T O W N O F M IL T O N

Even given the challenges of limited funding and staffing, the DPW hascontinued to strive to provide the necessary services that residents have becomeaccustomed to. However, the DPW continues fall short in meeting the challengesof maintaining the town’s equipment, a fully functioning roadway network,a clean and safe drinking water system and an efficient sewer collectionsystem. It is bad enough not exceeding the public’s expectation for service; itis worse to defer capital investment, year after year, on vital and valuable municipalsystems like water, sewer, and roadways. But, due to financial sensitivities,for very many years, that is exactly what is happing here in Milton.Deferring investment in critical infrastructure systems only accelerates furtherdeterioration in the systems, which makes their eventual failure or replacementonly that much more catastrophic and costly in the future.To its credit the townspeople, however, for the past five years, have graciouslybegun to soften the impact by regularly funding capital improvementswithin the water, sewer, and stormwater systems. However, no such capital investmenthas been established for the roadway network, one of the most valuable“infrastructure asset” that the town owns.A particular focus of FY12’s capital planning effort will be to undertake aPavement Management System approach of studying the status of the roadwayinfrastructure. A Pavement Management System approach evaluates the conditionof every section of every roadway and analytically projects pavementlife, maintenance/repair/reconstruction methods and costs, on a life-cycle basis.The end result establishes what the recurring capital investment needs to be inorder to maintain (neither gain upon nor lose ground on) the overall roadwaysystem condition. This is a vital financial planning tool that will quantify (whatanecdotally has been known to be) to what extent Milton’s roadway systems isdeteriorating.The environmental climate during FY11 was wetter, warmer, and snowierthan most typical years for our town.Eight months of the year were considerably wetter than the average forthose months; the other four months were slightly drier than the average. August2010 was the sixth wettest August on record. Overall the FY11 time periodwas the 6th wettest 12 month period on record. A total of 53.96 inches ofprecipitation fell, 6.03 inches (or 10%) more than a normal year.The winter season of 2010 – 2011 was the third snowiest season on record.January 2011 was the second snowiest January on record. Overall the totalamount of snow that fell during the 2010 – 2011 winter season was very significant;nearly three times the norm, with 96.8 inches of total snow. This seasonproduced 60.1 inches (OVER FIVE FEET) more snow than normal.140