By Amber McIver-Traywick

The Surveyor

On Wednesday, Oct. 17, the Berthoud Town Board participated in both a work session with representatives of the Thompson School District (TSD), held at Berthoud High School, and continued afterward with a work session at town hall to discuss the town’s strategic plan progress and development in preparation for defining the town’s budget for 2019.

The meeting with the TSD representatives, which included most of the members of the board of education as well as the district’s new superintendent, Marc Schaffer, was predominantly an informal conversation between the two entities. Mayor Will Karspeck, along with Trustees Paul Alaback, Maureen Dower, Tim Hardy, Brian Laak and Pete Tomassi, were in attendance at the meeting. Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Hindman was not present. The participants took time to introduce themselves and talked about their connections with the Berthoud community. TSD Board of Education president, Lori Hvizda Ward, opened the meeting by expressing the intent of the gathering. “There’s no set agenda for today. It was just basically, let’s get to know each other a little bit and you can share individually what your questions or your input and ideas are related to the schools.” Highlights of the group’s discussion included talk of afterschool activities for Berthoud youth, the proposed recreation center on which Berthoud residents are currently voting, the relationship between developers and the town for dedicated sites to be used as potential new schools in the district as the population increases, and a summary of Ballot Issue 5A and 5B, which asks voters to support a mill levy override increase of 7.6 mills as well as a $149 million bond. The groups plan on meeting again in April of 2019.

The town board work session that followed was led by Town Administrator Chris Kirk who walked board members through a draft of the town’s strategic plan which will be included in establishing the 2019 budget. The meeting functioned as a follow-up to the board’s discussion in May and June of this year pertaining to developing long- and short-term goals for the town.

During the meeting Kirk said the town was slightly behind schedule for the year, but he followed up by describing the action plan for 2019 to keep the goals of the town on track, including a mid-year budget review. The strategy also includes forming a capital improvement plan (CIP), which Kirk said the town has never formally established. Kirk continued by saying the CIP is defined by, “…what major capital projects are we going to embark on in the next several years,” which is largely based on the other masterplans; like the transportation, parks, and raw water resources plans the town has already developed. The intent of the CIP ultimately would be to make projections to accommodate growth in the town and what that will do for the town’s infrastructure and putting into a place a formal schedule to meet those expanding needs.

The draft strategic plan for the Town of Berthoud touched on several major priorities the trustees established earlier in the year. The six categories included multiple examples of how these topics could be executed in the town and were; to promote a strong sense of community, create an environment that encourages economic prosperity, develop a healthy community, enhance public safety and community resiliency, maintain public trust and accountability, and be good stewards of community resources and finances.