New Vehicle Requests Get Scrutiny

At next month's Financial Town Meeting, voters will be asked to approve the transition of the town’s vehicle replacement fund — which has $1.2 million in it right now — into a more general capital improvements fund. The Council voted to make that a warrant article up for vote at the FTM last week.

The vehicle replacement fund has been supplied out of surplus budget money from year to year. The town owns more than 100 vehicles and director of public works Joe Duarte has a yearly replacement schedule.

This year, the town is looking to replace two dump trucks (at $105,000 apiece), a new 16-passenger bus (at $100,000), a street sweeper (for $160,000), an infield groomer ($27,000), two snow plows ($9,000 apiece), and several police vehicles ($144,200). That's a total of $659,200, which would reduce the replacement fund by more than half.

If capital projects, such as sidewalk replacement, Town Hall ramp repair, and computer replacements, were also taken from vehicle replacement fund, that would reduce it by another $184,000, leaving $350,000 in the fund.

But that would reduce the 2013 budget by $184,000, which could help lower the tax rate increase. Duarte said he feared vehicle replacement would not happen as regularly if capital projects were paid for out of the same fund.

"There’s a common thread that’s running through the budget conversations," said Councilman Jeff Cianciolo at a budget session Thursday night. "Joe highlights it ... competition for the reserve fund."

He had just been questioning Duarte about the need for a second street sweeper. The town has two right now but one needs replacing. Cianciolo suggested one could do the job.

Duarte, however, argued that his department has been able to take on a variety of construction-type jobs in town (the concession stand, for instance) because staff can complete jobs like street sweeping quickly, which resulted in substantial savings to the town.

"Someone asked … ‘Are you trying to create a construction company here?’ The answer is yes, we can save money that way," Duarte told the Council Thursday evening.

Police cars get more than the usual workout because they spend so much time idling. On-duty officers rarely turn off their cars. In particular, with computers in the cars now, there's a need to regulate the temperature so that it doesn't get too hot.

By town charter, the Council must approve a budget by May 15. It meets Monday, May 14, and a vote to approve the budget could take place then. If not, they will meet again on Tuesday. The budget would then go before voters at the Financial Town Meeting June 12.