By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

CASCO — The Town of Casco is getting right down to business, holding its special town meeting during the first week of the New Year.

Both Warrant Articles involve budgetary items — on-going improvements at the Memorial Park and ballfields, and the purchase of a new ambulance.

The Special Town Meeting begins at 6 p.m., a half hour before the regular meeting of the Casco Board of Selectmen.

Warrant Article No. 3 is whether or not to appropriate funds ($305,000) for an ambulance to replace the one that should have been retired from the fleet about a year and a half ago.

Warrant Article No. 2 is whether or not to use $575,000 from the Unassigned Fund Balance to complete upgrades at Memorial Park in 2020 and 2021.

If the Memorial Park funding vote sounds familiar to some residents, that’s because it is.

At the annual town meeting 2019, the majority of voters favored taking out a bond to pay for the remaining improvements at the Memorial Park. The amount of the bond that was approved by voters earlier this year is slightly less than $1 million, or precisely $954,515. Prior to that town meeting that already happened, the bond had been recommended by the Casco Finance Committee as a way to pay for the Memorial Park improvement.

After town meeting in June 2019, a new town manager took the helm.

One of the many things Casco Town Manager Courtney O’Donnell worked on was an alternate way to pay for Memorial Park renovations without taking out a bond thus saving the town the cost of interest as well as a debt on the books.

During a presentation in early November, O’Donnell said it was her professional opinion that bonding is a last resort. Bonding should be done for large projects that cannot be paid for through some other means, she said.

On the flip side of the coin, the town has a healthy Unassigned Fund Balance (UFB).

The UFB is sometimes referred to as the general fund. Essentially, it is a rainy-day fund that towns use for emergency purchases or large-ticket items.

It would be helpful to take the cost of this project from UFB because the town is not using a large amount of money all at once, O’Donnell said. Since the Memorial Park improvements would be done in stages and paid for in stages, the cost would be spread out so it would not impact the cash flow for the town, she said.

If residents at town meeting opted to pay for Memorial Park using the UFB, the project would not impact the mil rate either.

What is being presented to the voters at the upcoming special town meeting is a savings — $434,961 less than the bond that was approved six months ago.

“By not bonding, we could save close to $434,961 dollars,” O’Donnell said on Nov. 12.

“The amount of money saved by not bonding would be tens of thousands, if not a couple hundred thousand dollars, and the town wouldn’t be adding to our debt balance,” O’Donnell said in an email last week.

The bulk of the work would be completed this spring, summer and fall. Some of the improvements include: a new field behind the baseball field, field lighting, fencing, an irrigation system, landscaping, a gravel walking path and a parking lot with signage. 

The other thing that voters will consider on Tuesday, Warrant Article No. 3 — the purchase of a new ambulance — was discussed by Casco Fire Chief Brian Cole recently.

He provided the information during a meeting of the Casco Board of Selectmen on Nov. 26.

The department’s funding request of $305,000 will also utilize the Unassigned Fund Balance.

The chief said he is doing what he can to save the taxpayers money.

In order to offset the cost, the existing ambulance as a trade-in, Cole said.

“My goal is to keep it under $300,000. I can’t honestly give you that number because some of those are yet to be determined from manufactures,” Cole said.

Warrant Article No. 1 is to nominate a moderator.