2018-06-27-CEC-ATM-rpt (Combined Report with Updates & Errata)

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CAPITAL EXPENDITURES COMMITTEE REPORT TO 2018 ATM (incorporating Updates&Errata) Five-Year Capital Plan The table on the next four pages summarizes the five-year capital plan that this Committee is submitting for Town Meeting's consideration. It reflects the expected FY2019 appropriations at the 2018 ATM or expected at a Special Town Meeting later in FY2019 that this Committee endorses and the FY2020– FY2023 requests that this Committee anticipates and endorses. We started with the amounts and timing shown in the Brown Book, Page XI-4 for FY2019, and XI-27 for FY2020–FY2023. Those requests have been updated based on any information we received after it was published and we have made additional entries or changes where we feel, based on earlier studies, design& engineering (D&E) (also architect/engineer [A/E]) work), or the existence of a multi-phase project, that there might be future requests, although no formal position has been taken by the Town. In that vein, there are important caveats to that table: • Please see the footnotes for information on the status of many of the entries and how this Committee's position differs from that presented by the Town in the Brown Book. • Excluding the many tens of millions of dollars of to-be-deter dined(TBD) entries,the total in this Committee's Plan for FY2020–FY2023 is already just over $116 million. The TBD entries include future construction phases and yet to be determined elements of projects for which there may be additional phases not yet specified or entire major facility projects (e.g., Lexington High School renovation/reconstruction and the Police Outdoor/Indoor Firing Range at Hartwell Avenue). The TBDs will exceed the total estimated amounts. • The Capital Stabilization Fund (CSF) is receiving another meaningful appropriation for FY2019. (See Article 26.) For several years we have been building the resources of this Fund so that we can use them toward mitigation of the tax impact of the debt service from our capital projects. Given the current proposed and possible out-year projects in our Capital Plan, it is expected that the use of the CSF to mitigate our debt service will fully deplete that reserve before the debt service for the projects currently contemplated in this Plan is completed. On December 4, 2017, the voters approved a debt exclusion for funding of the Maria Hastings Elementary School, the Lexington Children's Place (the pre-kindergarten school), and the new Fire & Rescue Department Headquarters. • Compounding the challenge of the next five years, inevitably there will be "Big-Ticket" projects facing the Town in the years past FY2019 (e.g., the Police Headquarters, the High School, Community Center Expansion, etc.). • Because of the on-going challenge this Town faces with regard to the renovation/replacement/renewal of its Capital Assets, this Committee urges the BoS to continue to refine a formal, Town-wide, Facilities Master Plan—including a financing plan that also identifies the likely debt-exclusion referendums. This Committee stands ready to assist in any way it can. • This Committee appreciates the Town's concern about citing a preliminary estimate for projects that are not yet well-defined and hence, the Town's out-year amounts generally do not reflect the costs in then-year dollars. As this Committee does not have the means to reasonably adjust current-year values to then-year values, we are using the Town's dollar values unless we have made a change for another reason—in which case there will be an explaining footnote. 10