 Good evening ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats I'm terry mckang I'm chairman of the select board here in Williston and the first thing that was on our agenda is the Presentation of the colors Williston troops 692 Boy scouts will conduct the presentation of the colors and if you'd all please stand I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Please be seated The troop has had an exciting this year and that about two weeks ago. They had a card of honor inaugurating four new Eagle scouts since the troops so they are a Good presence in the town This year the town report is dedicated to two retiring public figures dead Beckett and Rick McGuire our town manager and Debs our town clerk and treasurer as you know We owe them a great debt of data to gratitude for their ongoing service and over the years and wish them well in their retirements So tonight tomorrow Deb will be retiring as clerk treasurer after the the election As her term is expiring at this time I'd invite representative Jim McCullough to join me here at the podium if he's Available, I think he's still checking people in oh here. Here he comes So tonight we have a resolution from the legislature Honoring Deb. This is house concurrent resolution Honoring Wilson town clerk Deborah cut Beckett for her outstanding missable public service. It's offered by representatives McCullough and McCag and by Senators Ingram and Lyons Whereas Deb Beckett has served the state of Vermont with distinction as a twice deployed member of the Mont Arming National Guard And whereas she has held many appointed or elected Williston town offices Including Lister justice of the peace town agent town grand juror Cemetery commissioner and member of the development review board and Whereas for the past two decades Deb Beckett has served as a respected Williston town clerk and her professional colleagues have elected her to leadership roles at the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and the Vermont Corks and Chargers Association and whereas As dead Beckett concludes concludes her duties as town clerk the town of Williston is dedicating his 2019 town report in her honor Now therefore be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives But the general assembly honors Wilson town clerk Deborah Beckett for her outstanding Municipal public service and be it further resolved that the Secretary of State be directed to send a copy of this resolution to dead Beckett and Be in frugal we have the resolution to present to Deb tonight It is truly been an honor and a privilege To have had the opportunity to serve the community of Williston for these past 21 years as town clerk and treasurer There is no career on this planet that is better and this is truly a unique community And it is it's the epitome of what a hometown is and for that I thank you all very much Also in the town report. We pay tribute to In a morium to people who have passed away who have been serving the town over a long period of time and in our Town town report John Hines a long time select board member and a former town manager Paul McGinley are honored in our town report so at this time, I'd like to introduce the select board and immediately on my right after Sarah is Ken Ted Kenny Next to him is Joy LeMauge our vice chair and then Gordon St. Hilaire and Jeff fares So now we'll start the actual business of the meeting and do Article one to elect a moderator are there nominations for the position of moderator Jim McCullough Tony land Thank you. It was your second second from dead back up Are there any further nominations for? moderator See no other nominations all in a favor of electing Tony lamb say aye Any opposed say no Donnie Tony or Sony all up to you Once you know I heard the size of disappointment when you realize you hadn't elected Anthony lamb the basketball player is moderator The confusion is understandable because he's from Rochester, New York, and I was born in Rochester, New York But the real different the real true matches are we both have the same athletic build and grace of movement The difference is he can hit a three-point shot Article 2 shall the voters authorize the current taxes to be paid to the town Treasure in three equal installments with due dates of August 15th November 15th and February 15th is authorized by 32 VSA Section 48 71. Do I have a motion? Do I have a second? It's been moved in second any discussion all those in favor of article 2 to set the Payment of taxes and the tax date signify by saying aye Those opposed say nay the eyes have it Article 3 to hear and act upon the reports of the several town officers Do I have a motion to accept the reports and then we'll hear the reports? So we have a motion the second Okay Yes town manager Thank You Tony I Wanted to take a few minutes to talk about some of the accomplishments that we had this past year There's been a lot of activities since last town meeting And we've had a number of successes and of course not everything has gone to according to plan I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about some of these successes But also some of the things that didn't quite work out the way we had planned and In the interest of transparency I provided some visual cues for you to You can figure out which one I'm referring to the positive or the negative. So first off We have another retirement and that is the fire chief Ken Morton our chief has been with the department for 38 years and he's been chief for 25 of those 38 years and and so I Indicated Sideway arrows because I wasn't quite sure which way to indicate I think from Ken's standpoint. It's definitely an up From our standpoint. We obviously have mixed feelings He's been a great leader and and we'll certainly miss Him as part of our town services and government. So Ken best luck in retirement and of course And of course you heard that Deb Beckett is also retiring She's been town clerk and treasurer for the past 21 years and as you heard She served a variety of other positions within the town and we certainly wish her the best luck in retirement as well So we have a new person which I'm going to definitely give it a thumbs up on That is our town clerk