Friends and Neighbors - I've recently become more informed on this particular issue, and share a lot of the concerns articulated below. The below information was compiled by a group of very diligent and thoughtful neighbors whose opinions I respect. I volunteered to send it along to LincolnTalk.
*If you have feelings on this issue, and are concerned about a potential ~9% property tax increase to fund it, please make your voice heard on November 30th. * *The Background* In May of 2022, a proposal was approved at Town Meeting to establish a Committee to explore the construction of a Community Center. The major goal for the Community Center is to house the Council on Aging, in other words, to operate as a senior center. At that time, the cost of this Community Center was estimated at $25MM. This cost would be paid from our property taxes. On November 14th the Committee will provide more details on the two designs presented in May and ask residents to approve $325,000 to hire an architect to finalize both designs and put them to a vote at the Special Town Meeting on November 30th. While we want to provide seniors with a facility that meets their needs, we believe the two very similar designs envisioned by the Committee are not the right path forward. The details are spelled out below, but basically: - They are too expensive, out of proportion to our needs and means. Your property taxes will go up thousands of dollars a year, forever, making our town even more unaffordable for many residents. - Town’s finances are already stretched after the completion of the school building and will be further compromised by unavoidable incremental expenses and capital investments. - There are better and cheaper ways to achieve the same goals. They should be investigated before moving ahead with a final design. What can you do? First, learn more about this. *There is low awareness of this project and its consequences*, but in our experience when folks are debriefed on the matter, most agree with our take. Read below for more detailed information about the costs and alternatives, and please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have questions (email [email protected]). Second, come to the Special Town Meeting in the Donaldson Auditorium on November 30th at 7:30pm, and vote against the proposal to spend another $325,000 to fund additional work on this design. The current proposal is disproportionate to our needs and would make our town even more unaffordable for young families and retired seniors. Our estimate is that the construction and manning of the Center would increase the average property tax bill by $1,700. We can both provide our seniors the services they need, and avoid financial hardship in our community. *Its financial impact has been materially understated* The preliminary financial impact presented at Town Meeting in May is not an accurate representation of the financial burden the Community Center will impose on our town: · The 3% interest rate discussed at the time would be over 4% today. This alone would increase the debt service cost by 20%. · The alternatives presented last year ranged between $23MM and $25.4MM. We can use $25MM to calculate the debt service. Using the updated interest rate, annual debt service would be ~$1.5MM. · We do not want to get bogged down on this debate, but we would just note that the inflation expectations used at the time are looking very optimistic. The cost estimate increased an average 10% every year between the initial estimate of 2018 and the update in 2021, but are only projected to grow 3.5% per year over the next four despite a much higher overall inflation background. · There was no estimation of the operating budget of this new facility. A good rule of thumb for a public building is to assume 2% annual maintenance ($500,000), on top of that we assume $100,000 in utilities expense, 0.5% insurance cost ($150,000), perhaps an additional $300,000 for 3-4 FTEs (janitors and personnel for new services provided) and another $50,000 in sundry expenses like new capital equipment and consumables. This would represent a cost increase of ~$1.1MM per year, growing at the rate of inflation. A $2.6MM annual expense would represent an increase of approximately 9% versus the FY22 tax levy, $1,700 in incremental property tax for the average property owner. This is simply unacceptable at a time in our town when we are discussing options of how to reduce the financial burden for seniors living on a fixed income. Lincoln families already pay the third-highest property tax bills in Massachusetts. https://www.mass.gov/info-details/fy2022-massachusetts-average-single-family-tax Property taxes in our town are already more onerous, defined as a percentage of our income, than our neighbors and peers’. https://dlsgateway.dor.state.ma.us/reports/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=AverageSingleTaxBill.SingleFamTaxBill_wRange *Dire straits directly ahead* The town faces a difficult next few years financially as the following incremental expenses, to be accomplished through increases in the tax levy, are likely to require overrides · Teacher salaries, which are by far the town’s greatest expense, have been frozen for the past two years and their contract is up for negotiation this fiscal year. · The last inflation read was 8.2%, including a 6.6% increase in core inflation. The town will have to make tough decisions regarding resource prioritization to keep fiscal balances in check and retain talent. · There are several other non-discretionary capital investments in the horizon, including a road maintenance plan and a new DPW facility, which would be jeopardized if we moved ahead with this project. · Last year we received a one-off $2MM from the American Rescue Plan. We should not expect this type of largesse in the future. As most of you know, the town has a very small commercial tax base and an insignificant amount of new single-family house construction to lighten the burden on existing property owners. The current economic consensus is that the U.S. economy is heading into a recession. It would be highly imprudent to increase our leverage and spending in this macroeconomic environment. *We have great alternatives* The town already has enough space to host senior activities, we just need to be more open-minded in our approach. We believe that converting Pierce House into the town’s COA headquarters would address all of the concerns associated with Bemis Hall as presented in the 2018 Planning report. To be precise, there would be plentiful parking, easy accessibility and enough rooms to both provide services that require confidentiality and conduct group activities. Pierce House is an idyllic location right at the center of town that needs to be maintained into perpetuity. This new mission would set it much closer to the Pierce family’s original gift intentions (community health) than its current use as a wedding facility. We suspect that many neighbors would be very happy with the accompanying noise reduction and we would avoid doubling down on the existing traffic congestion at the school’s campus. There is no shortage of currently underutilized public buildings in town which could compliment Pierce House to provide additional space for the COA and community groups. The Town Building is very large for a town our size (the same size as Weston with less than half the population) and Hartwell could definitely see heavier use with a more rational floorplan. We should also reconsider upgrading Bemis Hall. Other than housing COA activities, it is not entirely clear what benefits the Community Center would provide the town. By its own admission, the Parks and Recreation department is happy with the pod where they are currently located. There will almost certainly be a need to revamp the pods or find alternative accommodations at some point in the near future, but we should not let the tail wag the dog. *A palatial structure out of proportion with our needs and our peers* The current Community Center proposal is for a 23,500 sqft facility, which is out of proportion with the size of our town and our senior population: · Most neighboring towns, all of them more populous than us (pop. 4,771 excluding Hanscom), do not have a separate Community Center. Wayland (pop. 13,724), Bedford (14,155), Carlisle (5,181) and Harvard (6,844) fall in that list. · Concord, with almost four times our population, has a 18,000 sqft Community Center, which also houses its pre-school. · Sudbury, which has a population also almost four times ours, has a project to build a new facility. The space allocated to their senior center is 5,754 sqft. · Weston, is a wealthier town with more than twice the seniors (65+) and total population, has a slightly smaller (22,500 sqft), much more modest architecturally facility. · Even Newton, with a population 18 times ours, is projecting a cheaper Senior Center ($19.5MM). · The envisioned cost per square foot of our Center, which would surpass $1,000 per square foot, speaks to a lavish facility, more suited to an international conference center than a small town’s senior center. · Pierce House has a finished square footage of 5,306, perfect for our needs.
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