Irvington Alerts
From the Mayor’s Desk…October 7, 2024
In response to recent inquiries, I am devoting this newsletter to an overview of the Village’s capital budget, including the process, grants, project management and the Facilities Planning Committee function.
Capital Budget Process
Capital Budget. Each year the Village adopts an operating and a capital budget. In general, the operating budget covers current fiscal year expenses and the capital budget covers the acquisition, construction and improvement of assets with long useful lives. Long-term borrowing to acquire a capital asset (like a building) insures those who benefit from the asset over its useful life (current and future Irvington tax payers) are responsible for paying the borrowing costs. To use a consumer analogy, operating expenses are the cost of groceries and capital expenditures are the down payment and financing costs for a home. The 2024-25 capital budget can be found on the Village web site. When presenting an itemized capital budget for Board approval Village Staff details the impact on future operating budgets of principal and interest required to be paid for each item, as well as projected capital expenditures for future years. Those enable the Board to understand the consequences of adopting the proposed capital budget, or rejecting or deferring items to a future year.
Capital Grants. In order reduce capital budget borrowings, Village Staff has successfully applied for grants from federal, NY State and local sources. Grants awarded to the Village from 2021 to 2024 to date total approximately $6,200,000, with another approximately $900,000 in grants awaiting certain approvals from Westchester County. These grants help defray, among other things, the expense of replacing large culverts under Broadway, installing more efficient and environmentally friendly air-conditioning and heating, acquiring electric vehicles, installing electric vehicle chargers, rebuilding roads and curbs, conducting various zoning and engineering studies and a food scraps recycling collection study. Our Village Staff and consultant grant writer deserve our appreciation for their impactful efforts.
Capital Project Management and the Village Hall Theater. Approved capital budget projects are subject to competitive bidding with limited exceptions, which include professional services, emergencies and small-scale items. All bids are opened and read publicly and the winning contractor and bid price are disclosed at Village Board meetings. Aspects of the work of the contractor are reviewed by the relevant Village Staff members and, as required, an independent engineering firm retained by the Village. It is Village policy that payments over $25,000 by the Village are disclosed at Village Board meetings and payments by the Village are reviewed by the relevant Village Staff member as well as the Village Clerk-Treasurer and Mayor.
Since the Board has received questions about the status of the Village Hall Theater capital project, which was a large scale and complicated undertaking, I am providing some details. When the Village Hall Theater was shuttered during Covid it was an opportunity to install heating, ventilation and air conditioning so the theater could be used year-round. Early in the process grants of $650,000 were obtained from NY State. An HVAC proposal was sought from a third-party engineering firm, but the estimated cost and impact on the historic building of the proposal was deemed unacceptable. The Village elected to install a system of energy efficient heat pumps and manage the construction process through Village Staff (at no additional cost). During the construction process the Village also took the opportunity to perform interior ceiling repairs (efficiently using scaffolding in place for HVAC work), safety improvements and previously deferred maintenance. In the capital budgets of several prior years the Village included a total of $1,750,000 for theater HVAC installation and $204,000 for theater safety and deferred maintenance work. The Village expects that the HVAC system, ceiling repairs and safety and deferred maintenance work will be completed later this month at a total estimated cost equal to or slightly less than the amounts budgeted. (Unused capital budget allocations are generally returned to the Village’s debt service fund to offset borrowing costs.) Although this was an expensive and complicated project due in part to the age and historic nature of the building, the need to minimize the HVAC’s acoustic impact in the theater and the requirement that Village Hall remain open during construction, I believe Village Staff executed the project as cost effectively as possible and I look forward to the planned reopening of Irvington’s grand theater in November.
Facilities Planning Committee. My September 26, 2024 newsletter described the efforts of the FPC to date. The FPC has the potential to play an important role in future capital budgets by helping the Village create a long-term (likely decades) capital plan for the construction of remodeled or new facilities for its departments as needed. Future capital budgets will reflect borrowings incurred and/or grants received implementing the facilities capital plan. The FPC is scheduled to present its project brief (proposed scope of work) at the Village Board’s October 7 meeting.
I hope this overview is useful to you. If you have further questions about the capital budget process or particular expenditures, please email me. I also encourage you to attend future meetings and public hearings for the operating and capital budgets when they occur in the first half of next year.