or I'm sorry a town library director Jane Kearns and she started working in November and I believe she's back there. So if you can wave your hand and Thank you, Jane. We're thrilled to have her working in our library now and Of course, we also had some more awards that were given this is a picture of our Assistant town clerk and possibly soon to be regular town clerk depending on the election tomorrow, but we won't go there This she was awarded the assistant town clerk of the year in recognition of her dedication professionalism and leadership in the town Sarah Mason was as they said selected as assistant town clerk of the year. Congratulations, Sarah Not to be outdone. We had firefight of the year This is Anthony Samanskas. He's been with her wife. How long has he been with us? 11 years He was selected as firefighter based on again his professionalism and this is a statewide award So we are thrilled and honored to have Tony working for us and receiving that award So on to other serious more serious matters here This report was entitled towns in trouble and it was a report that was completed by the Ethan Allen Institute Which is actually a conservative think tank They did a survey of the 30 most popular populist towns, maybe popular too But populist towns in Vermont and they looked at the financial health of those 30 populist communities And they used a range of different measurements to determine the financial status of those communities They signed a score to each community based on a one a scale of one to a hundred hundred being the best perfect score and One being obviously lowest Now I've given this an up our Because Williston scored quite well. In fact, we scored 92 out of 100 And the lowest score by the way was 22 and I won't mention which town that was But we were the highest score of all 30 communities and we're obviously very proud of that so as I said everything has them in quite rosy and This is a photograph of a Problem we had out Mountain View Road. This is from a storm that occurred this past Halloween It was a major storm event and as a storm event that caused Damage to private property and public property as well This being some public property What had happened here is the water gone kind of instead of just going through the culvert went around it Scoured out all the dirt and then caused a big cavity to form underneath the road Which obviously made the road unsafe to pass on our public works crew Did the repair work and we had the road open within a couple days So we're happy that that was a success later on. I'll talk about one that wasn't quite as successful We also continue to have a huge social media presence on the positive side We have always had a web page that's been very full of content and it's content We keep up to date. We do numerous postings on front porch forum We've had a TV show that's currently shows about once a month our assistant town manager Eric Wells Is the producer of that program and the guest and host and everything else? He has done a great job of addressing a variety of different topics of community interest and it's called what's up? Williston and you can find it on YouTube I think we have our own YouTube channel and the there's a link to it from the town's web page You can also like us on Facebook tweet us on Twitter and as I said subscribe on YouTube and And I also don't want to people to forget we have what we call a customer service portal That's available on the town's front page of our website If you have a problem you see like a pothole or a street lights out Do you want to report it to town? You can do it right online any time of the day or night you can send photographs You can send all kinds of information and that goes directly to the people responsible for addressing that and It's a very useful tool and I encourage everyone to use it if you do find some things that Where you need a town service? so we tried an experiment of traffic calming a north wilson road and I Will say that it was very successful in slowing traffic down It was also very successful and annoying the nearby residents And that's from all the trucks that were rolling over it and causing a ruckus So in the end we did remove this device because it was a temporary device that we tried out on the road And so we're gonna have to look at other measures perhaps even some sort of The speed table or something as a possibility, but not quite one of this nature Now we have a new program that this isn't quite Consistent with my report on past activities because it's a program that's just now starting up in fact, I heard today that we will be getting our first dog and from Starting in May I think so this is a a new program Where that's going to be run through our police department. They're going to be acquiring a Labrador Retriever and it's going to be trained as a therapy slash comfort dog It'll be used for people who have gone through traumatic events Perhaps they're a victim of crime and it's it's a source of possible comfort to those individuals And I would say that this is all one more step in a series of steps that we've been taking over the years To really change the nature of our police department. It's more about it's it's not just about trying to catch the bad guys It's also about dealing with the people who are victims of crime and for many years now we've had a community justice program that's been very very active and We also have more recently the establishment of a community outreach program that's on a regional basis And now we will have a comfort dog as well So we're very excited to get that program underway, and I think people will find it very useful after all Who can resist hugging a cute dog And finally we are probably our biggest accomplishment This past year was the acquisition of the catamount community forest And largely this is land that we purchased from Lucy and Jim McCullough The forest amounts to about 393 acres of absolutely beautiful land and it was purchased using a variety of sources including federal state Money some private donations and of course town money as well People are free to hike on it So if they so choose they can snow shoe on it And if they're interested in