Saint Paul's Building and Grounds Committee

The function of the building and Grounds Committee is to adequately maintain the church facilities and do the best possible job of maintaining the "Historic Site" designation of the church and grounds.

The Committee receives an annual budget of about $25,000 and purchases materials and services from approximately 125 to 150 vendors per year. Expenditures range from a few dollars for the purchase of light bulbs to a thousand dollars for heating and air conditioning equipment maintenance and repairs. Large expenditures, those over a few thousand, cannot be funded from our annual budget and we look to the Vestry for help.

From time to time, the Building and Grounds Committee gets requests from parishioners to revise, change or otherwise alter the appearance of the interior and or the exterior of Saint Paul's. It is the Committee's obligation to thoroughly review such requests and determine if such work is feasible and can be done within our budget. If the project is approved but we lack the funds, the project will be listed for future consideration. Sometimes a parishioner will provide funds for a project and it too will receive a review and consideration from the Committee. In emergency situations, we turn to the Vestry to provide the funds to keep church operations going on an even keel. The Committee needs to maintain a measure of control on what is done inside and outside of the church properties. Hopefully, this is understood by the membership.

The Committee is composed of ten members and a chairperson. We have a wealth of experience in such disciplines as plumbing, heating and air conditioning, historic preservation, building codes and inspections, engineering, building construction and remodeling, business practices and to a small degree electrical systems. In some cases all these elements come into play when reviewing a project. At times the approval process seems to be agonizingly slow and does cause some frustration to all of us but it is necessary.