$980K Capital Budget
Presented for Randolph
By M. D. Drysdale

A capital budget of $980.845 was approved by the Randolph selectboard last Thursday. After applying $200,000 of revenue from the Landfill Depreciation Fund, the budget would require tax support of $780,845, up from $705,116 last year.

The capital budget appropriates money for long-term projects.

The budget approved Thursday includes $515,486 to pay for debt service for past bonding, a figure which, according to Board Chair Jim Hutchinson, should be heading down in the next few years.

It also includes the next-to-final payment of $95,000 for the now-completed Chelsea road, the first payment on the town's share of the Main Street Bridge, and $64,000 for repairs of various town buildings.

At the same meeting the selectboard voted 5-0 to propose a $750,000 bond, to be repaid over 20 years, for code and efficiency requirements to bring historic Chandler Music Hall into its second century.

The bond, Hutchinson stressed, would not pay for the expansion planned for the next three years at the Music Hall and gallery.

"The things on this list are things the bulding needs to have done," he told The Herald. "The town owns the building, and these are things that should have been done over the years."

Building Upgrades

Upgrades include sprinklers and emergency lighting throughout, an additional exit from the balcony into the galley next door, accessibility upgrades including an elevator and front entry access, and reinforcement of the under-engineered floor above the gallery which greatly limits use of that room. Also included are badly needed additional restrooms.

The annual appropriation to pay off the bond would be about $55,000.

Over the last 35 years, the Chandler complex has been transformed from a dusty relic into one of Vermont's most vital cultural centers. Most of the upgrades have been paid for by programing, donations, and grants, but the Town has generally paid for the needs of the structure itself, and Hutchinson said this bond request is part of that same pattern.

The construction would not be accomplished—and the money would not be drawn—until probably 2009, he told the board. However, he said, bond approval is being requested for this year, so that the Chandler Center for the Arts, which holds a 20-year lease on the building, can make its own plans.

That organization plans to undertake an ambitious private fundraising drive to expand the building to take Col. Albert Chandler's 1907 gift into the second century.

Knowing that the town will agree to the needed upgrades of the existing building "help leverage other funds," Hutchinson said.

"Who knows how the public will perceive this?" commented Selectman Larry Townsend. That's just why the bond idea should go before the public, Hutchinson responded.

Caution Expressed

Townsend expressed caution about the fate of the capital budget itself, noting that it took three tries to pass town budgets last year.

"I would like to remind you that last year the capital budget was the hardest to pass," he said, "and now this 10% increase. It's going to be a hard sell—because it's a hard sell for me."

He voted in favor, however.

Increasingly the selectboard is establishing reverve funds for various town needs and appropriating money for those funds, rather than for various projects.

Thus, this year's proposed budget includes appropriations of $68,000 for the Highway Equipment Fund, $65,000 for the Paving Fund, $76,000 for the Fire Equipment Fund, and the suggestion to start a new fund for town buildings, into which $64,000 would be initially placed.

An early public hearing to provide information on all town budgets was set for Saturday, Jan. 13 at 1 p.m. probably at the Old Dorm Lounge at Vermont Technical College, to be confirmed next week.