more organized activities, there is a non-profit organization called the catamount outdoor family center that offers a wide range of activities including cross-country skiing and bicyclists and runners in the summertime and With that I will conclude this brief little report on the town activities, and I'll be Happy to answer any questions anyone might have on these reports Yes, sir, July 8th. I think July 8th The question was when was chief Morton's last day? Any other questions? If not, I'll turn it back to you Okay, all those in favor of accepting the report signify by saying aye Those opposed say nay the eyes have it Article 4 excuse me article 4 to discuss whether the town should maintain all public sidewalks and pave recreation paths during the winter months No vote will be taken interesting so Eric you had a presentation So the assistant town manager is going to give us a brief overview. Good evening everyone So I'm here to talk about article 4 this evening Looking as the moderator said it's for discussion only so I'll start giving you a broad overview and also look at some Options for service here before we open up for discussion this evening. I shouldn't skip over the piece of equipment here So that's our sidewalk plow. I took this photo during the storm We had in February recently everyone probably remembers that when it was snowing one or two inches per hour It was quite the storm we had that day So setting the stage here. There are nearly 30 miles of sidewalk and recreation paths in town We currently plow about 10 and a quarter miles of those with that sidewalk plow that that you saw pictured We also have about five and a quarter miles of recreation paths that we plow with a pickup truck At least about 14 miles of public sidewalk. That's not plowed in town We have one plow to maintain the sidewalks here and as you saw it's quite the piece of equipment We have a plow blade on it We can also attach a blower to it if we get an excessive amount of snow we need to move Right now it takes about five hours to plow these 10 miles of sidewalks during a four-inch snowstorm So as you can see when we a larger snowstorm it will take more time to do that work Under our winter operations policy our town highways are plowed first and then our sidewalks are plowed Right now our town policy has requests for added sidewalk segments to be plowed to go for the select board each December to hear these requests for possible inclusion in our winter operations plan for the following winter This policy has general criteria for consideration discussion. There's no scoring or rating system for adding segments right now So next we'll have a visual Hopefully this is familiar to folks the map of a section of our town It's showing where these sidewalks and paths are I know it's probably a little hard to see especially in the back of the room I'll just go over the legend here with the color coding So the pink color are sidewalks and paths that we currently plow You can see a number of those around town representing those 10 miles the yellow Shading are the recreational paths that we also plow with a pickup truck so these segments in orange highlighted are Sidewalks that we currently do not plow that are that are active in town here. I know it's a little challenging to see I can someone is interested in getting a copy of this Please let me know after the meeting I can share that with you and when we get to the discussion We can pull this map up as well to take another look at it So the discussion this evening is going to focus around what level of service should the town provide for winter sidewalk in Recreational path maintenance So to get this start I'm going to go through kind of a broad spectrum of possible options to consider before I turn it back to our moderator So one thing we can look to do and I want to preface these numbers This isn't in our current FY 21 budget proposal These are numbers to think about if the town were to take on this level of service in the future To plow all-side sidewalks in town. We need a second piece of equipment. We're at capacity right now Pretty close to what a single plow can handle our current cost for sidewalk plowing this 10 and a quarter miles It's just under $17,000 each winter The added cost would be for new equipment and its operation We have a part-time position in our public works department that would operate the second plow So how much does a sidewalk plow cost? It's approximately a hundred and thirty thousand dollars for this piece of equipment If we were to go ahead and move to get this in the short term We look at something called a lease purchase arrangement to finance it The equipment and operational costs for the second plow we estimate is about $43,000 a year for the first five years for this lease purchase agreement So the cost to maintain the 24 and a quarter miles of sidewalks is about $60,000 a winter right now Based on our on our estimates of what a winter usually looks like The recreational pass we spoke of the cost for that is around $3,000 So the tax rate impact if we based on our current grand list value the additional $43,000 to the budget result in about a point zero zero two Sent tax rate increase or you could think about it two dollars for every hundred thousand dollars of assessed property value So another option here kind of the other end of the spectrum is minimum plowing The town could put an ordinance or policy in place that shifts primary responsibility to main sidewalks to the adjacent property owners Under Vermont law ordinances could Provide for the removal of snow and ice from sidewalks by the owner occupant or person having charge of the abutting property The town under the Americans with Disabilities Act ADA has a legal responsibility To ensure its sidewalks are ADA compliant keeping them in an accessible condition with allowances for isolated or temporary interruptions At most the town could penalize a property owner under an ordinance with a fine for not removing snow But it means the legal law it remains the legal obligation of the town to keep the sidewalks accessible Across the lake in Platsburg, New York for example They use this approach requires property