Community Preservation Act Study Committee
Here is a link to documents repository for the Community Preservation Act Study Committee. Included is a presentation made to the Select Board about the benefits and costs to Winchester residents by adopting a CPA.
Comments
-
There will be a Community Presentation Act (CPA) Working Group update presented at the Select Board Meeting of January 22, 2024.
Watch the meeting via WinCam (7:30 p.m.) to learn about the next steps for the CPA initiative.
-
There wasn't much of a conversation. I'm hoping we have this "community conversation" before town meeting. It was alleged that the community conversation was lacking and the process was rushed during the citizen petition, and they met with all the elected and appointed boards and held an informational zoom which was well attended.
-
CPA finances demystified
https://www.communitypreservation.org/finances
very helpful information about the nitty-gritty of how CPA funds/projects live within a typical town budget
-
CPA Update on the agenda for Select Board Meeting for 2024-02-05
https://winchester.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02052024-5377?html=true
Support documents
https://www.winchester.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/4697?fileID=14341
https://www.winchester.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/4701?fileID=14332
https://www.winchester.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/4701?fileID=14333
-
I hope they are making the rounds to all of the committees in town! I haven't seen a lot of buzz!
-
The Community Preservation Act is on the agenda for tonight's meeting of the Capital Planning Committee. The full agenda can be found here:
https://www.winchester.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02072024-5378
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUldeupqDMtE9FIjIX33w4Czfyimm0b9MWf
-
here is link to recording of Feb. Select Board meeting which includes discussion of the CPA process. A specific, new, bylaw will be required to be approved by Town Meeting as part of establishing the CPA
-
If you want to view only the part of the meeting dealing with the CPA fast forward to time stamp 1:25:00 The conversation with Town Counsel regarding the timing of the vote of Town Meeting to place adoption of the CPA before the voters in November and a separate action by Town Meeting to create a bylaw to define the CPA committee to administrate the funds continues for about 18 minutes.
-
Some CPA Questions Still Need an Answer
Reporting from the Woburn Times Chronicle on the Feb 5 Select Board discussion on the Community Preservation Committee.
-
Bill, thanks for posting this helpful explanation of how Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds would be allocated/spent -- I'm trying to learn about this.
Here's my takeaway (corrections welcome): The town would collect revenue by enacting a surcharge on property, to be matched to a smaller degree by the state. We would need to establish reserve funds for the various categories/buckets of CPA revenue allocations - at least 10% is required to be set aside annually for 1) housing, 2) open space and 3) historic purposes, and up to 5% goes to CPC administration, the rest to CPA project appropriations for any category. There is more info at the link above on how this would work.
This same website had sample warrant article (for Town meeting) and ballot question (for a referendum) language: https://www.communitypreservation.org/ballot#anchor_WarrantArticle
Town Meeting would also need to pass a bylaw to establish a Community Preservation Committee (CPC) that would be responsible for administering the CPA program for the town, and that bylaw would have to be approved by the state's attorney general (within 90 days) before it can take effect. The bylaw would spell out the committee's composition, length of member terms, and whether the optional "at large" positions are appointed or elected, as well as outline the responsibilities of the new committee. The CPC is described more here: https://www.communitypreservation.org/CPCs
The timing of the warrant article, ballot referendum, and bylaw were discussed by Town Counsel at the meeting in the link posted above (and discussed in the Daily Times Chronicle article). Town meeting has to approve the warrant article before it goes to the ballot, but the bylaw could technically be passed before or after the ballot referendum.
In the spirit of understanding this process, one question/thought I have is - - wouldn't it make sense to present/approve the bylaw language about the CPC when town meeting votes on the CPA warrant language and before it goes to ballot? So Town Meeting members and voters would understand who would be involved in administering the funds and how they would be administered (ie how would this process dovetail with the current capital planning process?).
It seems like timing is getting tight on this. Thoughts/questions?
-
Attached is a survey of the composition of Community Preservation Act Committee members in other communities. 5 members are prescribed by the state statute. These are members from the Conservation Commission, Planning Board, Historical Commission, Housing Authority, and Select Board (acting as the Board of Park Commissioner). Beyond these 5 required members, the bylaw that Town Meeting must approve to create the CPAC can add up to 4 additional members.
Note. I refer to the committee that is created to administer the CPA as the CPAC so as not to confuse it with the Capital Planning Committee.
