Leaders are sometimes criticized for not seeing the forest for the trees. But sometimes, those trees block the view.
With the town poised to begin a $3.9 million renovation of Town Hall later this year, the committee with perhaps the clearest view of the town’s long-term financial needs has decided, in effect, to stay out of the woods, deferring consideration of any new “large” projects until fiscal 2016.
Off the table for the coming year, which starts July 1, are a $3.7 million plan to renovate and expand Hildreth House, the town’s senior center (as reported in last week’s paper), as well as a request by the schools for a $2 million upgrade of the science labs.
Major projects get own list
Nine smaller projects made the cut for the coming year (see “Beyond departmental budgets”), but nine so-called “major” projects —including Hildreth House and the science labs—remain in the committee’s five year plan, but with no firm start date attached to them. Those additional requests, three of which lack a price tag, were submitted by town departments as part of their five-year capital plans and would likely cost the town a minimum of $10 million over the next 20 years.
In an interview with the Press, Capital Planning and Investment Committee (CPIC) Chairman Keith Cheveralls said the decisions of his panel to delay the renovation of Hildreth House by one year and not to recommend the renovation of the school science labs were unanimous. Both failed to reach a passing score on a five-point rating sheet used by the committee members. Hildreth received a score of 65 and the science labs a 66, both marginally lower than the committee’s cutoff score of 67. Two smaller projects, one for a design study for the renovation of the central fire station and another to hire a part-time “asset manager,” also failed.
Zero-based ratings
“We use the same criteria for any project. We evaluate each project entirely on its own merits,” Cheveralls told the Press. “There is very little room for subjectivity.” Each of the five voting committee members, he said, scores each project in private. The completed forms are turned over to Finance Director Lorraine Leonard, who compiles the results.
It’s a “zero-based” rating, Cheveralls insisted. The committee does not keep a tally of the amount of money available to spend. The rating is not based on the dollar amount or the money available.
But at a meeting of the Finance Committee the following Saturday, Feb. 8, Cheveralls suggested that price could not be ignored.
“[W]hen you have two large debt-funded issues in front of you [i.e., projects that will be funded by borrowing money and adding payments to town taxes], you have to be looking at scores significantly higher than … the threshold for cutoff,” he said. “Anything with a score below 67 causes you to say to yourself that something is going on.”
Moreover, he added, the recent rejection of a $1.1 million request for additional Town Hall money by voters at both a Special Town Meeting and later at the ballot box suggested that “the climate for other large debt issues …is just not there.”
It’s not that there’s an absolute cutoff score, CPIC citizen-at-large Debbie Ricci told the group. Some projects clearly need to be done; some do not, she said. The ones in the middle “need more discussion.”
Need for a 10-year plan
The point of moving major projects like Hildreth to a separate list, said Cheveralls, is to stimulate “a larger discussion” among the selectmen, Finance Committee, and CPIC about “how we stage these projects” relative to the town’s long-term debt.
What’s ultimately needed, he said, is a 10-year plan. The fact that a project is on the list “doesn’t mean we’re approving or not approving; it means we’re trying to separate out the debate and discussion” of major projects.
But FinCom member Laura Vilain wondered who would decide which ones go first. “I’m concerned about these big projects simply getting ‘No’ from this committee, ‘No’ from that committee, and yet people in town may want to move forward in a reasonable manner” with certain projects.
“What I hear you saying,” offered FinCom member Bruce Knickerson, “is that perhaps some version of a long-term capital plan ought to be put before Town Meeting.”
The role of CPIC is “only advisory,” said Cheveralls. “We have no teeth. We only recommend.” The appointed and elected boards are designed “to be representative.” But, he added, “these are financial evaluations that we do,” designed “to get to the value proposition [for the town]” of any given project.