owners to shovel their adjacent sidewalks to some degree within a defined period of time and Other communities around the country have something similar in place as well So those are kind of two ends here. There's also Carry on as we are right now. We could maintain our current practice And allow requests to be reviewed annually by the select board using our policy in December And then the quantity of sidewalks as I mentioned is really reaching that critical capacity for a single piece of equipment If segments beyond a minimal amount were to be added We'd also need to think about whether it makes sense or level of service using that one one machine is Adequate still at that point and another point to go along with that with one piece of equipment if something were to happen in that piece of equipment and Breakdown we don't have a backup in place and you know, hopefully it's something that could be repaired quickly But you never know sometimes Then our last look here is what I'm calling a hybrid approach I've kind of gone through different pieces of the spectrum of service here and also as we get into discussion interested in everyone's voice We could develop a strategy that blends elements of sidewalk maintenance service that I've previously discussed There's number of variables to consider Can plow additional sidewalks and start in areas of town could share some Responsibility with property owners with a fee for service or a grant model Or also look at the town's policy and consider possible amendments to that and that system for evaluating Additional segments of sidewalk to add each winter So I think I've spoken enough on this topic to start be happy to hand it back over to our moderator for discussion here I'm here a number of other staff members to answer questions on this topic as we get into discussion Questions comments concern. Yes Did you look into the question of contracting for additional We didn't explore that in detail yet shape and I know It's something we we can look at but with the town's overall responsibility to maintain the sidewalks We'd want to be really careful about contracting and making sure Insurance and those items as well Contractor than you do over individual property owners are shoveling their walk and it might be a middle ground Which I think it would depend where the service levels at it so it's all Based upon what model we use if it was a different fee for service model, but Kind of the rug here is needing the additional piece of equipment So we're really at that critical mass of one piece of equipment So if we need to purchase a second piece of equipment the large chunk of that $43,000 is the initial debt service for at least purchase for that Yes What brought about this this topic in the first place I have there been Requests or complaints that of any sort and then the second question is does the plowing? Is there wear and tear more wear and tear in a sidewalk if it's plowed? You know the like for instance like would there be additional costs to the sidewalk over time with plow? Thanks, Andy the select board hears these requests each December There's usually one or two each year and the select board and reviewing their quest is past December Decide to put this on the warning for town meeting to have a broader discussion when we have a number of members the community here to Think about this issue For the wear and tear question I'll turn that over to our assistant public works director at Lisa Schaebler As for the wear and tear of the sidewalks with the snow plow machine Most of the time it's the wear and tear and the damage that is done is to the grass-stripped areas on both sides of the sidewalk We don't as you can tell when you walk around town We don't go down to bear bar bear sidewalk when we plow we can but we don't usually because there's so much snow That has to be moved and along that same point We Eric had mentioned we have a snowball attachment that we can have connected to this same plow and We need to utilize that when the snow banks get so high that when we're just plowing through the snow goes right back in behind us As soon as we go through there and the snow Blower option Increases that five-hour plow time for the sidewalks Yes So I can speak to what I've seen in other communities that have that in place for example Platsburg if someone was not able to to plow or shovel out in front of their property, they would have a waiver request That's the way that community Handles that but the most the town could do is is find someone the town would ultimately need to make sure they were accessible and passable Are you so talking about individual persons not the town is required to follow the sidewalk Maybe it is not required time to follow required to provide accessibility to a person needs it um I Not an extra on the ins and outs of it, but I from reading what state law requires that they need to be so I what needs to be Passable for for access Suggesting that by requiring the homeowner to clear the walk in front It might relieve the town from that obligation And the ADA comes into play when you have a homeowner who can't show up at the walk If they take care of them, then they fill that gap So you're saying that ADA is not required the town to follow all sidewalks Requires you to have it clear I Walk in front of our house is never passable like right now if you were to drive down old stage road Where the bus drops my daughter off up on Williston Road and old stage she has to walk two blocks to our house It's just a walk in the street So I don't think that's ever even we say we don't plow down So that we because we just don't have obviously enough money or time to do that So it's never it's never ADA assessable. So Thank you for sharing that at least I was making some notes We do not apply salt to the sidewalks There's multiple reasons that we don't do that first We're trying to do salt reduction in the town of Williston for number one and number two it extremely deteriorates and Takes the concrete life expectancy and nobody's in half from the salt Yeah J. Caner again, and I wasn't planning to speak to this but never do the cameras. I'll speak to the microphone Thank you I've watched