Planning staff presented a new, project-based approach to tracking planning-board finances and applicant escrows. The approach creates a per-application spreadsheet that records deposits, nonrefundable fees, consultant invoices (TEC and others), and the remaining escrow balance so the Planning Department can quickly identify outstanding balances and billing history for each application.

Staff said he has begun a retroactive reconciliation for Tanya Lane (dating to 2021) and will attribute consultant invoices directly to applicant files. The board discussed using shared town file storage (SharePoint/OneDrive) so planning documents and the financial spreadsheets are centrally stored and accessible to staff. Staff described the process of unzipping consultant invoices and assigning them to each applicant’s folder and said he will circulate the spreadsheets to board members as they are completed.

What happens next: staff will finish the Tanya Lane reconciliation, continue creating per-application financial spreadsheets for other active projects, and coordinate with the town administrator and IT staff to create a central SharePoint area for planning-board records.