-
Hi Carol, I would personally be in favor of passing the article to put the CPA before the voters first (this spring) and then dealing with the bylaw after the voters decide whether to adopt the CPA (November). This is what Natick did when passing the CPA (and many other towns). Sometimes people get bogged down with trying to figure out the composition of the CPA Committee and then the whole thing goes south. If we had a bylaw ready to go, we could pass it at Fall Town Meeting and then be in a position to proceed once the AG approves the bylaw.
-
Hello Carol,
I agree with Maura that questions about the composition, duties, and timeline of action of a Winchester Community Preservation Act Committee (once again I am going to use the acronym CPAC for the body that needs to be created to govern Winchester's local CPA trust funds so as not to confuse that committee with our long-established Capital Planning Committee or CPC) are best left for the 2024FTM. As you can see from my previous post, there are almost endless possibilities on the composition and appointing authorities of the of 4 optional ad hoc positions. Let's get the adoption of the CPA before the voters in November so that we don't miss this window of opportunity. (Note: adoption of the CPA by the voters can only be considered at a regularly scheduled election which makes March 2025 and March 2026 the next two elections, after November 2024, for the voters to consider the CPA.) Questions about governance of the CPA can be debated during the summer leading up to the November 2024 vote rather than during the short runway that remains before 2024STM. I believe that these governance debates will be resolved and that there will be a consensus in time for 2024FTM lf the voters adopt the CPA in November. After all, 196 communities in the commonwealth have figure out how to integrate the CPA into their capital planning process.
-
Warrant Articles, Motions, and By Laws (oh my!)
There are two separate actions that Town Meeting needs to take before allocating any money from Winchester's local community preservation fund.
First, the question of adoption must be placed before the voters. Ever since the debate at 2022FTM about adoption of the CPA there have been many voices that agree that adoption of the CPA could be an important tool to help fund Winchester's capital project needs but that the timing, wasn't good with the impending debt exclusion vote for the Lynch Elementary School. The plan was to target the November 2024 presidential election for the CPA ballot referendum. The minimum action required by 24STM to place the question on the November ballot is an affirmative majority vote to do so. I have attached the warrant and motion language from the citizen's petition that was placed before 2022FTM.
The motion language is mostly "boilerplate" but requires two decisions by the CPA Working Group and ultimately the Select Board. These are the surcharge percent and the exemptions that will be allowed. It is my understanding that the working group will consider these two decisions at their meeting next Monday (agenda can be found here: https://winchester.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02122024-5388 ) and make recommendations to the Select Board for their next meeting on Feb 26.
-
Carol,
In answer to your question regarding capital projects that may be CPA eligible, here is a list from the Town Manager:
https://www.winchester.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/4609?fileID=13988
-
I agree with all of this, Rich. And I know we have new Town Meeting members, but presumably the majority will remember the Fall 2022 CPA presentation and therefore have some understanding of what CPA is. Passing the article to put it before the voters in November 2024 is straightforward. Town Meeting members will either agree with the concept that the Town should be a CPA community or not. And the voters will want to know how their taxes will be affected. The nitty gritty of how the CPA actually works within the existing town government (the bylaw) is something for Town Meeting to work through separate from the broad concept issue.
-
Meeting of CPA Study Committee scheduled for Monday, Feb 12. Access is remote only. Preregistration required. Additional information here:
https://winchester.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02122024-5388
-
Expense of the CPA does not appear to be something the "Study Committee" has actually studied, based on the responses to my question to them last night. Their simple rationale is that whatever the cost, "it is much less than the match," (the state promise to match a municipality's surcharge on the total local levy subject to certain exclusions). Indeed the state match has ranged from 13.8% to 39.37% in the years between 2014 and 2022 which the "Study Committee" employed. The assumption in their model is that the state match will be around 20% going forward. The state allows up to 5% of CPA revenue, which I assume includes the state match, to be allocated to administration. Assuming the match is 20%, the expense limit is then 6% of the surcharge (1.20 X.05), still leaving a net 14% benefit. The benefit is absorbed by expenses only if expenses reach 16.5% of CPA revenue. Could the expenses ever be that high? Are the net benefits worth the commitment of the surcharge?
It is important to understand that the financial benefit of the CPA is only the amount of the state match, and does not include the amount of the surcharge which is simply additional local taxation. Thus the study committee was in error in their preliminary report asserting that the "opportunity cost of Winchester not adopting the CPA is over 15m." The real opportunity cost using their model is the $2.7m match, less the admin and other costs which at 5% would have netted 1.9M or only 0.2% of the total levy over the model's period; not nothing but not an easy "no brainer".
