Full report with attachments can be obtained in the Town Manager's Office
SUSTAINABLE FUTURES COMMITTEE
PHASE TWO REPORT
Presented 1/08/07
To The
Kittery Town Council and School Committee
The Sustainable Futures Committee, since the release of the Phase One report in August 2006, has been meeting and testing the value and acceptance of undertaking change in the community with providing services. While not as complete as hoped, the committee strongly encourages the continuance of the Sustainable Futures Committee and its organizational expansion. The committee felt the hardest attainment to quantify and accomplish was collaboration and consensus and comprehension among the service providers and their leaders who could effect change. In other words, how do you break down the barriers that are preventing change to occur in our community and region?
The Sustainable Futures Committee is recommending to the Kittery Town Council and School Committee to commence a structured collaboration between and among the town and school departments and another between external municipal and regional agencies such as Portsmouth, Eliot, South Berwick and York, and school departments to examine the benefits and costs to provide services in an alternative or regional manner. The goal of the Sustainable process is to develop a process that will result in providing existing and future services and products in a more effective and efficient method with measurable outcomes while containing costs into the future.
The 2006 Phase One report outlined past, present and projected Kittery economic and social trends. It pointed out that those trends result in predictable increased budgetary outcomes that are not favorable to sustaining existing levels of services to our expanding community at acceptable increases to the property tax rate. The outcome, by keeping the status quo, will result incrementally in a reduction of services and products the town government can supply to its citizens at a perceived affordable cost. Outside pressures for property tax reduction or containment while growing our tax base with new valuation, but not new taxes, is a real challenge for all communities. Kittery must meet this challenge head on and start the process of change and planning. It must have the tools, make the investments and
have the willingness and fortitude to undertake a structural change in how the government provides services to its citizens. Leadership will be the key component in the process that must be acceptable to the voters.
To implement this recommendation the Sustainable Futures Committee suggests the following:
1) The Town Council and School Committee and their executive staffs meet in a facilitated meeting to discuss the opportunities and challenges of providing services with fewer resources and in a collaborative format.
Time Sequence: January /February 2007.
Outcomes: Development of a report outlining specific programs and service areas to be further analyzed as ways to enhance the service or program through alternative means and managed cost.
2) Implementation of a community process to guide Kittery’s transition into a sustainable future. Comprehensive in scope and simple in design, this process uses “open space technology”, a series of follow up community dialogues, a period of on-line public input, and prioritization of Kittery’s identified alternatives.
Time sequence: April – June 2007.
Outcomes:
A. Understanding of the economic, political, and social forces that are driving Kittery’s transformation of delivery of services and products; and
B. Consensus of a plan to provide current and future services and products while containing future costs.
3) Schedule, advocate and participate in meetings and research with surrounding communities and agencies regional strategies to provide services and programs.
Part B: Examples of service and program areas for discussion and analysis that may lead to greater efficiencies and contained costs.
Town Departments
Public Works :
· Joint purchase of equipment and materials with surrounding Towns.
· Use of volunteers to inspect and participate in Stormwater environmental programs and projects.
· Revive the “Adopt a Road Project”
· Impact fee use for new infrastructure (ie. Sidewalks and lighting)
· Contract out snow plowing routes as more roads returned to the town by the State.
· Examine with neighboring towns combine project work such as road work to reduce cost and gain efficiencies.
Solid Waste Facility:
· Combining Eliot and Kittery into one Center
· Outsourcing the operation to a private firm
· Enhancing and reviving the recycling program
Municipal and School Department Service Collaboration:
· Increase registration and payment services and programs on line
· Outsource services such as building maintenance and landscaping into one contract
· Develop a town-wide IT plan for both School and Town
· Centralize grant writer for the Town
· Merge the two finance offices (Town and school) into one
· Examine the development of a Community Services Department that would house the following under one department head:
1) Recreation
2) Adult Ed
3) School Athletics Program
4) Field management
5) Cable TV –INET
6) Lifelong learning center – Community College –online & classroom
· Examine one central facility manager and Safety/Training Compliance Officer for the Town
· Examine one HR & Wellness Director for the town.
