Town Report on Lincoln 1956-1959, Part 44

Author: Lincoln (Mass.)
Publication date: 1956
Publisher: Lincoln (Mass.)
Number of Pages: 1026


USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Lincoln > Town Report on Lincoln 1956-1959 > Part 44


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211


WARRANT FOR 1959


ARTICLE 29. To determine whether the Town will vote to accept as a public way the private road known as Moccasin Hill, as shown on a plan entitled "Subdivision of Land in Lincoln, Mass., owned by Brown's Wood, Incorporated", drawn by Ranulf W. Gras, dated February 8, 1955, approved by the Planning Board of the Town of Lincoln, March 9, 1955, and recorded with Middlesex Southern District Registry of Deeds at the end of Book 8475, or take any other action relative thereto. By Petition


ARTICLE 30. To determine whether the Town will vote to appropriate the sum of $14,029.00 for the purpose of repairing Bedford Road under the provisions of Chapter 718 of the Acts of 1956.


Selectmen


(The Finance Committee approves the action contemplated under this Article as a desirable use of funds on hand from the Commonwealth earmarked for such purpose.)


ARTICLE 31. To determine whether the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $4,500.00 or any other sum for the purchase of a Highway Truck to replace existing equipment, or take any other action relative thereto.


Selectmen


(The Finance Committee approves this expenditure as an expected re- placement and recommends that the sum be taken from free cash.)


ARTICLE 32. To determine whether the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $2,600.00 or any other sum for the purchase of a roller and trailer for the use of the Highway Department, or take any other action relative thereto.


Selectmen


(The Finance Committee approves this expenditure as necessary for a much needed and also more effective and more economical procedure of road maintenance.)


ARTICLE 33. To determine whether the Town will vote to appropriate the sum of $750.00, or any other sum, for the purpose of transporting children to Lake Walden for Red Cross swimming classes, or take any other action relative thereto.


Recreation Committee


(The Finance Committee approves the appropriation of the sum of $750.00 for this purpose from free cash since it will be reimbursed by the users of the service. )


ARTICLE 34. To determine whether the Town will vote to request the Trustees under the Will of Julian deCordova to pay over to the


212


WARRANT FOR 1959


DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park one hundred per cent (100%) of the B. Trust net income for the year 1958, or take any other action relative thereto.


DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park Directors


Hereof fail not and make due return of this Warrant with your doings thereon to the Town Clerk, at or before the time for the meeting aforesaid. Given under our hands this 16th day of February in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine.


Charles K. Fitts Elliott V. Grabill Warren F. Flint


Selectmen of Lincoln


213


1


١


TOWN OF LINCOLN


Report of the


LONG-TERM CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS COMMITTEE


1958


Table 1


Town of Lincoln - Proposed Program of Capital Expenditures, 1953-1972


DEPARTMENTAL


1958


1959


1960


1961


1962


1958-62


1963-72


GENERAL GOVERNMENT


$2,000


$ 2,000


N.F.


PROTECTION OF PERSONS


AND PROPERTY


Fire Station


3,100


3,100


$50,000


HEALTH AND RECREATION


Land


3,500


$3,500


$3,500


$3,500


$3,500


17,500


40,000


Tennis Courts


12,500


12,500


N.F.


HIGHWAYS


Town Expenditure


20,000


20,000


20,000


20,000


20,000


100,000


N.F.


Chapter 90


14,0001


14,0001


14,0001


14,0001


14,0001


70,000


N.F.


Parking, incl. land


5,000


5,000


STABILIZATION FUND FOR ROAD AND FIRE EQUIPMENT


7,500


7,500


10,000


10,000


10,000


45,000


100,000


SCHOOLS


Elementary School


5,000


350,000


355,000


500,000


High School


250,000-


250,000-


220,000


300,000


300,000


LIBRARY


70,000


70,000


TOTALS


137,600


50,000


397,500


297,500-


47,500


930,100-


347,000


980,100


of which from borrowing


50,000


350,000


250,000-


650,000-


State Chapter 90


10,500


10,500


10,500


10,500


10,500


52,500


Tax Revenues and Free Cash


77,100


39,500


37,000


37,000


37,000


227,600


277,600


PUBLIC SERVICES


Main Replacement and facilities reconstruction


70,000


20,000


20,000


20,000


20,000


150,000 80,000


100,000


16" main to reservoir New water supply


500,000


Total


70,000


20,000


20,000


100,000


20,000


230,000


600,000


of which from borrowing


50,000


80,000


130,000


500,000


CEMETERIES


400


400


400


400


400


2,000


5,000


-


1. of which 3/4 to be borne by state and county.


