MARION — Marion Selectmen were presented with a record-number of important town projects this year, and might also face a record number of debt exclusions to finance those projects.

Capital Improvement Planning Committee chair Paul Naiman appeared with two other members to present 41 projects to the Board of Selectmen on March 5. He noted that many of the issues are infrastucture-based.

After receiving the list, the Selectmen sat down with Judy Mooney, the Town Finance Director, to go through where the funds for each project would come from.

Mooney explained that because of the unusual volume of projects and the importance of those projects the town would also propose four debt exclusions, an all-time high.

“For the first time we’re not going to have one, we’re going to have four. That’s huge,” Mooney said.

Two of the proposed debt exclusions have to do with the town’s broken trash truck. Voters will have the option to approve one or both options to fix the truck problem.

The first option is to outsource trash collection to an outside company, instead of having the Department of Public Works manage the process. A request for proposals is about to be issued on that option to get a sense for the cost.

The second option would be to buy another truck, an option that Selectmen found attractive because it would free up the trash collectors to work on other critical projects recently outlined in a report on the Department.

The truck would cost $323,094, with an additional $258,996 expense for parts for a total expense of $582,090. The town has the option to buy the truck without the parts if it wishes. 

Those sums could be paid over five years, or as a one-year tax increase, which would translate to an $134.86 tax increase on a $400,000 home.

Another debt-exclusion came from the the Tri-town Unified Recreational Facilities, a proposal to spend $2 million on repairs to  Old Rochester Regional High School’s athletic facilities and auditorium.

Mooney clarified that if this debt-exclusion passed it would likely be a 15 year borrowing period, and would be assessed under ORR’s budget.

The final debt-exclusion is for the wastewater lagoon treatment plan mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Bids for the project came in $2.1 million higher than Selectmen thought in February.

The Selectmen had explored a process called bid alternates, which offers a second price option. However the alternates were almost as high as the original cost. The process for using the alternates is also inflexible, and requires that the alternates be carried out in the order they were proposed. On items where the bid is higher than the original, this could be detrimental.

Other projects include a new ambulance, a backup emergency generator for the Police Department, a new fiber network for Sippican School and voting machine replacements, among others. 

These projects will form the Warrant articles for the upcoming Town Meeting. The Selectmen may have a pre-Town Meeting meeting with voters to further explain these and other issues.