About Us

The Planning Board is authorized by the local legislative body (town meeting) to prepare and amend a recommended program of municipal capital improvements. To help accomplish this, Planning Board appoints a subcommittee known as the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Advisory Committee to develop the recommendations. The CIP Advisory Committee annually reviews capital needs and recommends a schedule of Capital Improvements in the context of a ten year period. The Committee's recommendations are presented to Planning Board for public hearing and consideration. The Planning Board forwards its recommendations to the Town Manager and Board of Selectmen for their consideration of the annual budget. There are several benefits to having a Capital Improvement Program:

• The Capital Improvement Program provides an important link between broadly stated planning goals and specific capital appropriation requests.
• The CIP process is an initial vetting and balancing of identified capital needs conducted by citizen volunteers.
• The CIP process encourages cooperative project planning.
• Major capital projects are forecasted within a flexible framework designed to distribute the tax burden attributable to capital expenditures over time thereby contributing to a stable tax rate.
• The CIP process helps make voters aware of proposed improvements that may be of particular interest and about major proposals that will likely come before future town or school district meetings.