NE not fAMANHAN


E


b


C


W


b


p


S


p


a


p


10


Road Improvement


300,000


700,000


80,000


TOWN OF LINCOLN


Capital Expenditure for 1956


Table 2 shows the proposed and actual capital expenditures for 1957. Com- parison must be made cautiously since expenditures for large capital items such as the police and fire station and the new school are made partly in one year and partly in the next, with the division between years arbitrary. The important con- sideration is not that the Town spent $55,000 for the fire station plans, land, and partial construction in 1957, as compared with an estimated total cost of $105,000; but that the basic contract was let for $86,000. Particularly important for Lincoln was the fact that the new Elementary School Building for which $475,000 had been contemplated - allocated arbitrarily $50,000 to 1957 and $425,000 to 1958 - will be built within that amount.


Table 2


Town of Lincoln


Actual and Proposed Capital Expenditures for 1957


Actual


Proposed


General Government


Town Offices


$10,500


$10,000


Protection of Persons and Property


Fire Station - Plans


4,500


Land


3,500


105,000


Construction


47,0001


Fire Equipment


21,300


17,500


Highways


Chapter 90 Construction


16,100


15,000


Road Equipment


19,400


20,100


Elementary School


Addition No. 2


3,900


School Building Committee


5,000


Elementary School Construction


105,7001


50,000


Elementary School Land


29,500


29,500


Library Committee


1,500


3,000


Water Department


1,900


11,000


TOTAL


$269,800


$256,100


1. Amount spent in 1957


1


Apart from these two items which overlap 1957 and 1958, there were few significant deviations from the forecast rate of expenditure. The most substantial of these was in the Water Department where no main replacement was undertaken, although an outstanding indebtedness of $1,900 on the 1956 work was paid. The cost of fire equipment exceeded the amount allocated, owing to the purchase of a fire whistle and the fire engine pump.


Capital Expenditure and Debt


Table 3


Expenditures Divided Between Current and Capital Accounts and Receipts (in thousands of dollars)


Expenditures


1. Selectmens' orders $936.9


2. Water Department


Current


28.2


Capital


1.9


3. Total (1 + 2) 966.0


4. Capital expense 269.8


5. Current expense (3 - 4) 696.2


Current Receipts


6. Taxes on Polls and Property 490.4


7. from Commonwealth (other than 9 + 10) 173.1


8. Other 53.8


9. Chapter 90 construction 6.5


10. State assistance for school construction


10.5


11. Total (6 to 10) 734.3


12. Water Department Receipts 40.4


13. Total Current Receipts 774.7


2


Table 4


Town of Lincoln - 1957


Debt, Assessments, Tax Rate (in thousands of dollars)


Borrowings


575.01


*Repayments


41.5


*Outstanding debt 1,007


Assessment, Real and


Personal Property 7,249


Tax Rate Per Thousand 68.0


1. of which $125,000 within debt limit and $450,000 outside.


*Excluding repayment and debt of Regional School District of which Lincoln's "share" is approximately one-third.


Table 5


Town of Lincoln - Debt Service, 1957


Debt Repayment


$41,500


Interest


8,791


Total


$50,291


Tables 3, 4, and 5 extend information given in previous reports and are largely self-explanatory. The debt of $1,007,000 includes $682,000 borrowed outside the debt limit for school construction. In addition, the Town has a re- sponsibility for its share of the overlapping debt of the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School District. A discussion of the legal and practical limits to Town borrow- ing is given below.


Future Capital Expenditures


The details of the future capital expenditures in Table 1 and recommenda- tions for 1958 will be treated presently. Attention is called to two primary factors:


1) the continued difficulty experienced in forecasting a high enough rate of expansion in the school population, and the appropriate rate of school building. The 12-room school building now under construction was originally planned (in our 1956 report) as an initial 7-room building to which 5 rooms would be added in 1961. When this change was made last year, it was thought that the 12-room building would suffice until 1962.


3


The School Committee, however, now indicates a need for 9 more class- rooms at a cost of $350,000 by the fall of 1961. The two-year deficit in planning due to underestimation of the school population amounts there- fore to 9 rooms or approximately 225 students at 25 students per room.


