 Call the select board meeting to order first up is public to be heard. It's on anything not on the agenda Seeing nobody jumping off Move into approval of the agenda We got Stephanie on there to second it All those in favor I Opposed motion carries And next up is questions from the public on anything that's on the ballots We'll start online looks like we have none there any Questions on anything They're right there in the front Doing away with Nobody's doing away with Tom meeting. Well, are you talking about the ballot for voting to get more participation? So right now the only people that can vote on those items are the ones that show up at the Chandler Hall During the specified time of town meeting. So it allows those questions to be put out Australian ballot And let's the whole town have an opportunity to to vote using the whole duration of Ways and time to vote town meeting will still take place. We can still get together and go through the report Ask questions and have the pie So just to put it in perspective we pulled numbers from the last five years or so just to give a sense We've got about 3700 registered voters that goes up and down in that time frame The highest town meeting attendance in that period was in nineteen with eighty seven people Which is about two and a half percent of all registered voters in that year And at that same year you had six hundred and fifty six participate in The Australian ballot portion. Sorry six hundred fifty six. Yeah, and that's fairly low That's actually the second lowest number in that time frame. We've seen anywhere from 13 to 38 percent participation By ballot in those years in one point two to two and a half from the floor more than 80 percent of questions in a given year from They're done by ballot anyway The ones that aren't like the Budget Committee elections one year There were a bunch of them sort of brought that percentage down But it was to change the terms of the Budget Committee to elect the Budget Committee to hear reports of officers So the business that's done Isn't that and you can still petition Certain articles under state law. It's the same set of rules. You just vote on them by ballot versus on the floor So that access remains the same as well. What you do when I know in the past like, you know There's an opening on a committee or something, you know, they'll take nominations from the floor so we do a nomination, you know, if the Australian ballots a few days later And take a nomination from the floor for somebody Well, you wouldn't have that the Budget Committee is the only one that's elected from the floor So they would go by ballot like they were during COVID So we had a two-year test run of doing it that way And then if there's an opening at some point after that or there's no one elected then the board appoints somebody until that next regular election like it happens with select board or anything else that's elected So those process elements work the same you just fill it on the front end a little differently But every other committee member is appointed in March usually by the board or reappointed depending on Did you have any other questions for what was on the ballot or just trying to understand that one piece? piece yeah I'm sure to be a whole lot of discussion on budgets at this town meetings Yeah But the budgets themselves are up for vote so we don't go through the budgets line by line, correct? No, but sometimes we'll have questions We might answer them if we can any other questions on it To have questions just wanted to see what all this fun was about I'll ask one related to budgeting here, I'm not sure you can the assess the reassessments of people's properties or has is or Has happened or something in that state underway? Yeah Can you comment on what kind of? Percentage change you you're seeing and what's been done so far. I haven't gotten any information on it Not yet. They're doing the some of the commercial properties now They're a big part of the puzzle and once they get through that they'll enter I think What's largely a phase of sort of the grievance process where people will get notice of any changes of value There's a chance to discuss that with our contractor and town folks Before they set sort of final values and the grand list is based on that So there isn't any update in terms of the grand list is going to do X Y or Z in terms of change The indicators and what we're seeing in other towns Make it likely that that grand list is going to grow in value. The thing will be what's the ultimate percentage But that usually means that your tax rate goes down overall And some of it comes into play with properties like if you have a property that you just built and it just got assessed It's using the current market conditions your change in value should be a lot less Then if I had a property that nothing has changed on and the last time it was valued was the last time we did an assessment so part of my behind-the-scenes Questioning is the school taxes are being Looking at jumps You don't really know what kind of I mean you're you're looking at a percentage increase on What kind of taxes those will be? But you don't really know what your assessed values are and what the overall percentage is or Will that fluctuate as well depending on what whatever the assessed values come in? Yeah, you your assessed value is going to Drive what your per what your taxes to your property specific? And you know, there's no way the grand list is going to shrink Right because the market conditions are so much different But at the same time remember that the budget you pass is spread across that entire grand list value, so We don't keep the same rate. So the budget is set at an amount not necessarily a percentage correct, okay Yep, that the dollar value of the budget you vote on at town meeting Get spread across the grand list So if it's a larger grand list, you should have a smaller rate But that doesn't necessarily mean your taxes are gonna Depending on kind of when your property was last valued It'll have that a difference in impact on your rate And can you comment on or on dollar? We've done it at this time how many other Communities have done it at this time as well how much of the state is going to be affected by sort of this unknown assessed value Well towns are all in their own cycle and in their own picture How many are going through it right now? I don't know a lot You know because most towns What used to happen is you'd go eight ten years like we did between assessments and now they're Pushing you to do them more often or come out with a model to value them that can be adjusted You know using the software or a formula That's in there. So we don't get these huge swings like what we're gonna go through We have heard they're booking out three four five years depending on the firm Just that's how many towns and what the availability of the firms is so even if we were to start today be a few years before you Start what's really a 18 to 24 month process? Is there a general average that for other towns that you've gone through the process say the last four or five years on a percentage increase Not that I've seen a general average post Pandemic with the way the real estate market changed folks who are reassessing after that have seen grand list growth depending on that There have been times where towns have done it and seen the opposite the cycle before last Springfield for example saw its grand list Actually take a hit guy There isn't any indication that that's gonna be our No, it was Springfield. Yeah, this was yeah pre-pandemic when they were after it's my hometown So I feel like I can pick on a little bit but That was kind of when they were scraping the belly of the plane Yeah, and now even then they've since gone again or at least done some partial reassessments and they're seeing those values change So it's pretty rare to see the value decrease these days And we don't do anything on this board. We don't have anything to do with the school budget for those rates You know kind of what that impact is. That's a they have their own hearing anybody. That's this week also, right? Thursday Any other questions we can answer? Let's see in any in the room any online. I think you have something in the chat Good eyes This is the place to ask. Well, hang on User error. I'm gonna get you ask about the purpose of the What the library is asking for why so much? What do they do with the funds they awarded last year and what do they need so much money for I? I mean you could ask that the library trustees and the library director work together to put that That budget in terms of the creation and then it gets worn with the others. It's an Interesting Vermont and maybe other states have it to where town owns the building does the article stuff Phrases the taxes, but the administration or planning the libraries done by the separately elected trustees In their place, so it's a it's a weird system In terms of that, but if there's a specific question you're waiting or sponsored I don't know if there's a specific line We may know like the health insurance they get from us so we could speak to that same thing with property and casualty insurance Those are ones we pool together. So if it's a question like that we could probably handle that but if it's More detailed operational that might still be best directed to them This is asking about the purpose of the funds Of what they're asking for so the library budget that we see has their all their operating costs in it their payroll is in their their utilities all their the Actual expenses of operating the library. Is that the what the question is to me? See a red light but I can keep an eye on it here. She's waiting for a response from them Yep, if you look in the town report, you'll see the library's budget like it hasn't broken out What the expenses are and then it gives you the under the revenue section it should give you the source of funds That they're getting to pay those expenses and you'll see that some of that is a Budget line item from that the town raises from property taxes Yeah, page 23 and 24 of the report And if you have it on the budget, it's right after the general fund or Yeah, we have to the general fund if you use the version online And then if you have any questions we can either connect you it sounds like you already know how to get ahold of them but shoot us an email or Give Judy a call I'll get you get you routed any other questions Not seeing any will entertain a motion to adjourn All those in favor hi Motion carries we are done