NEWFANE — The Selectboard received two bids from contractors to improve the Town Office basement and attic and haul away a massive safe, but a chunk of the money officials thought they'd set aside in a capital fund, a $15,000 allocation, has expired.
According to Town Office Building Committee Member Guenther Garbe, addressing selectmen Oct. 17 just before the bids were unsealed, those funds are unavailable.
“'You didn't spend it. It's gone,' Garbe characterized the town treasurer as saying.
“I am under the impression that a capital fund is a cumulative situation. That if you don't spend it, it's carried forward. That's the purpose of it,” Garbe said.
Newfane is undergoing an audit, and it was the auditor who'd apparently clarified the matter: “The auditor said use it or lose it. What's in there now? Apparently there's no money in the capital fund at all,” Garbe told the Selectboard.
Board vice-chair Todd Lawley, filling in for Jon Mack, promised to look into the matter, and said the allocation might not have been in a capital fund after all.
“[A capital fund] is there for whatever it's designed for, and stays there until it gets used. If it wasn't in capital she's probably right,” Lawley said.
The money is needed for replacing rotten beams beneath the town office; leveling the floor; repairing and replacing attic insulation and installing vents; filling in the cistern beneath the town office; and removing a 4,000-pound safe from the meeting room.
A few minutes later the bids were unsealed: one from Wright Construction of Mount Holly, and the other from Chris Parker of Guilford.
Wright's bid came in at $47,734. Parker bid on part of the project, covering only the floor and cistern, at $14,600. Copies of the bids are remanded to the building committee for review, and this will come back to the Selectboard on Nov. 7.
Voters allocated $25,000 for the repairs in March. Some $23,550 remains following preliminary work, Garbe said. It's possible some work could begin before all the money is in hand, the board agreed.
This was the second round of bids for this work. Initial bids for the work came in at around $46,000, Garbe reported at the Sept. 19 Selectboard meeting.
Of the budget snafu, Garbe spoke precisely: “It's a bit messy, and we don't like it. We like order.”
Safety first
Also Oct. 17, the Selectboard reviewed an insurance inspection report on conditions at Town Office from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.
The inspector recommends officials here remove combustibles and storage from the furnace room, address trip hazards on the front steps, and fix the fire alarm so that it rings the fire department first in an emergency, and not the town clerk.