2) the items in the 1956 and 1957 reports for fire equipment and road ma- chinery have been replaced by a Stabilization Fund, foreseen at $7,500 for 1958 and 1959, and $10,000 annually thereafter.


Detailed Recommendations


General Government


$2,000 appropriated last year for a survey by consultants hired by the Planning Board will be spent in 1958. This sum is being supplemented by an equal amount supplied by the Federal Government.


Fire Station


$3,100 is required, in addition to the $3,500 originally appropriated, for the purchase of the site for the new fire and police station. The purchase price was arrived at by negotiation. The original sum was the Town's offer and was never seriously regarded as the final figure.


Ultimately a small fire station will be required north of the Boston and Maine railroad tracks. This cannot be undertaken, however, until Route 2 has been completed. $50,000 has been allotted for 1963-72.


Land


The Committee has long been convinced of the wisdom of the Town ac- quiring undeveloped land within the limits of financial feasibility. One purpose is to preserve natural beauty. Another is to reduce in the long run the density of house construction and thereby hold down capital expenditures.


The Committee has not been alone in this conviction. The Planning Board made recommendations along these lines in its 1955 Land Use Survey. As a result of this recommendation, a special Public Land Study Committee was ap- pointed, pursuant to a vote of the 1955 Town Meeting. The Long-Term Capital Requirements Committee, anticipating positive recommendations of this com- mittee, allocated an arbitrary $30,000 of expenditure for land in its reports of 1956 and 1957. The Public Land Study Committee, however, did not produce proposals for particular purchases in its recommendations.


Since the discharge of the Public Lands Study Committee, the land ques- tions have been attacked privately by the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, formed on December 2, 1957.


4


In addition to the private trust, the Town is called upon to establish an official Conservation Commission for the purpose of "promoting the development of natural resources and the protection of watershed resources," under an article in the war- rant for the 1958 Town Meeting. The establishment of such commissions by towns was authorized by Chapter 223 of the Acts of 1957, which also permits towns to raise and appropriate one-twentieth of one per cent of the assessed valuation of the Town annually for promoting the development and better utilization of natural resources. Assuming the acceptance by the Town of the conservation commission, the Long-Term Capital Requirements Committee makes allowance for a regular program of land acquisition with public funds at the rate of one-twentieth of one per cent of the assessed valuation of the town, or approximately $3,500 each year. This sum need not be spent in any one year, but should be allowed to accumulate when unspent for subsequent purchases. Or where land of greater value is being bought, the purchase could be divided into units costing $3,500.


Other commitments make it financially unwise to embark on this conserva- tion program in 1958. The Town is purchasing land at the corner of Ballfield and Lincoln Roads, which is needed to straighten out the access road to the schools. In addition, the settlement reached on the price of the land for the fire station site involves additional expense.


Tennis Courts


The Committee has carried a figure for tennis courts in its reports for 1956 and 1957 for expenditure in 1958, and agrees that if the Town is going to build courts it should be done this year. It is believed that the delay has been helpful in preventing building on sites which would have been found to be unwise. The Committee supports the capital expenditure to the extent that the courts are pro- vided for the recreation of the town's children. In view of the heavy demands on its capital budget, the Town should give serious consideration to putting adult recreation on a self-sustaining financial basis.


Highways


The Town has been searching for several years for an appropriate policy of road maintenance and improvement. A substantial study of the problem was pro- vided in the 1956 report of this Committee, calling for expenditures rising from $32,000 to $45,000. This presupposed a major program of Chapter 90 construc- tion, plus some new roads. In the 1957 report, this program was cut to $15,000 to be spent from Town funds alone, since it appeared that the Town was not pre- pared to accept Chapter 90 standards on additional roads, and since the Selectmen were unwilling to improve roads on which land taking had not been made.


The Board of Selectmen has now decided to proceed with road improvements even where roads have not been laid out and land takings made to the 40' width. In addition, it proposes to raise funds for the reconstruction of existing Chapter 90 roads and allow them to accumulate until they suffice to undertake a major stretch of road. This program makes it possible to raise road expenditures to the levels contemplated in 1956. $20,000 a year is recommended for expenditure


5


out of Town funds, and should enable some of the more dangerous parts of the network to be straightened and widened short of Chapter 90 standards. An ad- ditional $14,000 under Chapter 90 will cost the Town $3,500 each year.