So the cost of the CPA is worth more than a cursory look. Essentially wouldn't we be roughly doubling the cost of our capital appropriations process which includes the costs of working with the MSBA on schools? People have questioned the value of working with the MSBA which has a higher match than we are assuming for the CPA.
Couldn't complicating our financial governance raise costs generally and reduce the effectiveness of our spending? And couldn't the policy commitments embedded in the CPA be better served by addressing them directly in an improved capital management process? Finally shouldn't we fear that near-term expansion of capital spending, mostly funded by a surcharge, will further delay the reckoning with our operating cost growth which is crowding out capital spending?
Does the current rush to get the CPA on the ballot for November national election, when the least informed voters turn-out and the CPA is most likely to pass, really serve the long-term interests of the town? Don't we want to dig into the benefits and the costs now?
-
Roger, I don't feel like we are rushing into a CPA vote. There was a presentation to Town Meeting in November 2022 (and in 2007). I have not dug into the administration cost issue but I will. However, I note that the Town Manager has included the CPA in her 5-year capital plan. If she thinks the CPA is a good tool for the Town, I defer to her!
-
If we raise and spend more on capital either through an override -or- the CPA, we will have more projects occuring at the same time and theoretically higher administrative costs. Given the FinCom analysis that the CSF and CSF are collectively underfunded by nearly $11M based on the original guidelines of those funds, if we choose not to pass the CPA we will still need to pass a capital override and will still incur added administrative costs.
-
Brian, I am not familiar with the FinCom analysis that you mention. Please share a link. I do know that the stabilization funds were not originally intended to fund long term debt but were intended to buffer regular sources of capital spending. Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't we have considerably more capital funding capacity if we had continued the discipline of devoting retiring debt to capital?
In any case, I am not concerned about the costs of capital spending that are strictly a function of capital spending volume. Rather I am concerned about the costs of compliance, and other costs specific and unique to CPA collection and spending, for instance the time spent by town personnel supporting the work of the CPA committee. And I am concerned about the soft costs of translating a portion of our capital process into "CPA-speak" and the sub-optimal results that I have observed from bending a given project to ill-fitting standards of one program or another.
Years ago when the CPA was first considered I thought the spending standards were too narrow and the state funding source unreliable. I also was concerned about weakening the influence of Prop 2 1/2 on spending growth. Now the standards are broader, the state's funding at least more diverse, and there is a track record in other towns so I think the CPA is more attractive. But I am still not convinced, especially when its benefits are so obviously misstated as to include funds raised by taxing ourselves as "opportunity cost." And I remain concerned about the lack of clear policy with respect to spending growth.
It looks to me that the net benefit of the match (all incremental funds less all incremental costs) is probably in the range of $200,000 a year - a very small portion of our budget for all the hoops we end up jumping through. One of the most interesting things that the Communications Study Committee looked at, in my opinion, was complications and competing "messaging" of Winchester's plethora of committees. I think the common good is served by keeping it simple.
-
Maura, I am very much in favor of a single capital plan to be proposed by the Town Manager and subject to the review and recommendations the FinCom. She should be advised by the Capital Planning Committee and by the CPA committee if we create one but neither committee should be able to dictate her capital plan and her capital plan, like her budget should be subject to revision and approval by Town Meeting. Town meeting should defer to no one in the exercise of it responsibilities although obviously we have to place a large measure of trust in our town's employees and the various committees, etc. I try to trust but verify by digging into some part of the picture. I think it would be a mistake not to seriously examine the costs as well as the benefits of the CPA. The bulk of the funding comes from the Winchester tax payer, not the state. The state match, less all the costs of the CPA, adds a very small portion of our total spending. Is it really worth it? Are there alternative ways to advance the policies embedded in the CPA?
The CPA surcharge on our tax bill is based on the taxes which property owners are already paying. According to data developed by FinCom the taxes on Single Family Households have been increasing by 5.3% annually for the past 10 year which is more than a point faster than the growth in household income (which is in turn a function of turnover- without turnover to more affluent household the difference between our tax growth and income growth rates would be wider). Do we think we can grow taxes faster than we already are growing them? Or have we been avoiding the nitty-gritty of slowing down expense growth for too long.
-
Roger, I will leave it to the Town Manager to crunch the the administrative cost numbers and decide if it's a good tool for Winchester. Look at all of the towns/cities that have adopted it: https://www.communitypreservation.org/map. If it's good for them, I have reason to believe it will be good for us, too.
