Brookfield asks state's OK to use grants for new purposes
Updated: 03/30/2009 11:52:31 PM EDT
BROOKFIELD -- The Board of Selectmen signed a letter Monday asking state officials to allow reallocation of $650,000 in unspent grants to the town to complete a water line and start renovations to the Senior Center.
The money would come from grants Brookfield was awarded from the state's Small Town Economic Assistance Program, which provides funds for economic development, community conservation and quality-of-life capital projects.
"Each project can be completed in calendar year 2009 if we can use STEAP funds originally assigned to other projects," said the letter, which was addressed to Robert Genuario, the secretary of the Office of Policy and Management.
Copies of the letter were also sent to the state's Department of Economic and Community Development and the Department of Public Health.
The selectmen unanimously approved sending the letter during a six-minute special meeting Monday afternoon in Town Hall.
It asks state leaders to approve of the town reallocating $650,000 in "previously awarded but unspent" STEAP grant funds.
The letter said the town needs $210,000 to complete a water line on Federal Road from Orchard Street to Barnbeck Place, a complex of condominiums for people 55 and older near the intersection of Federal and Junction roads.
The selectmen also asked that $440,000 be reallocated for work on the Brookfield Senior Center, since Gov. M. Jodi Rell's budget proposal nixed about $439,500 in funding for the project that would have come from the state's Bond Commission.
Without aid now, the letter said, the town may lose $750,000 in federal matching funds for the work.