ESCO, Take Two

Last year, voters rejected an ambitious proposal to put $4.3 million toward energy savings projects in various buildings in town as part of an ESCO project to increase energy efficiency. The Finance Committee voted against it, and voters sided with them. It was a tie vote of 96-96, and it needed a two-thirds majority.

Now, a modified ESCO plan -- Article 19 on the warrant -- will be put before voters at Town Meeting. It's more than $300,000 less expensive than the previous plan and is set to be paid off in less time, with projected energy savings.

Ameresco is the energy services company that produced the energy audit for the town, calling for a wide variety of energy improvement projects, including school air unit replacements, weatherization, lighting changes, pipe insulation, boiler and furnace replacement and more.

Town Manager Andrew Maylor is confident it will be approved at Town Meeting this year, with some changes and the approval of the Finance Committee.

"After Town Meeting, a big part of the discussions about Town Meeting was the fact that the Finance Committee did not vote fav action and that was largely due to the fact that was that this was a fairly complicated topic and they hadn't had the time to go through all the documentation and ask all the questions that they wanted to," Maylor said.

So in the fall, the Finance Committee held five meetings to discuss the ESCO projects with Maylor and the School Department.

The discussions -- or negotiations -- led to the ESCO plan being modified. About $300,000 worth of projects were cut from it, which reduced the payback period to 10 years instead of 15.

Maylor said the plan would benefit the town financially because it would take care of a decade of deferred maintenance projects and would pay for itself with energy savings.