BOF Delays Action on $106K Highway Dept. Garage Door Request, Citing Incomplete Documentation

At a special meeting called on Tuesday, Sept. 15 to consider two separate spending requests from the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance approved funding for a $350,000 federal road safety study but postponed action on an ask from the Department of Public Works for $106,000 to replace garage doors at the Highway Department building.

The BOF members generally agreed that the aging doors need attention but they also said that the Board of Selectmen had failed to provide them with adequate information on the project and didn’t include a written record of the selectmen’s actions on the accompanying request form.

“The form’s not fully filled out,” BOF Chair Tim Birch said. “The ‘Board of Selectmen Action’ at the bottom of the page and the explanation of it and when additional bids were going to be requested, isn’t fully filled out.”

“So I don’t know how we — or why — we would approve something that’s not completed,” Birch added. “I just don’t like filling out stuff that’s sort of half-done.”

Wilton’s new Capital and Non-Recurring Expenditures Fund (CNREF) was created to pay for one-time, non-operating and nonrecurring capital projects. Although CNREF policy does not expressly require every field on the request form to be fully filled out, it does require that the Board of Selectmen must approve project requests first before the Board of Finance can authorize an appropriation from the fund.

The CNREF Project Funding Request form submitted for the garage door project contained no information in the section entitled “Board of Selectmen Action” documenting the BOS approval at a special meeting on Sept. 11. There was also no information provided for a section on the CNREF Financial Overview listing the fund’s current balance and what the projected balance would be if the project in question were to be funded.

In the recent past the BOF has struggled to receive up-to-date and timely financial information from the BOS and Town Hall on a range of items.

“My suggestion is that we let the Board of Selectmen know that when it’s fully filled out we’re more than willing to have the conversation around the proposal,” Birch said.

The 12-page funding request submitted by the BOS mainly consisted of a 10-page proposal from a vendor called Overhead Door Company of Brookfield (ODC of Brookfield), pricing the work and material at $90,723.75 for nine garage doors, with 10% contingency and a 6% “2027 escalation” amount bringing the total request for the work to $106,000.

The only project description given reads, “The overhead doors for the Highway Garage may be original to the building and break down frequently requiring constant maintenance and should be replaced. If approved, the replacement of the doors will need to be advertised for bid.”

“Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels a little early for us to be considering this, right?” BOF member Kim Healy said, “if it’s going to go to bid, things could change drastically between now and then.”

“My understanding is that we approved ready-to-go projects,” she said.

Jeff Pardo, interim director of the Department of Public Works, said that the proposal was needed before they could go out to bid.

“Very often, we may get a quote from a contractor or we’ll develop an estimate through an engineer,” Pardo said, “and then once we know how much money we need, then we can put the request in, and then if the money is approved, then we’ll put the bid package out.”

BOF member Kari Roberts questioned why the proposal would come in at exactly what was estimated in the February 2024 Facility Condition Assessment report from Marx Okubo Associates.

“Are we telling people what the budget amount is, and then looking for bids, or what?” Roberts said. “I’m curious why the bid from Overhead Door Company came in the same as a number we were given almost three years ago. I didn’t quite understand that.”

Pardo ultimately said it was just a coincidence, and that some numbers will come in higher or lower.

“The actual number that came in happened to be very close and that’s to the benefit of the town,” Pardo said.

Roberts and others also questioned whether all nine doors needed to be replaced at once, versus staggered over several years, as the report had suggested.

“It’s a cost savings to do all of the doors now … I think it’s just a ticking time bomb before the other doors start breaking down, so I think it behooves us to do all the doors now,” Pardo said, noting that there was “thousands and thousands of dollars” worth of equipment housed at the garage.

The proposal said the project is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

The BOS will now have to revisit the request and can choose to provide the additional information to the BOF.

Officials didn’t specify which Town Department was responsible for completing the form — the First Selectman’s office, DPW or Finance Department.

Grant Approved

The BOF, meanwhile, approved funding of the “Safe Streets” grant from the Charter Reserve fund with little fanfare after some procedural and timeline issues forced the matter to be expedited, prompting Tuesday’s Special Meeting.

The town is now eligible to spend $350,000 to hire a consultant to do a study and create a plan of how to make certain streets and intersections safer for drivers and pedestrians, with up to $270,000 expected to be reimbursed if all goes according to plan.

The town could potentially get other grant money if it then chose to execute some of the recommendations in that plan to help in that cost.

“How do we ensure that we’ll get reimbursed?” BOF member Eric Fanwick said of the new grant.

Birch responded, “If you follow the contract, we’ll get reimbursed.”

Police Deputy Chief Rob Cipolla said that he is the one who will be responsible for seeing that the project is managed according to the grant specifications.