some of the presentations of the requests at the select board meetings on channel 17 and I wanted to comment on three three points the first is that your numbers your initial numbers assume we've already Paid off the current plow, but you include an amortizing the cost of the second plow So that made the difference look bigger than it is in the long run the I forgot the second one, but the third is that I'm a planning commission member and our town plan says we want walkable pedestrian friendly streets and areas and We we want to reduce people people taking cars when they could walk or bike Etc. Etc. And so the goals of the town are in line with having more sidewalk plowing and So and oh, I know what the second one was if you were to put up the numbers for what we spend on street plowing They would dwarf those numbers for the sidewalk plowing and so I want to take this in context We spend this amount on street plowing and we spend this amount on sidewalk plowing and the question is do we add Do we know do we significantly increase the sidewalk plowing? So I just want to say the town plan goals would say we should do more sidewalk plowing Thanks For a piece of equipment to use I think our best bet is the sidewalk plow there I don't know Lisa's there any other alternatives you've seen But that's the most cost efficient one for the town and that's what most of the municipalities use And then I remember think it's in terms of using salt. Um, is there any other option for sand maybe? Then it also comes of issue with stormwater Because the sand can get into the catch basins and then we'd have to sweep both the sidewalks off including The roadways and twice a year. So that's one of the reasons we don't necessarily use sand on the sidewalk side There has been occasions in which it was extremely icy the temperature. I think it was four or five years ago in February we had like 20 days that were negative 30 and Below so we did put some sand out because there's just no chance that the ice was going to melt that year Yes If we were to ask homeowners to Shovel in front of their own property, which I've lived in towns that have had that before What happens with the pieces of property between houses that aren't necessarily homeowner owned? Who would be plowing those? That's a good question. I think it would If the town were to take that approach as part of the administrative piece We need to sort out because we would still need to maintain some walks in town Especially in front of municipal buildings some town properties So then you think about that if you're have these gaps between houses and you're gonna send the plow up to plow them then You know, what's what's the point of having to go up and not plow because it's in front of houses Those are details. We the town would have to work out if it ever made a decision to move in that direction Yeah, I'm a little confused Williston is such a spread out area What have you thought that this is going to be used as a plow and have you also taking into consideration going to need another employee to do it and I would be interested to know of some of the Places like middle run which has sidewalks. Are they going to be taken care of or is it just going to be here in this immediate area of Williston Let me let me pull the map back up here So everything in orange. I know it's really hard to see with the with the projection the way it is But everything in orange Everything in orange the town doesn't currently plow. So a lot of developments To answer your question about the employee We have budgeted a part-time public works employee the position currently isn't filled But we've had that position budgeted and that position would operate the second piece of equipment And how many times have you had to have that use of this winter if you were looking at this winter How much will you sort of got? If we had an additional sidewalk cloud We would be able to use two plows and get the work done faster as opposed to taking five plus more hours We would be able to do it half that time with the two employees And also as Eric had mentioned earlier if one of if for some reason Excuse me the existing cloud breaks down. We have nothing We have to wait till the parts come in and we can get it fixed and repair Which that could be a week or two weeks. Meanwhile, none of the sidewalks are being plowed He's asking I think how many storms have you had this winter where you have plowed the sidewalks quite a few We've gone out quite a few times this year. I believe if we have two inches We try to get out within 24 hours after the roads are all clear Does that answer your question? Excellent back. Yes Two questions What is what has determined the the streets you do do now and secondly? What specifically will be the method of resolving this is this issue? Sure, I think our method for how we've done the streets now We the town has taken on as you can see in the map and this is the pink or fuchsia color Connections between places on our thoroughfares and then additionally under our town policy Residents and neighborhoods can request to have sidewalk segments added and the criteria for that is is reviewed is reviewed And I apologize. I forget the second part of your question Yes, so the select we're seeking feedback tonight We're probably at the board's discretion Take additional feedback in the coming year on this and if we were to add money in the budget for a second piece of equipment That would be put in during the FY 22 budget process that would be vote or or future budget Depending on how what the board decides at that time and based on discussion. So It's possible. We could be coming back in a future year Talking about a budget that may have a second piece of equipment in it Yes, exactly We also have a stump grinder that attaches to it So we use it during the summertime and fall for grinding stumps with it That's the only other attachment other than snowblower in the plow itself that we have at this time Sweeper I don't know That many people in addition to the areas that are I mean the areas that are not Is there that many people that want to have their area of cloud the sidewalks? Oh I'm just a request. Thank you for