In its 1957 report, the Committee included a provision of $10,000 for parking including land, assigned to the near future and arbitrarily to 1959. This provision was made in anticipation of a development of the station area for business with a requirement for additional parking area. While no concrete proposals have been developed, a certain amount of business activity is under way. The Committee feels that it is still desirable to contemplate the necessity for some expenditure in the area for the purpose but has reduced the amount to $5,000.


Stabilization Fund


The numbers of the Town's machinery for roads and fire equipment are now such that it is desirable to provide for capital expenditures in this field on a regu- lar basis, and not as the equipment is actually replaced. This means the estab- lishment of a reserve or stabilization fund. This is an appropriate time to do it, after purchasing a new truck and a new pump engine for the fire department and a new pick-up truck, front-end loader and heavy-duty truck for the Road Depart- ment. If it were not undertaken, the Town would be misled by the low level of expenditures for a year or two, and then forced to replace a number of items at once.


The Committee believes that the fund should ultimately receive $10,000 a year. For the first two years, however, it agrees with the Selectmen and the Finance Committee that $7,500 is a suitable figure. It is thought that trucks should be replaced after 4 years, the small fire engine after 5 or 6, the grader every 7 years and the large fire truck after about 15.


Schools


Elementary


$105,700 was expended in 1957 on the new primary school out of the $475,000 borrowed for the project. The Town originally had voted $525,000 but a favorable contract has enabled the Building Committee to leave $50,000 unborrowed. The building is going forward without unforeseen difficulties. The final expenditure is expected to be within the $475,000.


This good news, however, is more than balanced by the necessity seen by the School Committee to call for a new building committee to plan an additional 9 rooms before the completion of the 12 now building, to be ready by the fall of 1961 The planning deficit by the fall of 1961 amounts to 9 rooms since the Capital Re- quirements Committee was informed in 1955 that only the 12 rooms now building would be needed by that time. The difficulty is due to underestimation of the avail ability of functional space such as the shop and home economics room to serve as home rooms, and the continued underestimation of the growth of the school popu- lation. The School Committee sees a chance of postponing the building until 1962, but is opposed to a crash program, as in the past, and is anxious to plan in advanc


6


The Capital Requirements Committee is anxious to improve forecasting in this area, and particularly to avoid the increasing possibility of overbuilding to meet a temporary peak. It nonetheless is persuaded that the building committee should be appointed forthwith and, that $5,000 should be appropriated for its use.


g n


Regional High School


There is no change foreseen at this date in the necessity to plan an addition to the regional high school, costing $250-300,000 in 1961.


Library


The Library Building Committee has presented a plan for adding to the present Library at a cost of $70,000. The addition will enlarge book capacity from the present 18,000 volumes to 30,000, and leave room for an ultimate ca- pacity of 40,000. It will suffice, in the Building Committee's view, for a town of 6,500 people which will not be reached before 1975.


Some citizens have expressed an interest in delaying decision on the Library addition until School Committee plans with respect to library facilities and service in the school are more clearly defined. Within this group is a smaller body of opinion which wishes to explore the possibility of building an entirely new library, sited near the school, and to convert the existing building into a repository of his- torical material.


The Long-Term Capital Requirements Committee supports the proposal for the $70,000 addition to the existing library. It sees nothing to be gained from the construction of a new library near the school, since the superintendent thinks that the School would still need library facilities of its own. It believes that the Town cannot afford to divert the present building to the low-priority use of a repository for archives, even if it chose to. Finally, it sees no connection between the Town library and the School library which would make it desirable to defer action. The growth of lending in the present library from 12,000 books in 1947 to 25,000 in 1957 (12,000 for children) requires immediate attention. The Library Trustees have stood aside in the last few years while schools were being built. If action is deferred again, they will have to wait still longer while the next round of school and regional school building is undertaken.


Water Department


The Water Department undertook no expenditures for capital improvements during 1957. Its capital position was affected by changing over from charging customers for water in advance to billing for water used. This did not cost a full half-year's income, however, since the year's collections included the seasonal peak of summer. The Department paid a small bill level over from the 1956 ex- penditures but ended the year with a large cash balance.


