TOWN OF BELMONT
CAPITAL BUDGET COMMITTEE REPORT
APRIL 2004
During Fiscal 2004, slow but sure progress continued on the Town’s backlog of roughly a dozen large capital project needs. The “mega-group” process - the periodic joint meetings among the Board of Selectmen, the Warrant Committee, the Permanent Building Committee and the Capital Budget Committee – continued during the year, and decisions were made which enable three of those projects to move forward.
Definitive locations were established for the senior center (the former Kendall School property) and the two replacement fire stations (a site on Trapelo Road for the main station and the Alexander Avenue parking lot for the sub-station). Schematic design funds for the fire stations and senior center were appropriated, as were funds for the acquisition of the Trapelo Road site, and building committees were established for both projects. The Capital Budget Committee hopes that, by the time this report is published, Belmont voters will have approved a debt exclusion for the fire stations, and that the 2004 Town Meeting will appropriate the remaining funding required for the project to proceed. In the meantime, the Belmont Center Parking Study Committee has put forth a creative and cost-effective proposal to offset the
parking lost due to the Town Hall Complex and Belmont Center sub-station projects by discontinuing a portion of Claflin Street and reconfiguring the existing Claflin Street parking lot; this proposal will also be considered by the 2004 Town Meeting.
There is rough consensus among the mega-group participants that the condition of the Wellington School should also be addressed within the next five years. Other significant needs which are more likely to be taken up within a five to fifteen year time frame include the High School renovation, the town yard and the police station. They also include the Memorial Library, Underwood Pool, Viglirolo Rink and White Field House, this latter group to be addressed with a combination of public and private funds.
Major capital needs which are of an ongoing nature and should be funded as such include the roads, the sanitary and storm sewer system, and the water main and meter replacement program.
The mega-group also wrestled with several potentially promising capital project funding mechanisms, with the objective of smoothing and minimizing the overall fiscal impact on Belmont taxpayers. This analysis will continue in fiscal 2005.
During the Spring of 2004, the Capital Budget Committee conducted its annual process of reviewing departmental capital funding requests. Town departments submitted a total of $5,630,742 in Fiscal 2005 capital requests for our consideration. The Capital Budget Committee recommends an appropriation of $4,398,992 pertaining to these requests.
These figures exclude the Claflin Street parking proposal and fire station project, upon which the Committee will develop recommendations to Town Meeting once the final costs have been determined and the applicable motions have been finalized.
Pursuant to Articles 8 and 11 of the Annual Town Meeting Warrant, the Capital Budget Committee recommends that Town Meeting appropriate $2,477,992 in Fiscal 2005 capital expenditures, as follows:
Pursuant to Article 13 of the Annual Town Meeting Warrant, the Capital Budget Committee recommends that Town Meeting appropriate a further $1,921,000 in Fiscal 2005 capital expenditures, as follows:
Respectfully submitted,
Joseph P. Barrell
M. Patricia Brusch
Mark F. Clark
John Conte
Donna V. Griswold
Anne Marie S. Mahoney
Michael J. Speidel
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