By BOB MARTIN
Eagle Times Staff
NEWPORT, N.H. — The Newport Fire Department’s boiler failed this week and on Thursday night the selectboard voted to approve the use of Municipal Per Unit (MPU) Grant Funding to replace it for an estimated cost of $50,000.
“We had a catastrophic failure of the firehouse boiler that requires an emergency replacement, not an option but a must do,” said Selectboard Chair Jim Burroughs.
Town Manager Kyle Harris explained that the malfunction occurred in the overnight hours of Tuesday into Wednesday, and said it was a “complete failure.” Fire Chief Steve Yannuzzi texted him Wednesday morning about it, and there was already a crew on-site to evaluate and prepare for a replacement.
Harris said the basement was flooded and the boiler was beyond repair. He added that if this was another town building there would be flexibility, but the firehouse requires the boiler to be working at full speed. He said they cannot risk fire engine pumps freezing and the ambulances need to be kept at 62 degrees.
“So, we had we had no choice,” Harris said. “It was an emergency repair authorized yesterday, and it should be a significant cost.”
Harris said a temporary heating rental with kerosene was being used in the interim to blow heat through a duct to keep the building at a suitable temperature. Harris said the building was in the low 50s before the heater got hooked up, but they were able to get it back up to 62 degrees.
Burroughs questioned whether there were any “rainy day funds” to cover this as they are in a default budget, and said $50,000 is a “pretty big pill to swallow.” Harris made a recommendation of establishing another capital reserve fund and put together a warrant article to set aside “maybe $5,000 a year” for repairs.
“Five thousand dollars per year doesn’t go very far, but 10 years worth; we have enough for a repair of this nature,” Harris said.
Malfunctions can happen to equipment at any time, and Harris told the board that this boiler was not even on their radar to be repaired as it was installed in 2000.
Harris said the town got the MPU for the Spring Street apartment building, for $10,000 per unit. The town received $1.1 million and using $50,000 for the boiler will still leave ample money. He has plans to go to the board to request using the funds for future server replacements.
“I still want to keep a good portion of that money for potential grants that come up down the road,” Harris said. “Also, until we get some of those capital reserve funds built up, I think it’s really important that we keep some of this money for these issues.”
Burroughs said that it has been said to “use one-time money for one-time things,” and while this isn’t exactly that, it is an emergency scenario that it should be used for. He asked Harris what would happen if these funds were not used, and the answer was dire.
“We would have gone through the budget line by line, looked at some of the open positions,” Harris said. “We would have found some money and moved things over. We’d find purchases that haven’t been made this year. All departments would be put under a spending freeze. We’d have a hiring freeze. We would potentially have a reduction in work hours.”
Burroughs replied, “That was my point for asking that question,” and then made a motion to approve the use of the MPU. The board voted in favor unanimously, 5-0.
Harris said the town would be installing the new blower on Friday afternoon.
“Hopefully we get 25 to 30, 40 years out of this new one,” Harris said.
