,000 expected this year because of interest rates, so the $10,000 largely makes up that shortfall. The audit comes in January.

32. 1:26:32
    What the reorganisation would involve

    Vital and property records are kept in a fire-resistant room at the back rather than a vault. The last code officer proposed turning the back storage room into an office, consolidating the two bathrooms into one and converting the other to storage, which would mean adding windows for egress and possibly a fire door. Ruth (?) said the work is about working and meeting space rather than energy efficiency; the meeting room was small before COVID and cannot be used for in-person meetings now, and moving meetings to the Eureka Center would mean relocating the cameras and computer equipment and securing internet there.

33. 1:32:02
    Timing and who needs space

    The select board would like the new town manager, expected in place around the beginning of March, to take this on. Joe counted the people needing room: code enforcement officer, administrator, town manager, two clerks and the tax collector, with the assessor in twice a month and the planner currently working from home. Ruth (?) said her own position will not continue as administrator once there is a manager, though she believes someone will still be needed at least part-time to cover the window, and that a manager will want a larger office than hers.

34. 1:37:07
    Whether to fund something now rather than wait

    Joe (?) argued against letting the year pass, saying the office is already over capacity setting COVID aside, that staff and their predecessors have done a remarkable job making the space work, and that waiting for the manager to produce a plan would push a vote out another year. He suggested the town look at all its meeting spaces together, including the fire station and public works, and schedule them. Paul recalled planning board meetings with the applicant at the table and people standing in the hall, and said about $23,000 in the account now could fund a planning study while the town starts saving for something larger.

35. 1:37:07
    Remote working as an alternative

    Michelle (?) asked whether remote work could relieve the space pressure. Ruth (?) said the two staff at the front counter have to be there to serve people, the administrator or manager needs to be available to meet residents, and the code enforcement officer does inspections and keeps his paper files in the office. A hybrid of a couple of days at home would be possible, but working from home is not really an option for most of the staff.

36. 1:42:34
    Next meeting and scoring

    The committee meets December 15 at six o'clock for final discussion of the applications, impressions from these interviews, and any questions about scoring; department heads are not needed. Chief Moore will send corrected copies of both his applications Thursday morning. Ruth is away until December 8, so Paul (?) offered to circulate the scoring sheet, then decided to make it available on request since Joe drafted it originally and Michelle developed it.

37. 1:47:38
    Scoring by members who miss meetings

    Paul (?) raised what should happen if a member who has not attended chooses to score the applications. Members agreed such a member would be voting without the information the rest have, and that anyone missing a meeting should watch the recording before scoring. Nothing in the CIP policy requires attendance; Ruth (?) said practice is set committee by committee and offered to look for anything in writing.

What was decided

• 1:15:50
  Agreed that the air pack purchase will be funded from the fire department's existing reserve rather than from taxation or a warrant article, the earlier idea of using this year's operating surplus having proved unworkable.passed
• 1:21:22
  Chief Moore agreed to correct both of his applications, changing the SCBA request from a reserve to a project request, moving the $100,000 into the amount requested field and fixing the budget year, and to send revised copies Thursday morning.passed
• 1:21:22
  Chief Moore agreed to work with the town administrator over the following weeks to extend his replacement schedule to non-vehicle capital items, giving the committee a fifteen-year view covering air packs and similar equipment rather than apparatus alone.passed
• 1:42:34
  Next meeting set for December 15 at 6 p.m. for final discussion of the applications and of scoring, without the department heads. Paul will make the scoring sheet available to any member who needs it.passed
• 1:47:38
  Agreed, in the absence of anything in the CIP policy requiring attendance, that a member who misses a meeting should review the recording before scoring the applications, so all members score on the same information.passed
• 1:47:38
  Motion to adjourn, moved and seconded; carried unanimously.passed

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

• 17:00
  Durham runs six plow trucks on six routes with no spare, after the select board asked the road commissioner to take one of the seven off the replacement schedule. If a truck breaks down the department drops to five and overlaps routes, and Calvin called six the absolute minimum.
• 11:46
  The public works equipment reserve holds $121,821, not the $68,321 printed on the application, and another $50,000 to $60,000 of unspent operating money is expected to roll into it automatically at year end under a long-standing town meeting vote. The department is asking to add $100,000 on top.
• 38:45
  The town paid $495,000 for its 2019 engine only because the vendor honoured a price quoted in 2015; Chief Moore (?) said the same truck could not be bought today for under $600,000. Vendors put fire apparatus inflation at 5 to 7% a year against the 3% the town's schedule uses, which would leave the reserve short when Engine 21 comes due.
• 1:05:06
  The department's application for a federal grant to replace its breathing apparatus was rejected for the second year running, in a round that made only eight awards where past years ran into the twenties or thirties. All 20 packs must now be replaced out of the town's own reserve, 10 this coming year and the rest the year after, to be compliant when the standard turns over in 2022.

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