Regards,
Jon Siegel, Mayor
jsiegel@irvingtonny.gov
Capital Budget Process
Capital Budget. Each year the Village adopts an operating and a capital budget. In general, the operating budget covers current fiscal year expenses and the capital budget covers the acquisition, construction and improvement of assets with long useful lives. Long-term borrowing to acquire a capital asset (like a building) insures those who benefit from the asset over its useful life (current and future Irvington tax payers) are responsible for paying the borrowing costs. To use a consumer analogy, operating expenses are the cost of groceries and capital expenditures are the down payment and financing costs for a home. The 2024-25 capital budget can be found on the Village web site. When presenting an itemized capital budget for Board approval Village Staff details the impact on future operating budgets of principal and interest required to be paid for each item, as well as projected capital expenditures for future years. Those enable the Board to understand the consequences of adopting the proposed capital budget, or rejecting or deferring items to a future year.
Capital Grants. In order reduce capital budget borrowings, Village Staff has successfully applied for grants from federal, NY State and local sources. Grants awarded to the Village from 2021 to 2024 to date total approximately $6,200,000, with another approximately $900,000 in grants awaiting certain approvals from Westchester County. These grants help defray, among other things, the expense of replacing large culverts under Broadway, installing more efficient and environmentally friendly air-conditioning and heating, acquiring electric vehicles, installing electric vehicle chargers, rebuilding roads and curbs, conducting various zoning and engineering studies and a food scraps recycling collection study. Our Village Staff and consultant grant writer deserve our appreciation for their impactful efforts.
Capital Project Management and the Village Hall Theater. Approved capital budget projects are subject to competitive bidding with limited exceptions, which include professional services, emergencies and small-scale items. All bids are opened and read publicly and the winning contractor and bid price are disclosed at Village Board meetings. Aspects of the work of the contractor are reviewed by the relevant Village Staff members and, as required, an independent engineering firm retained by the Village. It is Village policy that payments over $25,000 by the Village are disclosed at Village Board meetings and payments by the Village are reviewed by the relevant Village Staff member as well as the Village Clerk-Treasurer and Mayor.
Since the Board has received questions about the status of the Village Hall Theater capital project, which was a large scale and complicated undertaking, I am providing some details. When the Village Hall Theater was shuttered during Covid it was an opportunity to install heating, ventilation and air conditioning so the theater could be used year-round. Early in the process grants of $650,000 were obtained from NY State. An HVAC proposal was sought from a third-party engineering firm, but the estimated cost and impact on the historic building of the proposal was deemed unacceptable. The Village elected to install a system of energy efficient heat pumps and manage the construction process through Village Staff (at no additional cost). During the construction process the Village also took the opportunity to perform interior ceiling repairs (efficiently using scaffolding in place for HVAC work), safety improvements and previously deferred maintenance. In the capital budgets of several prior years the Village included a total of $1,750,000 for theater HVAC installation and $204,000 for theater safety and deferred maintenance work. The Village expects that the HVAC system, ceiling repairs and safety and deferred maintenance work will be completed later this month at a total estimated cost equal to or slightly less than the amounts budgeted. (Unused capital budget allocations are generally returned to the Village’s debt service fund to offset borrowing costs.) Although this was an expensive and complicated project due in part to the age and historic nature of the building, the need to minimize the HVAC’s acoustic impact in the theater and the requirement that Village Hall remain open during construction, I believe Village Staff executed the project as cost effectively as possible and I look forward to the planned reopening of Irvington’s grand theater in November.
Facilities Planning Committee. My September 26, 2024 newsletter described the efforts of the FPC to date. The FPC has the potential to play an important role in future capital budgets by helping the Village create a long-term (likely decades) capital plan for the construction of remodeled or new facilities for its departments as needed. Future capital budgets will reflect borrowings incurred and/or grants received implementing the facilities capital plan. The FPC is scheduled to present its project brief (proposed scope of work) at the Village Board’s October 7 meeting.
I hope this overview is useful to you. If you have further questions about the capital budget process or particular expenditures, please email me. I also encourage you to attend future meetings and public hearings for the operating and capital budgets when they occur in the first half of next year.
Regards,
Jon Siegel, Mayor
jsiegel@irvingtonny.gov