The Board of Finance has approved going to a town meeting to approve moving $100,000 out of the town’s capital reserve funds to help pay for new boilers at Botelle Elementary School.
First Selectman Matt Riiska told the finance members that despite advertising for and soliciting bids, he received only one, from Perotti Plumbing in Canaan. The firm services the existing boilers for the town.
“With that said, they provided us with a quote of $166,000 last year and the exact same quote this year,” Riiska said.
He said the town’s non-lapsing fund (a fund that does not become absorbed back into the town surplus) has only $66,792 in it. “I think we need to get this ordered right away,” he said. “I’ve been told numerous times this needs to be done.”
Early in the 2022-23 school year, school had to be closed for a day because both ancient boilers went down at once.
Member Myron Kwast grumbled that the price tag was nearly $3,000 for each of Botelle’s 59 students, but the measure passed with only one abstention.
In other business, Riiska reported that a town meeting approved the refinance of the River Place Bridge project, but that the state Department of Transportation has not given him documentation confirming that it will cover the excess expense occasioned by a nearly two-year shut down of the project.
There are three bills from contractors that NBT Bank does not want to pay during the conversion to the new loan, but the town has not received reimbursement for this project from the state since April. “I can’t pay the contractors until I get this straightened out,” Riiska said.
It was also reported that the Farmers Market is now defunct and that the Farmers Market Committee members want to put the approximately $6,500 remaining in its account toward cultivating the gardens at Botelle School.
Sconyers and other board members were not persuaded. Even though the money in the committee’s coffers did not come from the town’s budget, the committee works under the town’s auspices. Sconyers said he needs “more structure” to the request before considering it.