A request at the February Bristol Town Council meeting to establish a special fund to raise money for the restoration of a painting of Thomas Shepard, Bristol’s first superintendent of schools, raised an interesting question.

How many different funds is Bristol maintaining for various projects, and what is the town policy in the event an established fund’s purpose is never brought to fruition, or if funds remain in an account following the completion of a project?

In response to that question, Treasurer Julie Goucher developed a new policy. “The town of Bristol typically manages between 85 and 100 different funds,” she said at the March 24 Town Council meeting. “They have variety of limitations to them. Some of them are considered non-spendable endowments where we can’t touch the corpus of the funds but we get some investment income from them, and there are restricted accounts, such as grants.”

This new policy details how new funds will be reported to the town council, a description of the allowable use of those funds, and details how funds are going to be accounted for. Ms. Goucher noted that none of this is new or changed from current practice. “It’s just being put into writing so that everybody is aware of how these things are tracked and accounted.”

The policy says that donations for new funds will be presented to the town council prior to establishment of the fund, and the council may set parameters for use of the funds, including allowable uses and a timeline (including expiration).

“In the past, we’ve had great projects and opportunities, but sometimes they wane and then nothing happens with it and those funds are sitting there, doing nothing,” said council Chairman Nathan Calouro. “We think it’s important to make sure that those funds, if they’re not used, that we’re very clear about how we want to handle it.”

It was determined that the rule would be applied on a case by case basis, but if a project never comes to fruition and a significant amount of time has elapsed, the council will have the discretion of transferring those funds back to the town’s General Fund, to be used for town human services purposes.

“Best practice would be to lay that out right up front, so folks who are raising funds for a particular project include language in their donation materials saying that should this project not be funded, the funds may be used for this other purpose,” said Ms. Goucher.

How many funds, how much money?

There are more than 80 funds maintained by the town, and they vary widely and dramatically in size, function and the length of time they’ve sat on the books. There are also several categories of funds. They include Private Purpose Trust Funds, which are restricted gifts and bequests that cannot be used at the town’s discretion or to support the town’s general operations. There are currently 12 funds in that category, holding a total of $5,700,000 as of June 2020. They include the $3,000,000+ Colt Memorial High School Fund, which was established with $100,000 worth of stock in the Bristol and Warren Water Works from the estate of Samuel P. Colt, and is to be held in trust in perpetuity, with the income applied to the maintenance of the Colt Memorial High School.

Similarly, the Guiteras School fund, established initially by Ramon Guiteras in 1918 to erect the school in his name,was added to by Gertrude Guitera in 1941 for the purpose of perpetual maintenance and repair. There is about $1,300,000 in that account.

Another category, Non-Major Governmental Funds, totals just over $5,000,000 (as of June 2020.) These permanent funds are used to help with the cost of the Human Resources section of the town budget. About $50,000 is transferred from these funds annually, allocated based on the value of the accounts. Each of these funds were bequests to the town for various uses. For example, The Teachers for Children Fund ($880,000) is what was remaining in the teachers’ pension when the last teacher in the plan passed away (from back when the schools were part of the town budget).

“We take quarterly investment dividend distributions and transfer them to the library to be used for the children’s library,” said Ms. Goucher. “I believe that was something that the town petitioned the courts to do.”

Other funds in this category include the Ruth A Seldon Fund and the Fred Easterbrooks Fund, both of which are used for the beautification of the North Burial Ground, with a combined value of about $225,000. Several of the funds in this category are to benefit the poor; allocations typically are directed to the East Bay Food Pantry or other local social service groups. They include the Davis Wilson Fund ($1,570,000), the Colt Poor Farm Fund ($965,000), and the Poor Farm Fund ($220,000).

Agency funds, totaling about $330,000 are all pretty active and include funds for the Volunteer Fire Department, the Christmas Festival, and special events. Likewise, Capital Projects funds are active and read like a what’s what of recent projects, from the Prudence Ferry Dock Repairs, to Tanyard Brook, the Golf Course Water Quality Project and COVID. Interestingly, according to Ms. Goucher, activity in these funds has not been impacted by the pandemic; these grant management funds are seeing as much inflow and outflow as they do in a typical year. 

One final category — Special Revenue funds — seems to serve as a catchall for a number of varied, smaller projects throughout town , including the Bristol First Century Fund, to be used for a nomination for the Weypoysett Preserve to be on the National Register of Historic Places; Children’s Grove Fund, a donation received for use of improvements/recreation on land at the “Children’s Grove” property; and SATF, for the Substance Abuse Task Force.

Defunct funds are few and far between

Surprisingly, few of these funds would be subject to the town council’s new policy. According to Ms. Goucher, there is a small fund for purchasing Recreation Department t-shirts that should probably just be a budget line item. “The amounts are relatively small and there are no profits,” she said. There’s Rhythm Quest, an old Recreation Department program with only $338 in the fund. “This could probably be transferred to a music program expense, but I would need to discuss that with the Department.”

Concerts on the Common is something that is covered in the General Fund operating budget, though they still have a fund. “There is $1,974 remaining in the fund, so we may be able to utilize these funds instead of using General Fund money, I would just need to do a bit of research to check on the original donations and any restrictions in place,” said Ms. Goucher.

“These funds are reviewed on a regular basis, and they all have a reason for being there,” she said. “They all have such different purposes, the town is so fortunate to have all these bequests and funds, and we’ll continue to see bonded projects, and endowment funds will continue to grow.”

As for the request to open a fund for the restoration of the Shepard portrait, it was approved at the March 24 meeting under the new guidelines. It should be a good test for the new rule, as it’s very limited in scope. According to Charlotte Burnham, who petitioned the council for the establishment of the fund, the project should take a year and a half to two years at the most, and only require a few thousand dollars.