I’m a member of the Acton Finance Committee, which voted to send this letter to the editor representing the committee’s point of view.
The Finance Committee strongly advises voting NO on Question #1, which would allow the Town of Acton “to exempt from the provisions of proposition two and one-half, so called, the amounts required to pay for the bonds issued in order to pay for the designing, constructing, equipping and furnishing a new public works facility to be located at 14 Forest Road, including all other costs incidental and related thereto.”
We have significant concerns about this debt exclusion request for $35,220,690 to complete this project.
The current Public Works Facility Project would add an estimated $274.55 to the annual tax bill of the average single-family homeowner and $160.41 to the average condominium owner over the next 30 years, assuming a 4.25% bond interest rate. We believe this dedicated long-term debt warrants extreme caution.
We’re also concerned that the current plan proposes utilizing $1,550,000 of the Town’s Capital Stabilization fund, leaving no reserves for addressing other crucial future infrastructure needs within Acton. This puts the town’s long-term financial planning at a strategic disadvantage.
We have serious reservations regarding the current allocation of $1,989,591 for construction and soft cost contingencies, which is 5.2% of the total project budget of $37,995,690. This appears inadequate given the current uncertainties over the imposition of sweeping new tariffs, which threaten to inflate the cost of essential building materials by 25%.
Finally, we believe basing decisions on past investments of $1,225,000 for the design of the new facility is succumbing to the sunk-cost fallacy, which could lead to wasted resources and suboptimal outcomes for Acton’s residents.
In conclusion, the Acton Finance Committee does not recommend Question #1, which would use debt exclusion for the construction of a new public works facility at the currently proposed cost, time, and scope.
Before making recommendations for any debt exclusion for a scaled-down Public Works Facility Project in the future, we will continue reviewing the fiscal impact of all forms of dedicated borrowing.
Greg Jarboe
On behalf of the Finance Committee