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On Tuesday the Select Board hosted representatives from the Energy and Sustainability Committee for an update on their revised mission statement, and their ongoing activities. While the mission statement was the main event, a discussion about using the Solar Energy Revolving Fund proved more consequential to the future role and work of the Energy and Sustainability Committee.
Town Manager Andy Sheehan said the Town wants to talk about using part of the fund to offset rising electric costs. The committee’s new chair, Olga Faktorovich Allen, argued that doing so would mean the fund was “basically cannibalizing itself.”
The question came up as the committee asked the board to endorse its first mission statement update since the committee was created in 2009. One new item would have the committee “steward” the revolving fund and review its receipts, spending and balance at least every six months.
Chair Janie Dretler asked whether Town administrators were comfortable with that language. Sheehan said the Town is becoming more electrified, including at the new Fairbank Community Center. “Even though we’re more efficient,” he said, “we’re running higher electric bills than I think we were in the past.”
The idea of using the funds for utility bills has come up at the Town Manager’s Budget Working Group in recent months, but not yet with the Energy and Sustainability Committee or the full Select Board. Sheehan noted more solar is coming, at sites including the Fairbank Community Center, Haskell Field and the Police Station.
Faktorovich Allen said the committee has spent the past six to eight months drafting criteria for spending the fund. They weigh alignment with the mission, emissions avoided, return on investment and whether a project draws grants or matching money. Using the fund for utility bills would deplete it, she said, while efficiency projects that pay back would grow it.
Board member Dan Carty disagreed. He pointed to the Town bylaw that governs the fund, which lists among its purposes the “payment of Town electrical costs.” Spending, he said, falls under the Town’s facilities director, not the committee.
Carty voiced concern about hearing the Town discuss the idea as if it needed permission from the committee.
Faktorovich Allen agreed the use is allowed under the bylaw. But she said the committee has a decade-long record of investing the money for a return, in partnership with the facilities director. She asked the board to endorse that approach going forward.
While the fund hasn’t been used for electric bills, it has been used for other operating and capital costs. Energy and Sustainability Committee Vice Chair Venk Gopal cited electric-vehicle programs and funding for the Town’s sustainability coordinator position as uses of the fund that covered Town costs already. Faktorovich Allen added capital projects like lighting retrofits at the Goodnow Library and upgraded windows at the community center. Sheehan confirmed that the committee has helped fund the sustainability coordinator position over the years.
The committee offered to return with an itemized list of projects the fund has paid for, potentially with further return-on-investment analysis.
The exchange left open who stewards the fund. The bylaw that voters approved names the facilities director as the official authorized to spend it. In practice, the Energy and Sustainability Committee has guided how the money is used for more than a decade, and Town officials have generally deferred to its recommendations.
Select Board member Lisa Kouchakdjian said she did not see a major conflict. She urged the committee to meet with Town administrators to resolve the issue. “All of these things are solvable,” she said.
The board took no vote. Dretler asked the committee to revise its mission statement based on members’ comments and return to a future meeting.
