A Wednesday, October 12 public hearing held by the Finance Committee to give residents the opportunity to ask questions about the various financial items on tap for Town Meeting had the committee fielding several questions about the big purchases voters will be asked to approve.

The first item on the Town Meeting agenda asks voters to approve the purchase or lease of nine "capital" items - assets such as land, buildings, and equipment which are predicted to have a life of many years.

On the list are purchases of 40 defibrillators, a generator, and a parking meter system for Wareham Police; Leases for a prisoner transport vehicle and a four-wheel drive vehicle for the police; Funding for an ambulance rebuild for Emergency Medical Services; A three-year lease of seven school buses.

If approved at Town Meeting this month, the purchases/leases would be allocated in Town Administrator Mark Andrews' fiscal year 2013 budget, which he will submit to various town entities in December and which voters will need to approve at Town Meeting in April.

This bit of information came as a surprise to residents and some FinCom members.

"Up until, I think that it was last week, I was under the impression that these were all going to be [fiscal year] 2012 capital items," said Finance Committee member Larry McDonald.

The town is currently operating in fiscal year 2012, which began July 1 and will end on June 30, 2012.

The FinCom and the Capital Planning Committee, which helps plan for such acquisitions based on available funds and overall need, expressed frustration during recent meetings because members had not received financial information from Andrews for 14 months, nor had they received any data related to the $919,000 discrepancy in the town's books discovered by auditors in March, making it difficult to ascertain whether the town has the money to pay for the items. (The FinCom received the first pieces of financial information - July and August 2011 revenue and expenditure reports - in more than a year following the public hearing. It planned to discuss the reports at its next meeting.)

Some of that concern seemed to be alleviated after Andrews' clarification that the items would be in the fiscal year 2013 budget unless money becomes available to purchase the items this fiscal year.

Andrews pointed out that once the state Department of Revenue confirms the amount of free cash - unrestricted funds left over from previous years' budgets - that the town has, those funds could be used. The Department of Revenue will not finish "certifying" free cash, however, until November or December, Andrews said.

The town is also considering selling some of its property tax liens - currently totaling $3.1 million - to a private company, which could bring in revenue that could be used to purchase the items this fiscal year, Andrews said.

Residents, however, pointed out that the Town Meeting article asking voters to approve the items does not, as printed, indicate which year the purchases would be made.

"There's other verbiage in here that says 'to raise and appropriate, borrow, or transfer,'" precinct 1 resident Anthony Scarsciotti noted, expressing concern that the town could end up borrowing money to acquire the items. "There's a whole host of things that you can do. ... If this is part of the 2013 budget, that's where it belongs. And it belongs on the spring [2012] Town Meeting [agenda]."

Andrews repeatedly assured the FinCom and the residents that the items would only be acquired this year if free cash or another monies became available.

Finance Committee Chair Frank Heath noted that Andrews wouldn't be able to spend unless that were indeed the case.

"There is a law that says you cannot spend in deficit," Heath said. "There is a stopgap here."

But other FinCom members remained concerned, saying they did not understand why the town could not wait six months until April Town Meeting to approve the items.

"It seems to be that we should wait until we have a better idea as to what our funding will be," said FinCom member Dick Paulsen. "I don't see why putting it off for six months is deleterious to the planning of our town. ... Either we have the money or we don't have the money."

The other financial items addressed during the public hearing elicited little discussion.

Town Meeting begins on Monday, October 24, at 7 p.m. in the Wareham High School auditorium.