Town Meeting voters will be asked to approve several big-ticket items when the meeting begins on October 24, and the Finance and Capital Planning committees are recommending some but not others.

The Finance Committee votes on whether to recommend favorable action on each of the agenda items appearing before Town Meeting. Those votes are then published in the warrant in an effort to help voters decide which way to vote on Town Meeting floor. The Board of Selectmen does the same.

The FinCom delayed a vote on upcoming "capital" items - assets such as land, buildings, and equipment which are purchased and predicted to have a life of many years - during its September 21 meeting because the Capital Planning Committee had not yet discussed the items proposed by Town Administrator Mark Andrews.

The Capital Planning Committee helps plan for such acquisitions based on available funds and overall need, but ultimately the town administrator makes the final decision about what will go before Town Meeting. The Capital Planning Committee discussed the items during its September 27 meeting.

On tap for approval on October 24 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.

Finance Committee members have been hesitant to express opinion on any of the purchases, saying they're concerned about the fact that Town Administrator Mark Andrews has not given them any financial information for 14 months, including any data related to the town's unaccounted for $919,000, a discrepancy in the town's books discovered by auditors in March.

Before the committee discussed the capital items at its Wednesday, September 28 meeting, FinCom member Donna Bronk argued that the committee should not vote at all "until we know what we have and what we can afford to pay."

Alan Slavin, speaking as the chair of the Capital Planning Committee, told the FinCom that his committee shared that concern.

"We know that we can borrow," Slavin said. "We're concerned with, if we borrow, can we maintain this? Can we make our principal and interest payments?"

Ultimately, the FinCom decided to vote in an effort to provide at least some guidance to voters.

Defibrillators, generator

The Capital Planning Committee and FinCom alike struggled with whether a purchase of 40 defibrillators for the Police Department at just over $2,000 each could be considered a "capital" item, since they weren't individually a big-ticket item.

"At $2,100, it doesn't meet the criteria to be a capital item ... [but] collectively you could say it does," said David Trudell during the Capital Planning Committee's September 27 meeting.

The Police Department's current defibrillator model has not been manufactured for about a decade and the company will cease making replacement parts in January 2012.

The Capital Planning Committee voted unanimously in support of the purchase. The FinCom did not support it, with three members in favor and four against.

The Wareham Police Department is in need of a new generator after the current one was discovered to be inadequate to cover all of the department's needs during Tropical Storm Irene.

The Capital Planning Committee unanimously supported the purchase. Five FinCom members were in support of the purchase, two were not.

Parking program

Andrews is proposing the town purchase a $75,000 parking system that would be used at the municipal lot off of Union Avenue in Onset. Drivers would pay for parking at the machine and receive a ticket to display in the window of their vehicle for the duration of the time for which they paid.

The program is an effort to bring in more revenue from beach-goers who visit Onset in the summer but do not pay to park in the parking lot at the town pier.

The Capital Planning Committee unanimously did not support the purchase, with members not liking the fact that there is no plan for the revenue generated by the program.

The money would go into the town's "general fund" by default. Alternatively, the revenue could be treated like the money generated by the parking lot at the town pier, 60% of which goes to the "general fund" and 40% of which is earmarked for the Community Events Committee to spend on town events.

"Right now we're looking at a request ... [and] we don't have a definitive plan for what we're going to do with the money," Trudell said during the Capital Planning Committee meeting.

Slavin expressed frustration with the fact that the parking program was not brought to the Capital Planning Committee before it appeared on the Town Meeting agenda.

"We've had no input, no discussion of this at all. For us, this is really a blind issue," Slavin said.

Slavin and others noted that if it were to get more information about the program, the committee could change its position before Town Meeting.

Finance Committee members, however, having proposed the idea to Andrews more than a year ago after reviewing a similar program in Plymouth, were split on their thoughts.

"I don't see how we can put anything off that's going to make the town money," said FinCom member Dominic Cammarano.

But others argued that there must be a plan to spend the money, with some in support of a plan to put away money to help fund a repair of the town pier.

Four FinCom members voted in-favor of the purchase with three members voting against it.

Prisoner transport vehicle, four-wheel drive vehicle