BRISTOL — Selectmen hope to sweeten the incentive for building a new town hall and renovating the existing home of the Bristol Police Department by foregoing some of the set-asides the town normally makes for future capital purchases and, instead, applying that money to the town building project.
In a conversation with members of the Bristol Space Needs Committee prior to their Feb. 1 meeting, selectmen agreed to reapply some of the money that normally would go into capital reserve funds to lower the amount of borrowing for the town hall/police station. Taxpayers would be paying the same amount that they would have been if they put the money into capital reserve funds this year, but a smaller bond would save on future interest costs and lower the debt payments through the life of the bond.
Members of the public have been skeptical of the building proposal, which the space needs committee originally estimated would cost $1.25 million. That estimate increased to more than $2 million by October, when Samyn-D’Elia Architects of Ashland presented preliminary plans to meet the space needs of the town offices and addressed a long list of issues the police department has faced with its current quarters in the Bristol Municipal Building.
The original charge of the committee was to address the town’s needs for 20 years, and, in September, Rick Alpers, chair of the Bristol Board of Selectmen, said, “The last thing I want to hear in 20 years is that it wasn’t big enough. I want to do it right now.”
However, public opposition to the projected cost had the architects going back to reduce the size of the meeting room that originally was to be large enough to accommodate town meetings.
Despite a 900-square-foot reduction in size for the new town hall, as well as the elimination of some other amenities and adjusting police department space to utilize existing walls, the estimated price had increased again by the time of the second public hearing, in November, to $3.4 million.
An overwhelmingly negative response to that projection had the committee reassess the project and return with a new plan that they hoped would reduce the cost to $2.2 million but which still came in at $2,650,000. Selectmen figured that they could borrow $2.25 million and use $400,000 from the town’s unassigned fund balance to make up the difference.
Town Administrator Nik Coates pointed out that using $400,000 from the fund balance would bring the account to the low end of what the NH Department of Revenue Administration recommends as a set-aside to cover tax exemptions and unanticipated expenses.
Foregoing capital reserve fund payments as a way to lower the bond proved to be controversial. Selectman J.P. Morrison said he felt it was important to save toward future purchases in order to even out the tax rate and support the town’s capital improvement project plan, which took 10 years to develop after having been abandoned in the past. The CIP plan takes into account the need to replace equipment and infrastructure, spreading out the expenditures to avoid spikes in the tax rate.
Capital reserve funds traditionally are used to save for large purchases such as ladder trucks for the fire department, but last year the town also started using them for annual purchases, setting aside more than the anticipated need in order to have money on hand to take advantage of spot sales during the year.
Some residents, such as Town Moderator Edward “Ned” Gordon, who also serves as chair of the space needs committee, opposes capital reserve funds, saying it forces people — especially the elderly — to pay for future purchases they may not be around to see. During inflationary periods, capital reserve funds also lose value because the interest earned does not keep pace.
In their discussions on Feb. 1, selectmen said they would still want to place money into some capital reserve funds, but they agreed to reduce those requests by $250,000 and apply that money to the building project in order to borrow less.
The warrant article for the building project still calls for a $2,650,000 appropriation, but it would use $400,000 from the unassigned fund balance and $250,000 from taxation, leaving $2 million to be borrowed.
Should that article pass, the selectmen plan to reduce the $325,000 capital reserve funds request to $100,000, but if it fails, they would seek the full $325,000 for capital reserves.
Meanwhile, the space needs committee will be holding three informal meetings to provide an update on their plans for the town hall and police station. The first of those meetings will take place Thursday, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m. in the Minot-Sleeper Library. The others will take place Saturday, Feb. 24, at 10:30 a.m. and Wednesday, March 7, at 2 p.m., also at the library.
There will be a public hearing on the plans on Thursday, Feb. 15, at 6 p.m.
9 February 2018
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