Swampscott checks cash

SWAMPSCOTT – It’s a record budget surplus, but town officials said a $3.2 million windfall of free cash will not be used to completely fund the latest proposal to build a turf field at Phillips Park.”It’s not like you’re going to have a spending spree party just because we have that money,” Board of Selectmen Chair Matt Strauss said. “For the turf field, some of town’s expense may come from free cash, perhaps $400,000, but the remainder will come from bonding, reserves, and other funds.”But field proponents are keeping the option open and submitting a petition to Town Meeting to use the surplus to pay for the field.”We want to make sure that the order in which they are discussed in Town Meeting is through the bond version first, because we believe that is a reasonable and prudent course,” said Chris Urbano, a petitioner and member of the All-Blue Foundation, which is raising private money for subsequent phases of the field project. “And in the extent that we don’t get two-thirds majority, having the petition, we don’t have to go through the rigmarole to amend the article, or reconsider an article, etc.”Private groups and many town leaders have long advocated for a multi-sport, artificial turf field to replace Blocksidge Field at Phillips Park. But Town Meeting in May 2012 rejected a $2.5-million proposal, of which the town was to pay $1,857,856 from the town budget, and private donors would provide the $750,000 difference.The latest proposal completes the projects in phases. The first phase includes the majority of the work and expense, essentially constructing the field and preparing the site for adding lights and a grandstand in phases two and three. The first phase costs $1.65 million, which proponents are asking the town to pay. The subsequent phases will be paid for by private donors.Town officials have said the town can pay for the first phase within the annual budget – not by asking for an override or debt exclusion. The money would likely come from a combination of free cash (essentially, money the town either budgeted but did not use or revenue that exceeded estimates ), capital improvement funds, reserve funds, and borrowing money. Because this involves borrowing money, the proposal would need to pass Town Meeting with a two-thirds majority.The state subsequently certified that Swampscott had $3.2 million free cash – twice the amount needed for the first phase of the field. A project using free cash also only needs to pass Town Meeting with a simple majority.But while using free cash to pay for the field might be easier, town officials said that it isn’t necessarily better.”The issue with free cash is you’d rather not take it all and load it into one project,” Town Administrator Tom Younger said. “This is a project you would look to bonding in it.”Younger said that bonding agencies that annually loan to the town also want to see that towns have plenty of reserves in case of an emergency. Finance Committee Chairman Linso van der Burg and Strauss said this generally is in the form of reserve funds, including free cash, representing about 10 percent of the annual budget.The town currently has $1.8 million general stabilization fund, about $300,000 in a capital stabilization fund, and $114,000 in a fund from the sale of town-owned lands, Younger said. Not all of this can be used for general operating expenses – which is where free cash comes in.”I don’t think we should spend half of it on a sports field because you need that cash to operate the town; you don’t want the town to be living paycheck to paycheck,” van der Burg said. “$3.2 million in free cash really isn’t as free as people think it is. There’s a reason it’s there, it’s not a savings account.”Urbano said he agreed that the town plan to use a combination of sources for the money makes sense and would be the preferred way to pay for the field.”We hope we don’t need to go there at all. We would much rather do it the way most towns do it,” Urbano said of the citiz