7


·


1958 expenditures include a truck at $2,500, a compressor at $2,400 plus the replacement of 2 miles of 4" and 6" pipe on Route 126 from Willarch Road to Way- land, on Sudbury Road to connect with Route 126 to the west and eastward to South Great Road, and along South Great Road from its corner with Codman Road to the Weston line. The outside estimate of cost is believed to be $70,000, of which $50,000 would be financed by borrowing and $20,000 paid out of the Department' s balance.


Future main replacements have been set at $20,000 annually although it is recognized that it is efficient to undertake more than this amount in any one year out of cash balances, if they have had time to accumulate, and borrowing. More exact timing of replacement work is impossible since attention is given first to those pipes on which pressure diminishes.


No change is foreseen in the ultimate necessity to replace the pipe to the reservoir, or to develop a new water supply, but these expenditures are still in the future.


Legal and Practical Debt Limits


With the issuance of $575,000 of bonds on October 1, 1957, the Town of Lincoln direct indebtedness, including water department bonds, went above $1,000,000, and the direct debt plus the Town's proportionate share of the debt of the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School District to more than $1,500,000. In view of the. fact that Moody's Investors Service has down-graded the bonds of the Com- monwealth from Aaa to Aa and the bonds of several Massachusetts communities from A1 to Baa2, it is timely that the Town took a look at the future course of its borrowing, Lincoln's rating is A.


The legal limit of borrowing is 5 percent of the average of the assessed value of real and personal property of a Town for the past three years, plus the motor vehicle excise. In the case of Lincoln, the legal limit for 1958 is $385,321. The limit on debt of public enterprise, such as the Water Department, is an addi- tional 10 percent of the assessed valuation.


1. "Bonds which are rated A possess many favorable investment attributes and are to be considered as higher medium grade obligations. Factors giving security to principal and interest are considered adequate but elements may be present which suggest a susceptibility to impairment sometime in the future."


2. "Bonds which are rated Baa are considered as lower medium grade obligations, i.e. they are neither highly protected nor poorly secured. Interest payments and principal security appear adequate for the present but certain protective lements may be lacking or may be characteristically unreliable over any great length of time. Such bonds lack outstanding investment characteristics and have in fact speculative characteristics as well."


8


The legal debt limit, however, had had little effect on the borrowings of towns since the war. Towns are permitted to borrow outside the debt limit either by pe- tition to the legislature, or, in the case of borrowing for school construction, through application to the state Emergency Finance Board. All such applications have been approved.


The legal debt limit can be readily extended in such a town as Lincoln by a revaluation of assessments to a level more nearly approaching the legal standard of "full and fair cash value". In the majority of towns the size of Lincoln, such assessments have been kept on the average of 50 percent of the market value. In Lincoln, the percentage is nearer 35. The financial officials of the Commonwealth urge towns to adopt uniform reassessments, and assist in the costs of such sur- veys. One feature of such reassessment is that the legal debt limit is raised.


While the legal debt limit is no barrier to financing school construction through borrowing, it may hamper the capacity of the town to borrow for other purposes at any one time. Borrowing power under the debt limit now stands at $105,000 of which $50,000 has been committed to school construction until released by town vote. The remaining $55,000 would be more than used up by the Library addition. New borrowing power would be restored slowly by repayments on out- standing bonds issued under the debt limit, and by the gradual increase in the three-year average assessment through adding a new high year and dropping an old low one.


But the legal debt limit is less significant than the willingness of the bond market to buy a town's obligations at inexpensive rates of interest. This willing- ness is a function of the tightness of money in general, the rating of the town' s obligations, and a host of intangibles which go to make up the market' s attitude toward a given town. Of these the most important in recent years has been the tightness of the market. Lincoln's last borrowing of $575,000 unfortunately had to be undertaken at the peak of recent interest rates and cost 3.6 percent. Now, five months later, it is believed that the same bonds would have sold at a yield of 2.7 to 2.9 percent, or an average of .8 percent a year below. This difference on $575,000 of bonds is $4,600 or 60 cents on the tax rate. It is something which no town can do anything about. And a market change such as we have just ex- perienced is very rare.


A town can, however, so conduct itself as to maintain or lose its credit standing. A change in Moody's rating from A to Baa will typically cost 4 to } of one percent in the yield on a town's obligations. A further deterioration in rating would of course cost still more. The Commissioner of Accounts of the state has suggested that some towns, attempting to borrow very large amounts, may have to pay more than 4 percent. A town can always borrow at some price, but if it persists in borrowing, or seeks very large amounts, the cost may be substantial.




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