your question Then a couple years. I've been here. We've had requests each the last three December's and Rick Lisa Historically is it something tend to get a couple every year is it kind of ebb and flow? It's Is it like gosh? Yes We were one of the communities that came to this left board to ask for plowing for our neighborhood There's a number of school children that live in Indian Ridge that could potentially walk to school There's we're really close to the schools So there was a request put in favor it seemed to me and we've had interpreting that there was a Potential to say yes to our Request, but it seemed that at this point in time since there was no policy in place It was kind of a hesitancy Until having this kind of an open discussion So I really appreciate the fact that we're discussing it and getting it on board and trying to kind of Come up with the policy so that it's a little bit more evil like Lynn said there's not like what community that says Oh, yeah, we're just this community and we're not going to pull this community and try to get a more consistent policy for the town Okay, is there anybody else who hasn't Yeah, I'm interested to know whether impact fees from development should be funding things like acquisition of additional equipment It's a good question. I I don't believe we've used impact fees in the past. I'm looking to wreck for he recalls Did you hear it said like you know not an eligible cost for for new equipment out of the impact fee rules and statute okay, so We're going to draw clothes here. Yes Is the requirement that the sidewalks be We're to a Stand thank you or is it for the people who Can't go Sidewalks Again answer the best I can I know from reading materials on this and I'm not an expert in it Passable is what it what it calls for but I'm not a Having sidewalks as passable Yeah, I'm I'm free. I can't speak to the specifics are just just with my my level of knowledge on that topic Yes Correct I think My understanding is that the Americans with Disabilities Act places no requirement on the town to plow anything The I think the issue is if if the town passes an ordinance Mandating that if you live next to a sidewalk you have to get it clear Then if you are that person and you are disabled the town has an obligation to take care of your part of that and make it passable, but short of that there is no requirement from the ADA That the town do anything the town doesn't have to plow any of the sidewalks and we could save That much more money in our property that we didn't The Just continue on for a second the reason the reason I wanted to hear from people tonight because When you're on the select board you get an issue if people come before you and then you wonder okay What is everybody else in town because I've got you know people who are here, but what does everybody else think? The sidewalk issue is going to continue on. It's not the biggest issue that the town faces Although it can be a critical issue if you are Have a disabled child you're trying to Transport that child or for that matter if you have a child that's not disabled You're trying to get them to that number of school and they have to walk and grow The so I'm not saying it's not important to say it's in the scheme of things. It's not critical the issue that I curious about though is that You know there are people in town who do not live next to a sidewalk and never use them There are people in town who live in the village and say that's great But if I want to get going to a grocery store I'm not gonna walk from the steeple church to Shaw's or Hannah and I take my car So I'm not gonna use a sidewalk for that, but the town continues to evolve and we have places like Finney crossing coming online And those will be town roads at some point. They'll be town sidewalks We also have this the sidewalks near Allenbrook that And so the question that I was curious about is what is what is the philosophy versus what is the cost of Project again, I don't think it's gonna be resolved tonight But I just wanted to hear from people because on one hand It makes perfect sense that we'd say hey, what we're doing is enough on the other hand with the town evolving and more and more Town planning saying we should be more pedestrian friendly Do we want to spend our money in doing Question The other part of that was because we've got questions each year from one or two neighborhoods It became a let's hear what everyone would like to do Typically those questions come in After we've gotten a lot of our budgets set and so to make the change to say yes Do your neighborhood all of a sudden Everyone Why this year with Indian Ridge, which was a great request. I Struggle Representative to the rest of the town so that's another reason for putting this out here to see what people think so Anybody who hasn't jim Well, it largely in response to the slut board's question. We'd like to hear Opinions and we've heard mostly questions tonight and not necessarily asserted opinions so When I was on planning Commission Before we even had a DRB We had a lot of reluctance to even build sidewalks and our select board then Said this is Vermont. You can't use them in the winter And that was really What was carrying the day we also had probably 20 dairy farms and and Williston What does that have to do with anything? Well, what it really has to do with a Lot of what you see on this map were Did occupy was occupied the cows and not houses and and people and roads and sidewalks We also now have a better understanding that Moving is important to people our sedentary lifestyles are Yes, literally killing us We also have an understanding that our climate is Headed for a train wreck and it's carbon largely in Vermont from motor vehicles in Our homes But in this case the homes have sprouted the need for sidewalks and we still spend way too much time in our cars So then I'm going to wrap this one up by saying we have a Pretty good sidewalk network Which needs more expansion? We've gotten away from the 80s like we don't need them because you can't do it in Vermont in the winter We've gotten away from that now We need to understand that we've got the sidewalks and they do need to be plowed