-
Maura, Before you start number crunching, what do you define as the benefit? If Home Depot offers you a coupon for $40 if you spend $200, is the gross (before costs) benefit $40 or is it $240? This is a critical question.
I agree that the adoption rate indicates an appeal and creates a good body of evidence for study. It is worth noting that the CPA is heavily marketed by an arm of a well-funded non-profit, The Trust for Public Lands and a set of other non-profits. I am a big supporter of public parks and open space and have personally been involved in putting thousands of acres into the public domain across three states. The policy interests embedded in the CPA have merit but so does the public interest in limiting the growth of taxes.
-
The fincom analysis was presented here: https://youtu.be/ocVWja4RtjU?si=fv0MfEEtIgLFcQb2
I think we may disagree on the central point of whether we have enough capital funds in town. If yes, then we are good...we don't need an override or the CPA. If no, we will need to raise taxes. I am of the opinion that our capital needs are underfunded.
Two options to meet this underfunding include an override where the citizens of Winchester pay 100% of the money of the CPA where they pay less than 100% (or a combination of both). Both are overrides but one is an override with benefits. Wouldn't you always rather pay less than full price? Why would we let other towns keep money partly paid by Winchester tax payers in recording deeds with the registry? We don't need to overcomplicated this.
-
Maura, how many towns have adopted the CPA? Do we have information from them on how burdensome it is?
-
Roger, for me the benefit is a dedicated revenue stream for capital projects PLUS a match from the state that is derived from a fund that our residents are already paying into. Your Home Depot coupon analogy could include the scenario where a shopper is enticed to spend $200 that they don't necessarily need to spend because with the coupon they are spending only $160. I don't shop that way, but some people do! In our case, we must spend the $200 on capital projects but we don't now have the $200. However, if we pass the CPA, then we have raised the $200 that we need AND now we have $40 from the state that we wouldn't otherwise have.
-
According to the CPA Coalition website, 196 communities. Not sure if this number is current. I haven't seen anything to indicate that any town has found the CPA to be burdensome. I was digging to see if any town/city had repealed it after adopting it and I don't see that any has. I know no town/city had as of 2022 when the matter came before Town Meeting.
-
My individual two cents -- Roger's metaphor is interesting, as is Brian's example. If the customer is on a budget and buying something they urgently "need" and would have purchased anyway, that $40 (20%) discount is especially valuable. Even if it is a "want," it is still nice to get the 20% discount.
I have been listening to all the debates about the town's urgent capital needs & how to solve them. (Read the "Capital Programming" discussion on this board.) As Brian points out, it is apparent that many ongoing "needs" on the town's list (tho not all) could be met by the CPA (items related to Town Hall, parts of McCall, Lincoln, recreational capital like playgrounds, affordable housing, etc.), so why wouldn't we responsibly seek a 15-20% discount/match on those? Bearing in mind, that the CPA would only be a partial solution to the capital funding needs, so this should be part of a larger plan.
The discussion we are having here will likely be the public debate, which is why I feel Spring Town Meeting should approve the bylaw on how these funds will be administered by the Community Preservation Act Committee. There will be questions like Roger raises about how it will work in tandem with our current capital planning and expenditure process as the first phase of a capital budget solution, and we should be able to explain it to voters. I am disappointed that the Select Board's Study Committee hasn't been working on that these past months so Town Meeting & the voters have full transparency. If it is so straightforward, as has been said, and there are all these great examples from other towns, let's pick one, draft it, vet it, and then explain to voters why it makes sense. The warrant doesn't close till March 15 and the motion language can be refined over the next couple months. It may be hard to find language that will please everyone, but that is no excuse for not trying and isn't that our job? I would like this to pass, but the process needs to make sense.
Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 33 All Categories
- 1 INTRODUCTION TO TOWN MEETING
- 5 PREVIEWS OF 2024 SPRING TOWN MEETING ARTICLES
- 2 MBTA 3A REQUIRED MULTIFAMILY ZONING
- 5 COMMUNITY PRESERVATION ACT
- 1 CAPITAL PROGRAMMING
- 1 FY25 TOWN BUDGET
- 1 NORTH MAIN STREET RE-ZONING
- 1 AFFORDABLE HOUSING
- 2 DECENNIAL BYLAW REVIEW
- 4 TRAFFIC AND PARKING
- 4 OTHER ISSUES
- 6 TMMA NOTICES
- 7 2023 FALL TOWN MEETING ARTICLES (Archived/Read-Only)