The Marion Finance Committee met on September 15 to vote its recommendations on financially impactful Warrant articles for the October 19 Special Town Meeting at Sippican School.
The Finance Committee, which is down a full member and an alternate, also reorganized. Town Administrator Jay McGrail said it is likely an alternate member will be elevated to full-member status and that two alternates will be recruited to join the committee.
On the recommendation of the Appointment Committee, the committee has done away with its co-chairs arrangement and has voted former co-chair Shea Assad as a single new chair for the next 12 months. Assad had joined former Chair Peter Winters in the role of co-chair in 2021 but said he thinks the role should rotate.
Member Charlie Larkin said it’s been harder this year to deliberate with co-chairs and move as efficiently and recommended the FinCom go with one. Members Jay Pateakos and Bill Marvel agreed that the committee functions better with a single chair that would be rotated.
Pateakos will continue as clerk, and Marvel will representative FinCom to the Capital Improvement Planning Committee.
Before the committee got that far, it first heard McGrail present the articles for the Special Town Meeting Warrant. FinCom either approved each article as presented or voted against making any recommendation on the basis of no financial impact to the town. No article was voted for recommendation against.
Article 1 asks voters to approve the transfer of $175,000 from the Capital Stabilization Fund or from free cash to be used for electrical upgrades at the Town House as directed by the facilities manager. Transferring the funds from Capital Stabilization would require a two-thirds majority vote at Town Meeting.
McGrail told the committee he underfunded the project, previously set at $150,000 before it was learned that the utility pole closest to the Town House does not carry the necessary three-phase power required by the project. It would have cost $1 million to run three-phase power from Route 6, so the revised plan calls for three-phase power to feed the Town House from across Spring Street and abandon the Main Street power source.
The new below-ground service will run across Spring Street to a transformer under the gazebo and to the Town House from there. The results of the bidding process underway since the day after the meeting will not be known until late October, but McGrail believes based on the article’s passage and discussions with potential vendors that he will be turning back appropriated money to the town.
As McGrail explained, Eversource would dig into Spring Street and run wire underground. The power company would continue to run the wire on town property but digging would necessarily be done by an excavator contracted by the town.
McGrail told FinCom the town is closing in on certifying free cash, but that the method of funding the project is not finalized. He said that, while the town waits on the state Department of Revenue to complete certification, the Capital Stabilization Fund can more than make up the difference.
Town Accountant Judy Mooney estimates that Marion has a total of nearly $2,900,000 in its regular Stabilization Fund, $234,450 in its Capital Stabilization Fund, and $370,000 in the School Stabilization Fund.
Since McGrail has been town administrator, Marion has only added to its stabilization funds, but should free cash not be certified by the October 19 Special Town Meeting, the Stabilization Fund would be the only option for Articles 1 and 2.
Winters was happy to hear Mooney say she intends to put the money back into the Stabilization Fund in the spring.
Article 2 asks for the transfer of $35,000 from the town’s Waterways Account to meet the 25-percent matching requirement of the state’s Seaport Economic Council-sponsored grant for the design and bid documents for a new harbormaster facility.
The state is crediting Marion for its prior investment in the feasibility study as part of its 25-percent match.
Marion will apply for two more Seaport Economic Council grants, according to McGrail, the first for $1 million and the second for less. A 20-percent town match will be required for the future grant applications, so it has yet to be determined if the town will be in a position to ask voters to appropriate that money at the 2022 Spring Town Meeting.
In summarizing the town’s commitment to the new grant process for the harbormaster facility, McGrail said it will be an investment of 20-percent of a total cost of $2 million. The tentative plan is to borrow in concert with other projects, the debt service being paid off with Waterways Account funds over a 20-year period.
The public will be invited to view the proposed footprint as revised from the original pitch in an open house event at Island Wharf.
McGrail believes that with investment in the Waterways Account over the next five years, the town will also be able to fund a new harbormaster boat without needing to borrow.
The committee voted to recommend Article 6, the Old Rochester Regional School District Agreement, and Article 7, the creation of ORR’s Stabilization Fund.
“They’re going to be under the constraints of [Proposition 2 ½],” said Winters, who figures it will be difficult for the school district to significantly build the account. FinCom votes to recommend.
While it took little to no deliberation to make the ORR-related approvals, the subject sparked big-picture conversation where it concerns the downtrend in student enrollment.
The Town of Marion is applying on behalf of the Tri-Town to the state’s Community Compact for a grant to conduct a future trend enrollment study in public schools in the district and a study specifically on Sippican Elementary School. The study will include assessment and capital projections, according to McGrail.
“I think that’s going to be important to manage expenses,” said Marion Select Board member John Waterman, who noted that Sippican was down 40 students last year, and ORR was down 150. “If we’re headed into a period of secular decline in enrollment, I think there is a lot more opportunity to rein in expenses.”
Waterman anticipates the study informing the town’s elected officials charged with vetting proposed residential projects.
One of those projects, the Heron Cove residential development proposed by Ken Steen, will, in exchange for allowing an increase in the number of units from 96 units to 120, yield $1.1 million to the town in increased infiltration and inflow (I/I) sewer revenue. The 20-percent affordable housing component puts Marion over the 10-percent state requirement.
“We feel that this new growth is something that will help us pay for some things like the village infrastructure project when that comes up in a couple of years without having to do tax overrides,” said Waterman, citing the adjacent residential project proposed by Matt Zucker along with Sherman Briggs’ proposed project off Spring and Mills Streets.
The next meeting of the Marion Finance Committee is scheduled for Wednesday, November 3, at 7:00 pm.
Marion Finance Committee
By Mick Colageo