The Community Preservation Act requires the Town to appropriate or set aside 10% of the funds it collects each fiscal year (local revenues plus the state match) for each one of the three core categories of the Act. Those categories are Historic Resources, Open Space, and Community Housing.

If any of the three categories have no proposed projects in that year, the town must set aside a full ten percent of the fund's fiscal year revenues for that particular category. This "set aside" money can only be spent, in years to come, for purposes consistent with that category and only after being approved by the voters at a future town meeting.

If a category does have projects that are being proposed, then it is treated in a slightly different way. Assuming that the voters approve the proposed projects from that individual category, the total cost of those approved projects is then deducted from that category's ten percent amount and the remainder of that amount is to be set aside to achieve the mandated ten percent requirement.

Below is the actual wording from the Community Preservation Act that requires the Town to do this:

CHAPTER 44B. COMMUNITY PRESERVATION

Chapter 44B: Section 6 Annual revenues; open space, historic resources and community housing

  Section 6. In every fiscal year and upon the recommendation of the community preservation committee, the legislative body shall spend, or set aside for later spending, not less than 10 per cent of the annual revenues in the Community Preservation Fund for open space, but not including land for recreational use, not less than 10 per cent of the annual revenues for historic resources and not less than 10 per cent of the annual revenues for community housing. In each fiscal year, the legislative body shall make such appropriations from the Community Preservation Fund as it deems necessary for the administrative and operating expenses of the community preservation committee, but the appropriations shall not exceed 5 per cent of the annual revenues in the Community Preservation Fund. Funds that are set aside shall be held in the Community Preservation Fund and spent in that year or later years, but funds set aside for a specific purpose shall be spent only for the specific purpose. Any funds set aside may be expended in any city or town in the commonwealth. The community preservation funds shall not replace existing operating funds, only augment them.
 

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