Advisory Finance Committee hears municipal project updates, sewer moratorium and data requests

Liaison reports covered several ongoing municipal projects and policy developments. Committee members said the municipal building committee released an RFP (authorized by town meeting) to study the golf club; proposals are due at the end of May and a consultant selection is expected by June with work to be presented by mid‑September. Members also said the select board is negotiating OPM contracts for Bay State Commons and for dispatch‑center work at the Harvey Building, and that the regional dispatch partnership currently includes Grafton and Westborough.

On infrastructure, members discussed DPW’s recommendation for a sewer connection moratorium approved by the select board. Several members said the moratorium came as a surprise given consultants have been hired and data collection is underway; some expressed concern about the timing and said more information would be forthcoming after follow‑up meetings with plant representatives.

Finance updates: the town has hired a new town accountant expected to start in June, which members said should improve the town’s capacity to provide machine‑readable financial reports. Members reiterated the ARPA commitment timeline and said staff are pushing to close contingent ARPA awards by June–August to avoid losing funds.

Data and comparative metrics: the committee discussed dashboard towns used for peer comparisons and whether to adopt multiple dashboards (for schools, fire, overall tax levy) versus a single peer list. Members emphasized the need for consistent inputs (agreed indices, CPI or utility indexes) and suggested staff or a consultant prepare standardized data. Several members asked that appropriation and other reports be provided in Excel or machine‑readable formats to enable committee analysis rather than locked PDFs.

Votes and procedural business: the committee voted to approve minutes (with an edit to change one March 11 recorded abstention to a recusal), the motion passed unanimously, and the meeting adjourned.