During Monday’s meeting of the Mattapoisett Capital Planning Committee, Chairman Chuck McCullough asked the members to think about what sort of data they will need moving forward.
McCullough also asked the members to think about whom they should be meeting with during FY24 planning and subsequent forecasts.
McCullough’s efforts to have the Capital Planning Committee more deeply involved in planning strategies, namely projects and purchases costing $10,000 and greater and with at least a five-year lifecycle, began in earnest during the FY23 planning process.
The committee asked town department heads to prepare more in-depth details, especially those related to vehicle usage, and all associated costs both immediate and proposed for subsequent years. The members spend time learning about facility needs and capital purchases from the viewpoint of the department heads and plot those expenditures over a 10-year master plan.
McCullough told the members, “Let’s take a look at this year’s process and maybe tighten up processes for next year,” a process that will begin after the summer break, at which time planning will begin for the FY24 spring Town Meeting.
The wide-ranging discussions also touched on the need for a computer-tracking tool that would allow department heads and the town’s financial oversight committee’s access to data-driven analysis for planning purposes. McCullough noted at several points in the general discussion that understanding how expenditures would be funded is critical to the work of the committee.
Bylaws governing the work of Capital Planning Committee were also discussed. Posted on the town’s website are the bylaws. Included in those directives is who should be seated on the committee. The bylaws note a member of the Mattapoisett School Committee, Open Space and Recreation, three citizens at large, a person with business or financial backgrounds, another person with construction management experience and someone from the Finance Committee and/or the town’s Accounting offices.
The town administrator’s role is described as a person who shall act as an ex officio, non-voting member who can charge the committee with a variety of responsibilities. Those include: study of projects and purchases with a five-year lifespan costing $10,000 or more; inventorying of town facilities; equipment, machinery and other capital assets; study of request to determine relative need; impact and timing of expenditures; producing an annual report for the Select Board and monitoring the execution of authorized projects.
On that last point, McCullough has asserted that the committee needs more precise review of grants awarded to the town for various projects and purchases as well as appropriations. Tying the funding to capital expenditures had not in previous planning seasons been fully attempted, now such data would be included. Town Administrator Mike Lorenco, who attended, said he would provide funding data.
Lorenco also shared that presently there are 13 open positions within town departments that he is trying to fill, openings in such areas of responsibility as police, clerical administrative and highway department. He also said that he would be meeting later in the week with members of the MassDOT team associated with the Bike Path Phase 1b to learn the status of test planking on the bridge over the barrier beach at Good Speed Island, testing necessitated by defective planking earlier in the construction. He said grants would be sought for repairs to Long Wharf now estimated at approximately $5,000,000 and that a Complete Streets grant has allowed the improvements to the bike path crossings at Mattapoisett Neck Road and Brandt Island Road now under construction.
No meeting date was scheduled upon adjournment.
Mattapoisett Capital Planning Committee
By Marilou Newell