Andy said: Do residents prefer to pay escalated costs in ~2 years vs current costs, as you suggest? Maybe; I'd be very surprised. That's why we vote.
This comment is exactly on point. The problem is that voters have not been given the information needed to decide whether they want to prepay large capital expenses in advance. FinCom continues to present budgets that reflect a financial picture fundamentally disconnected from reality. Over the past three years the average annual turnback, free cash generated in excess of expenses has been $6.34 million. Meanwhile, the budgets over that same period projected an average use of free cash of $5.96 million. In other words, the budgets have been off by more than $12 million per year on average—roughly 30%. I’m not aware of any other town that operates with this level of variance. This variance is not a surprise. FinCom and the Town Administration are well aware of the items that cause this variance year after year. Some posters have rightly pointed out that property taxes are becoming unaffordable for many residents and even pushing some to leave town. Those residents deserve to know that property taxes could be reduced by >$6 million per year without impacting the operations of our local government. That translates to a 16% across-the-board tax cut, about $3,200 annually for the average family. If we vote down the CC, given our level of reserves we should probably declare a tax holiday! Yes, I strongly support the right to vote on these issues, but this requires the first step of informing town residents what it is they’re actually voting on. Andy said: To clarify: the majority of funds (~$16m) would be bonded, and that would happen after we are "go flight!" with an accepted bid, etc. At that point, we're paying interest on those funds and MA anti-arbitrage laws prevent us from earning more interest/return than we're paying on float. Generally, if bonding is involved, we can't arbitrage away cost escalations in any meaningful way. This comment is not applicable here. If the town votes this down, any bonding would be delayed. The amount of time we would be holding funds subject to bonding constraints doesn’t vary if we decide to go with a different design. Andy said: There's not a smooth linear slider where we can just "uncheck boxes" and costs come down. Sometimes, you can't materially reduce scope or cut costs without triggering a redesign. Anyone who has followed the CCBC’s process knows there were certain “luxuries” included in the project vision that could have been trimmed. I haven’t followed their work since town Meeting, but I’d think removing the teaching kitchen, cheaper finishes and cutting down on site work would all move the needle materially. What’s most revealing, though, is that the CCBC made no effort to explore cost-reduction strategies. The moment the bids came in over budget, the issue was immediately kicked back to the town with a request for more funding. David Cuetos Weston Rd On Wed, Jun 4, 2025 at 6:03 PM Andrew Payne <[email protected]> wrote: > David C. wrote: > >> “cutting $2.3M out of the project would require a complete redesign >> (estimated cost $1.5M to $2.0M)” >> >> This stretches the bounds of plausibility. Anyone familiar with >> construction projects knows that cost-cutting trade-offs are often >> necessary, and rarely do they require paying full architectural fees all >> over again. >> > There's not a smooth linear slider where we can just "uncheck boxes" and > costs come down. > > Sometimes, you can't materially reduce scope or cut costs without > triggering a redesign. For example, if you need to materially reduce > costs, that may trigger a footprint reduction, which may trigger a room > reduction, which triggers a layout change, which triggers a roof change, > etc. If it's already highly constrained (as this project is), you may need > to look at a couple of conceptual designs before committing to a new > redesign, review with all the stakeholders, renegotiate tradeoffs, etc. > And, because of the municipal process, we need to generate a new full set > of design documents so that bidders have enough detail to submit new bids. > > The CCBC-provided redesign cost estimate may be "conservative", but it's > not surprising if it's close to a design-from-scratch cost since a redesign > means going back to nearly the beginning. > > “and a delayed timeline, resulting in further escalated costs ($1.5M to >> $2.0M)” >> >> Have they never heard of the time value of money? I’d rather see my taxes >> levied two years from now than today. Delaying the project means capital >> remains available for more productive uses. Even if the funds are already >> allocated, they would be earning interest—likely 4–5%. Any escalation >> estimate should be offset by that. Moreover, our record for predicting >> escalation is weak at best. We should avoid baseless speculation. >> > To clarify: the majority of funds (~$16m) would be bonded, and that would > happen *after* we are "go flight!" with an accepted bid, etc. At that > point, we're paying interest on those funds and MA anti-arbitrage laws > prevent us from earning more interest/return than we're paying on float. > Generally, if bonding is involved, we can't arbitrage away cost escalations > in any meaningful way. > > Do residents prefer to pay escalated costs in ~2 years *vs* current > costs, as you suggest? Maybe; I'd be very surprised. That's why we vote. > > One if-you-think-community-centers-are-expensive-try-two-weddings > resident's view, > > -andy >
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