Thanks Bob.
I agree.
Andy did a great job of expelling the technical aspects of our town's financial capacity.
And, he did offer the disclaimer that this has no bearing on an individual household’s capacity to absorb the increase in property taxes.
Let me repeat that-the borrowing capacity of the town has no bearing on an individual household’s capacity to absorb the increase in property taxes.
And, as you point out, it leaves little wiggle room of any the potential items cited in the presentation or any unforeseen expenditures.
That is why I asked if we vote to expend money for an architect, that we condition that vote on give setting a budget, a cap on what we can spend.
Rather than create wish list of everything that would be nice and ask for designs to meets those desires, let us require the design work within a budget of $15-16 million and to do their best to fit in as much of the wish list as possible.
In addition, create a series of designs that demonstrate trade-offs.
This is what most of us have to do when we are building or renovating our own properties.
And, we are cautioned to always have a healthy reserve, a contingency for the unforeseen.
It is called responsible budgeting and we should be able to do that as a community as well…to live within our means.
I urge all to attend the Community Center meeting as it will be, sadly, the only opportunity to question and weigh in before the vote.
Sara
I concur that Andy did an excellent job presenting some important facts that can help inform our decision to vote Yes or No in support of the proposed community center project. I still have some questions and concerns...
From the presentations last night, two items that stood out to me include:
1. The dramatic increase in anticipated project cost from $15MM-$16MM to $25MM to $26MM.
2. The range of possible town projects that may require significant capital planning (e.g. roadside repairs, new cemetery, new DPW, major land conservation projects, etc)
Assuming the town voted to move forward with a $25MM community center project, I would like to understand what limits that may place on our ability to finance these other projects over the next decade+.
It was also presented that we basically have $30MM remaining in our available capacity to borrow (at reasonable rates in a financially healthy form). If $25MM of that is allocated to a Community Center, does that restrict our ability to execute these other projects as well? Or does the window of additional borrowing capacity increase sufficiently in the coming years that we still have capacity to consider additional materially important projects.
I wonder if FinCom can prepare a few scenarios that project out in the future how these potential future capital projects can be sequenced or if a $25MM community center jeopardizes our future optionality.
I think a "community center" that meets the needs of our seniors and other citizens would be nice, but a $25MM project makes me very nervous especially because I'm concerned it would limit our ability to finance these other worthy endeavors. If it was possible to spend $10MM in a refurbishment project or overhauling an existing building, then that might be necessary to reserve sufficient borrowing capacity for these other projects.
bob
(sheepishly has to admit that I didn't RTFM or in this case watch the presentation yet so I'm off to do that)
I like all of the Andys on LT equally!
He did, he's the chair of FinCom. Did you catch the State of the Town meeting last night? I thought he did a nice job of outlining the assumptions and where the town stands (and also where there are still unknowns). If not, here's the Zoom Link of the recording.
If there's something specific, he's also willing to answer questions.
One Andy responding for another,
Andy
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