Templeton advisory committee presses for clearer vehicle-cost rules after review of emergency fleet spending

Summary

Members questioned how maintenance and repurposed vehicles have been charged across departments, pressed emergency management director Richard Curtis and DPW representative Bob Sosek for details, and voted to ask the town administrator and select board to adopt a written policy on reuse/surplus of capital items.

Templeton advisory committee members spent more than an hour questioning how the town tracks and pays for vehicle maintenance and the repurposing of municipal vehicles, after a review of budget-versus-actuals flagged an invoice coded to Emergency Management.

Committee members asked Department of Public Works representatives and Emergency Management Director Richard Curtis to explain who is responsible for maintenance costs when vehicles move among departments and whether emergency management should have a standalone budget. Members repeatedly raised concerns about transparency and about apparent transfers of maintenance costs into the highway/DPW maintenance account.

The discussion matters because several department heads said they rely on a centralized vehicle-maintenance account managed in DPW, while advisory members said that repurposed police and other vehicles have added unanticipated maintenance pressure and obscured the full townwide cost. Committee members noted prior years’ budgets that showed small direct allocations to Emergency…

Templeton advisory committee presses for clearer vehicle-cost rules after review of emergency fleet spending

Summary

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