AMHERST — Even though an end-of-January commitment from the Jones Library trustees to provide the town $2 million for the $46.1 million project to expand and renovate the 43 Amity St. building wasn’t met, town officials are anticipating no impact on the projected $8.7 million in interest payments on the project over the next 20 years.

Town Manager Paul Bockelman said this week that the town is incurring no substantive expenses related to the project until bids for the work come in and construction begins this spring.

“I have full faith that the board of library trustees will meet its obligation to do everything possible to expedite providing funds to the town to minimize the amount and length of time of borrowing the short-term loans during construction,” Bockelman said.

With bids expected to be received and reviewed in May, the main work and expenditures won’t begin until that time, he said.

The Jan. 31 date by which trustees and the library capital campaign would provide the $2 million was outlined in a spreadsheet accompanying a memo Bockelman sent to the Town Council on Nov. 27 titled “Detailed cash flow of funds specifically regarding the Jones Library fundraising.”

That memo was drafted as councilors were considering lifting the debt limit for the project by $10 million.

In December, the Town Council approved that increase, adding to the original $36.3 million appropriation approved in April 5, 2021.

Though the debt limit was raised, the Town Council kept town spending at $15.8 million, with the other funding sources including the $15.6 million Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners grant, $1 million from the town’s Community Preservation Act account and $13.8 million from trustees and the capital campaign.

Bockelman noted that the total town interest of $8.7 million was calculated by adding the $764,070 in interest on bond anticipation notes, or BANS, to the town’s $7.9 million share of the bond, based upon a 20-year bond.

An accompanying spreadsheet, prepared with assistance from financial adviser David Eisenthal from UniBank, showed a $500,000 donation to the town from the library made in June 2022 and the expected $2 million donation by the end of January 2024, supplementing a $2.7 million initial installment from the MBLC grant at the end of 2021 and another $2.7 million installment from MLBC expected by the end of February 2024. The next $4 million from donations and other library trustees money is due by the end of January 2025.

At the Feb. 12 library trustees meeting, trustee Lee Edwards said that a new transfer of $800,000 from the capital campaign accounts, using money from the largest institutional donor, would be coming to the town, in addition to $300,000 already transferred from the library, meaning $1.1 million in new cash transfers.

By adding that money to the $500,000 provided in June 2022, the capital campaign and library trustees have transferred to the town $1.6 million. That remains around $900,000 short of what was expected based on the financial schedule spreadsheet.

District 4 Councilor Pamela Rooney, brought up the $300,000 the library trustees recently transferred from “miscellaneous pieces” at the Feb. 5 Town Council meeting, asking what the impact would be on town borrowing if the various deadlines were not met.

Rooney wrote in an email that the delay in getting the full $2 million due at the end of January may not affect the bottom line for the town until the construction loan is taken out. Yet she said it’s better to have money in hand sooner.

“The understanding is, like any loan, that earlier and larger payments will reduce the amount the town must borrow and for how long we have to carry the debt, so how much interest mounts up,” Rooney wrote.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.