By Richard Price
Grafton News Editor –
On Sunday night, Craig Dauphinais, Sargon Hanna and Ed Prisby — the three candidates running for two open Board of Selectmen seats — were the guests at Ask the Candidates, a question and answer forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Grafton. Here is an excerpt from the night. Much more was discussed, including sidewalks, Municipal Center oversight, and meeting minutes. As the night progressed, Dauphinais and Hanna said there could be times as Selectman where they might recuse themselves if an agenda item presents a conflict of interest with their investment properties. The full evening was taped by Grafton Community Television and is available on demand at graftontv.org.
Q: How will you as a Selectman approach funding and administrating a long-term solution to the town’s current building and capital needs?
Prisby: I think what we need to do is develop a long-term capital improvement plan. Presently we have department heads [who] will give the town administrator a list of their needs. The [Capital Improvement Planning Committee] will go through the criteria and then present that to the [Finance Committee]. We ought to assess our capital needs on a “risk of failure” basis. That way you can develop a logical, data driven assessment of what those capital needs are — more objective, less subjective. You may end up with the same end result and the same list of priorities, but you are fostering that good will with the public and you’re not funding something simply because someone wants it.
Dauphinais: I’m on the CIPC, a committee the Board of Selectmen put in place several years ago. One of the reasons [is] for transparency. The other reason, it is formed to listen to all the needs of the different departments. Then they bring that information back to the Selectmen and the town administrator. We have a five year plan that the CIPC uses. We funded, two years ago, 100 percent of the capital requests. This year, I think we funded 80 to 90 percent. It’s a committee that works really well, that vets all the information and makes hard decisions on what our priorities are. To me, the capital plan is working better than it has ever worked. Over all I think we are meeting the needs of all our departments.
Hanna: I’m also on the CIPC. We have five-year plans from every department. It’s around a million to a million and a half [dollars]. So we’re forced to deal with a lot. So many capital requests. It’s not because someone said we want this. We go through many meetings, many discussions, different vetting options until we come up with our list. It goes to the Selectmen, and how the town administrator will fund, it and then ultimately to Town Meeting. I like the way we do things now. I think I would need more information on how to agree on a new funding way.
Q: The town passed an override in 2014 to stabilize our schools and help with road repair. How do you plan to continue to insure stable funding for schools in future years as costs continue to rise and override money continues to level out?
Hanna: We have to talk to the school department. We would have to take a serious look at where we are as a town and where they are at [budget wise]. If they are not happy then we have to look at our options and see what we can do. But we can’t tax everybody every single time. We need to come up with better solutions.
Prisby: Grafton is running a structural deficit, [ordinary] expenses on a yearly basis [that] are outpacing our revenue. So, we need to attack it from two prongs. Number one, address the cost side and number two, address the income side. When the town administrator was presenting to the Finance Committee his opinion was, ‘Well, it is kind of an income problem. We need to develop over at Centech Park and build up our commercial base.’ I think that is part of it. [But] I think we need to identify cost riders. Eighty percent of our costs are salaries. We need to address whether those salaries are rising faster than our level of income. If so, what can we do to bring those down? I would also address health care. We did some good work on that but I think we can do better.
Dauphinais: There [are] a lot of pieces to that question. We’ll see where [the override] carries us. It can carry us a lot further because of the 5.25 [percent school budget increase assumption.] You have to consider within that 5.25 there is [the Prop. 2 ½ ] we bring in annually, so that lengthens the 5.25. I think the superintendent is comfortable with the funding levels. We’ll see what the future brings. Right now, the schools are getting about [$1.5 million] annually. The town gets $200,000. So the gap between town services increases and school increases is growing. We figured it out and we will continue to figure it out.
Prisby: I don’t think we have figured it out. It’s going to be a scary time in 2019 or 2020 when we really do run out of money. We can be creative but at the end of the day we are going to be going through this cycle of increases and [then] going to the town for money. At some point, people are going to be fatigued by that, both emotionally and financially. We need to get in front of that now and start to plan for the future.
Hanna: I don’t know a lot about the schools. One thing I do know is, speaking to the [town administrator] and [Superintendent] Cummings, it seems they have not come to the board or anyone else asking for more money. They seem content with the budget they have. The idea of it being scary, I don’t know.
Dauphinais: I’ve never heard that term [structural deficit] before. I know teacher salaries increase [annually] about $800,000 because most of their budget is labor. I think the state is looking at their formula, for which we get funding. Grafton is in this area where we don’t have all the commercial development but our per capita income is pretty good. The state funds only 30 to 35 percent of our school budget. In Northbridge it is 65 percent and that is because of where we are in that formula. In the meantime, half the increases are going toward teacher salaries or staff salaries. I think with the bump [the schools] got initially with the override, I think we’ll be in good shape for a while.
Q: What would you do to spur economic activity in Grafton?
Prisby: There are some things we can do. Number one, reach out to the Worcester Business Development Corporation. They have done a lot of work in Shrewsbury, developing Centech Park. It’s something we could do a bit more of. [Also], make it easier for businesses to get into town. I remember when I was on the Planning Board we gave Dunkin’ Donuts the hardest time about the size of their signs. It’s that sort of little thing.
Dauphinais: Our Economic Development Committee is important and needs to become more active with current businesses and welcome new businesses, help them get through the process. We have done a much better job with applicants who want to start a business, develop a piece of property and meet with all the department heads. The Discovery Drive piece — we have several people interested in that property. That’s going to be huge if it goes. The big thing is zoning. We have some areas of town where we have heavy residentially zoned areas that are not developed yet. We need to look at that to change it for [light office industrial] or commercial business owners. We need to get a committee that is serious about looking at that.
Hanna: I’ll foster economic development in the town. Adding more commercial, adding more industrial to this town is the first start. [The Economic Development Committee] is a huge partner. We are in constant communication with [developers.] Easing up the permitting process and speaking their language.
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