and They need to be plowed on a regular basis. I think I heard every two inches of snowfall and we need to budget to do that our citizens shouldn't have to come and ask for their own little neighborhood peace to get plowed and and Pat in hand in front of the slight board to get this done. This should be a town priority and Eric is I think indicated that he's working on and and Rick has as well and so as a select board a plan to Acquire the necessary equipment acquire the necessary Workers to operate that equipment and to get the job done the job should be all the sidewalks that we have in town not Just the chosen few and the chosen few have had some Real rationale why they're done But we do need to have the rest of them done and so that's that's one opinion piece And I thank you very much for that opportunity Or something that we don't do right now We don't do it. Well, we can't walk on it. My daughter couldn't you drive by it right now and you can't walk down It's it's part of the bike path and it's on sidewalk on a very busy road Like it's it's hard for me to imagine that we would buy more equipment for something that we can't actually do with the equipment We have now so this is Moderator I typically don't make comments But what I'm hearing you say is that the it's not you raise the issue that it's a question of whether it's being done in The way that's adequate right it's not adequate for walking right now So if we add another piece of equipment to do more We're just going to have another piece of equipment to do more, but we're still not going to have walkable sidewalks Yes So opinion We have spent millions of dollars in Willis to put in sidewalks I think we had a 2.2 2.8 million dollar bond several years ago One of the developments command they had sidewalks bike paths and so forth It pains me to watch people walking in the gutter during a snowstorm and I feel so however We whittle it down through how they're maintained how well they're maintained, etc The reality is if we've made the investment in having these sidewalks installed We should make the investment in making sure these sidewalks can be used year-round and not treat them like a three-season porch Thank you. I will ignore the fact you're suggesting Vermont has four seasons I Thank you. If there's a different viewpoint or something that hasn't been expressed, I will invite that. Otherwise, are you ready to move on? Actually, how do you share further opinions if you have them in the future? I mean, to this select board directly or what's the recommendation of? Is the website a way to, Eric? I would say you can contact the manager's office, email, phone call, stop by, and we'll gather the additional comments and share those with the board as they come into the board. How it works to leave your car here if people have any questions for the rest? I know we're not supposed to do an official vote, but can we just show hands how many people are in favor of purchasing more equipment versus not? Or is that not allowed? It's not an official vote, it's just an opinion of everybody. So here's the problem for me, because I'm not a big rules guy. I'm putting temptation in front of me, and that's very hard. The reason why it's announced this way is that people, if they expect a vote, more people will show up and so the people who aren't here aren't represented. I personally am not uncomfortable with a show of hands of what I'll do is I'll just ask for a show of hands for people who think that something more should be done without defining that. Is that an appropriate way to phrase the question? Does that give you the answer that you're looking for, for opinions? Well, it's representative of this group. Right, yeah. Just this group. So all those who would like to see something more done raise their hand, and then all those who think that what we're doing is good enough for status quo, raise their hand. Okay. I don't see any more information work done. There's another group that wants more information before they raise their hands. So you know who to ask, right? Okay, so with that I'll draw this conversation to a close if I can find my magic sheet here. So then article five to transacts any other business proper to be brought before said meeting. Is there any other business to be brought before the meeting? Yes, in the back. Is it being followed? Could we just make a note somewhere that that gets done in the interest of that child? Notes are being made. Anything else? Thank you, sir. Anything else? Yes, Chairman. Yes, sir. I just wanted to correct something in the town reports. The Planning Commission did have some turnover this year and I noticed a misprint. I hadn't read this until tonight. On page 66, the next to last paragraph said we said so long this year to our long-serving chair. That should say vice chair, Kevin Badson. And in the next year's report we'll probably recognize the departing of our long-serving chair, Jake Mathon. And Jake is here and I just want to acknowledge him because he's been the backbone of the Planning Commission for a long time and the chair for eight years. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Bill White. I just want to say that I'm going to miss Rick Woodwire. I think he's done an outstanding job in town. I'm an old resident and I've seen him do his wonder for many, many years and I think that Rick will be found and I look him up a lot. I'll help you with that. Anything else? I would remind you that the polls will be open from seven to seven tomorrow at the National Guard Army to vote on articles six through 17, which I will not read, but you have them on the warning. Seeing no further business, do I have a motion to adjourn to the, is there a second? