[MassHistPres] CPC funds prevailing wage and volunteers on town owned building

Tue Apr 19 14:50:56 EDT 2016

All,

My understanding is that several communities are using either vocational/technical schools and/or the sheriff's offices for free labor for various projects.
With free labor, this avoids the need to bid out the project as the price comes below the 30B triggers.  A friend of mine who is a town administrator just got their town hall scraped and painted by using inmates from the Sheriff's office community service program.  He had the painted donated by Sherwin Williams, bought the inmates lunch and snacks and the town hall was painted for under $10k. (He had bid the project earlier and it was almost $70k, which was over his budget, so he couldn't award it.)

I would be interested in understanding whether, for CPA purposes, painting is considered "maintenance" or a capital improvement.  Given the cost of painting a building these days, it hardly seems like its  regular maintenance.
Also, it would appear that the argument could be made that the building is being further protected by a good paint job, perhaps qualifying it as a capital expense.  I can see both sides.

I am hoping to be working with North Benett Street School on a farm house analysis and repairs to an early 1800s corn crib/seed shed.  To date they have been very receptive to the project so I'm hoping that the project can be lined up so that it works out schedule-wise and educationally for all the students.

Thanks and I would be interested to hear if a major exterior painting of a house is maintenance or a capital improvement.

Betsy Ware

Director of Community Development
Town of Dracut, MA.
978-453-4557

-----Original Message-----
From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu [mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of Dennis Sears
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 1:13 PM
To: 'Roughan, Michael' <Michael.Roughan at hdrinc.com>; 'sally urbano' <urbanosally at yahoo.com>; 'MA Historic Preservation' <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] CPC funds prevailing wage and volunteers on town owned building

Michael, are you telling me the Town defines "painting" as maintenance?  I'm not sure about Mass, but in most cases and I think the Feds, "painting" when you are doing it as a restoration or to increase the value of property and the amount is beyond what most people would consider "touch up"; ie those nicks in the paint along side of the stairs where you carried things in and out, would consider this a "capital" item that could and should be covered under CPA.  I'd be interested in getting an answer in case we ever run into this in our Town.  Dennis Sears, Chair Town of Sheffield Historical Commission.  

-----Original Message-----
From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of Roughan, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 9:50 AM
To: sally urbano <urbanosally at yahoo.com>; MA Historic Preservation <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] CPC funds prevailing wage and volunteers on town owned building

Sally,

As previously stated on this group listserv, Hopkinton is struggling with the same issues you are. Since the "official" town interpretation is we can't use CPA funds for maintenance, we've asked the town to paint the exterior of one of the historic homes (McFarland Sanger) while we secure additional CPA funds to reconstruct the front (south) side from sill to roof. Unfortunately, once the funds are secured we will have to bid the work out, but we are hopeful that we can work with a North Bennett St School / Keefe Tech to have the work done by a faculty / student program. The only dilemma is you need the funds secured first and the group needs to have the availability.

The HHC's intent is to restore the house to the point where it can serve beneficial use but we have not yet secured a tenant and may end up selling it with a deed restriction. This is something we recently did with a historic farmstead (Elmwood Farms) and the owner is doing a fabulous job of restoration of both the house and barn. As you know, your challenge will be, once you've renovated the schoolhouse, how do you maintain it?

As for the volunteer approach, we have another historic building (Train
Depot) that has been kept up primarily by volunteer labor from the HHC so we are cautious about taking on too many volunteer projects.

....Mike

Michael Roughan, AIA, EDAC, LEED AP

D +1.617.357.7725 M +1.617.784.6463

-----Original Message-----
From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of sally urbano
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:02 AM
To: MA Historic Preservation
Subject: [MassHistPres] CPC funds prevailing wage and volunteers on town owned building

When i need help i have always found members of this group to be generous with their time.
        Our volunteer group applied and received CPC support for the rehab and reuse of a Historic schoolhouse 1871.  There has been an incredible amount of obstacles thrown in our path.
CPC wanted us to Have oversight through the town and apply for a smaller amount of money, which we did . We then applied for a matching grant.(outcome not yet known) The finance committee feels we haven't asked for enough money and because the town owns the building expects that we should bid out for prevailing wage. We leveraged the CPC  money and were going to use the sheriffs program as well as the local Tech School. Not together of course.
We are being held to standards others are not as the library several years ago used the Sheriffs program and the town hall had them do some painting.
      This scenario is similar to an orphaned historic building that sat for years unpainted. CPC said it was maintenance to paint,  the town didn't have the money and so it sat until a volunteer group painted it.
      I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter,
  Thank You,

Sally Urbano      Volunteer group
Harwich,mass
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