· Central Purchasing
· Central Town Answering Point for information and call transfer– 311 system
· Centralize volunteer recruitment and training program
· Central environmental enforcement, training and education programs
· Central Communication HUB- web and cable
·
Town & Regional Services:
· Provide more online pay for services
· Examine regional service providing for Assessing, CEO and Planning
· Examine setting up regional backroom office programs for financial investment with other communities.
· Outsource General Assistance to the York County Community Action Agency
· Investigate going to a paperless office environment
· Investigate regional public investment programs with surrounding communities
· Examine alternative energy projects
· Regional Industrial Park Development
· Research and development of Impact Fees for recreational and infrastructure needs.
· Advocate for regional transportation solutions that lessen the dependency on automobiles.
Public Safety:
· Dispatch Services- PSAP regionalize with York Dispatch and then gradually for dispatch with York, Ogunquit, Eliot, South Berwick and Berwick.
· Police agency training and manpower sharing
· Police & Fire joint purchasing of supplies and equipment
· Police and Fire Department regional specializing among department vs in each department,
· Regional Standard SOPs for Fire Departments
Sewer Department:
· Expansion of capacity to derive income
School Department:
· Determining the feasibility for alternative delivery methods for custodial, maintenance and food services;
· Exploring regional collaboration for delivery of courses/ classes for students;
· Examining current class sizes and pupil/teacher ratios;
· Exploring alternative configurations within the Kittery School Department, and with area school districts, for delivery of administrative services, special education services, and curriculum/staff development services;
· Determining the most efficient current and anticipated use of Kittery’s 4 schools.
Part C: Facilities
Facility Name |
Sq. Ft & Use |
Condition and Capacity |
Municipal Complex |
24,726 Sq. Ft. a) Municipal= 10,238 Sq. Ft b) 3,901 Sq. Ft. c) Police =10,587 Sq. Ft. 2nd Fl. Available Expansion=10,000 Sq. Ft. |
1998 Construction. Funds available in a reserve account for an elevation and ADA 2nd Fl. Restroom when expansion required. / HVAC is undersized. |
Public Works Garage |
7,300 Sq. Ft |
Good to fair |
Naval Museum Building |
Est. 2,498 Sq. Ft |
Used by Historical Society |
Solid Waste Facility |
Several Large building for specialize processing and use |
Good to fair conditions |
Sanitary Plant & Pump Stations |
1 Plant and 21 Pump Stations |
Re-licensed in 2006 by the State DEP. CIP improvements in 2007. |
Recreation Center |
5,796 Sq. Ft |
Poor Condition |
Field House-Memorial Field |
5,840 Total Sq. Ft. – unfinished attic =2,830 Sq. Ft. |
Good Condition |
Harbor Facility-Govt. St |
Pier and unloading area |
|
Bellamy Lane Town Wharf & Harbor Master Facility |
Parking Lot, 2 piers, boat launch and Small Office & Restroom Area |
|
Traip Boat Launch |
Part of the Traip lot. |
To be rehabilitated and improved in 2007 |
Walker St. Fire Station |
4,875 Sq. Ft. |
To be leased to AMR |
Gorges Rd. Fire Station |
11,000 Sq. Ft. Specialize use with Community Rm. |
2007 to be Occupied |
Kittery Point Fire Station |
3,915 Sq.Ft |
2007 to be Occupied Specialize use with Community Rm. |
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Seapoint & Crescent Beaches |
|
Beach & Parking lot areas |
Rogers Park |
|
Parking area and trails |
Town Farm |
|
Sm. Parking lot area and trails |
Fort Foster |
89 Acres |
Parking lot areas, beach, playground, 2 pavilions, trails Restrooms. |
Mitchell School |
50,690 Sq.Ft.; grades K-2 |
Good condition. Some space available. |
Frisbee Elementary School |
49,558 Sq.Ft.; grades 3-5 |
Slate roof and many windows need to be replaced, some exterior brick and concrete repairs are needed, some interior work needed; new boiler in place 2005. Some space available. |
Shapleigh School |
70,103 Sq.Ft.; grades 6-9 |
Good condition. Some space available. |
Traip Academy |
91,136 Sq.Ft.; grades 9-12 |
Good condition.** |
Safford School House |
2,240 Sq Ft-2fls (unfin attic) |
Vacant-RFP process for its use expected in 2007 |
** A professional survey of the condition of the school facilities was completed in 2004. Entitled the VFA REPORT, this survey is available at the Superintendent’s Office.
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