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01/07/2020 02:30 PMThough Guilford is still a couple weeks away from presenting specific projections and concrete numbers for a 2020-’21 budget proposal, First Selectman Matt Hoey has been meeting with town officials and Finance Director Maryjane Malavasi has been reviewing projects ahead of a busy, if likely unexceptional budget season.
One item of note is that the 2020-’21 fiscal year will be the last significant increase in debt service—money the town is required to pay back on its loans—for the new high school. Malavasi told the Courier that this was the original projection when the high school was built, and has so far held true.
Hoey said that after this year, the debt service from the high school will “flatten out.” Malavasi said it was possible that the high school’s debt service would even see a decrease next year.
As far as other town departments, Hoey said there is “not a lot of surprises” from the operational side of the budget that he had encountered so far in meetings with department heads going back to October.
At press time, the schools had just submitted their draft budget, and Malavasi said she had not had a chance to review anything in those documents.
The Board of Selectmen (BOS) will host two budget workshop sessions this month, on Wednesday and Thursday, Jan. 22 and 23, at which town departments will have a chance to make requests and residents will be able to comment. On Tuesday and Thursday, Jan. 28 and 30, the BOS will sit down with the Board of Finance (BOF) to review capital projects and requests, including recommendations for bonding. Those meetings will also be open to the public.
The town is currently in the process of reviewing proposed capital project, Malavasi said. Those deliberations and considerations will not be made public until they have been reviewed more fully by the BOS.
The Five-Year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), which Hoey described as a “fluid document,” shows $1.2 million in approved bonding for 2020, the majority of which is allotted for new vehicles for the Public Works Department.
Some of the larger projects that are on the plan but have not yet been approved include bonding for new bays for the fire department at a cost of $1.5 million in 2022 and a $1 million, eight-bay parking garage for the Parks & Recreation Department, and a total of $1.5 million in road improvements spread out over three years, from 2022 to 2024.
Another notable project on the CIP is a $750,000 extension for Nut Plains Road that would connect it to Route 77, which Town Engineer Janice Plaziak said had been something the town had originally conceived of in the early 2000s.
“It’s a good circulation enhancement,” she said.
Plaziak said that while the project “had its challenges,” the Engineering Department had kept it on the CIP due to the potential of adding more east-west routing in the town of Guilford, which she said was somewhat lacking the way roads currently run in the town.
The BOS is scheduled to approve and send its recommended capital and operating budget to the BOF on Feb. 6, which will then hold its own workshops and provide estimates before publishing its recommendations in early March.