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed? The ayes have it, we stand adjourned. Thank you for coming. Okay, I'd like to get started on the budget presentation and for those that have stayed, thank you. I also want to thank you for the recognition. I know Deb Beckett earlier talked about what a wonderful town this is and it is. Recently, the select board have hired a recruiting firm to help find a replacement and they wanted to talk to me and they asked me a few questions and I went on and on about what a wonderful community, what a wonderful select board, what a wonderful staff we have and at the end the guy asked, why am I leaving? So, but it is a great community. So, I want to talk a little bit about budget and as it happens, the budget is really more than just numbers. The budget is a plan, a plan that includes the services that we're going to be providing, the cost of those services and how we're gonna pay for those services. We actually provide a wide range of services. In fact, I counted them and there are over 100 different services. The ones on the screen here are the ones that most people are familiar with. Includes police protection, fire suppression, road maintenance, library services, recreation programs, et cetera. And we do our best to always strive to provide the most efficient services that we can. Sometimes we're not quite as successful as we'd like to be especially when it comes to snow plowing. So, it's time to talk about the budget numbers. Now, I have a confession to make. I like talking about budgets. Now, sometimes I'm actually surprised when I find that not everyone shares my excitement about budgets. You know, some people actually like budgets to read and even find it relaxing. Now, Homer Simpson is not one of those people, as you can see from that picture there. But I'm gonna ask you to relax as we talk about the budget numbers. So, the proposed budget for next fiscal year is 11.7 million. It represents an increase over the current budget of about 176,000, which represents a 1.5% increase over the current year. A good part of the increase amounts is caused by an increase in wages and benefits. And there's several reasons for this. First, we base most wage increases on the cost of living index, and that's around 2%. We also have experienced some huge increases on the cost of health insurance. We're not, obviously, in the only organization that has experienced this, but certainly it's had a major impact on our costs. We're also adding a full-time position in the recreation department. This is a recreation program coordinator. Currently, that position is a part-time position. We're gonna be making it a full-time position. We're also creating a new part-time position in the library, and that both positions are really a reaction to the increasing levels or the demands for service, which is a direct result of the increasing population in Welliston. Capital projects and debt service are down by about 143,000, and I snuck a picture of my granddaughter in there. She is enjoying a sit in one of our fire trucks. Sit in one of our fire trucks. So things go better with pie, and so I took the numbers and put it into a pie chart here. It's important to note that the cost of services, according to this pie chart, the biggest part of that pie is actually for public safety-related services. Includes town roads, fire service, police, and ambulance services. Combined, it represents about 55% of the total, so that is mostly where your tax dollars are going. Now, how we pay for that, there's a variety of different ways. We have user fees, we have local option tax, we have host town fees, and property taxes, of course. And translating that into a pie chart, the largest piece of that pie, not surprisingly, are the property tax, which represents about 49% of the total. Local option taxes are also a significant portion, representing 27% of the total. That lately has been a great resource for us, with the downturn in the economy that we expect to see a significant decrease in that, because it's a very volatile tax source. So the answer to the question about what's it gonna cost me, the municipal tax rate each year is set in June by the select board typically. And that's following the grand list, which is set in April for the next fiscal year. And I'm talking about the municipal tax rate here. Based on the current budget, we're expecting about a half cent increase. This means that people who have property in town will pay about $8 more per year per $100,000 in value. I wanted to show this chart, because it shows the property taxes over a five-year period. And if you take the five-year period, the total five-year period, and take the total increase over that five-year period, including the increase projected for next year, the amount is $14 per $100,000 in value over that five-year period. And I have some more good news on that. If you can talk about taxes being good news, this is a comparison of municipal tax rates around Chittenden County. I'm sure it's not easy to see the names of the communities, but Williston is at the bottom, or near the bottom, I should say. It's next to the bottom. The only town lower has lower municipal tax rate than Williston is the town of Charlotte. And they offer quite a different level of service than is offered in Williston. And so as I talked about budgets, I also wanted to emphasize the fact that the budget is about services. The town provides, as I said before, an extensive array of services, and occasionally people even thank us for that service. This is a letter that our police department received from, believe it or not, a protester in town. This happened, I think, it was last summer during one of the protests. And I'm just gonna read it because it may be hard to read. So it says, dear Chief Foley, my heartfelt thanks to you and your department for your respectful presence at the Never Again protest yesterday. If your officers felt a challenging juxtaposition during the march, it was not apparent in their demeanor. Please share my gratitude. And of course this is just one of many, many thank you notes that we received. And in other news, two feet of snow fell this morning. I actually, I've used this graphic in previous years and Gary Howard, who is often here, had asked to see it again, but he's not here tonight, so I'll have to tell him when I see him that I actually used it again. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have on the town's budget. I'm gonna give right after this a little talk about the bond vote and then we'll have Eric Wells talk a little bit about some of the charter changes. But right now I'll entertain questions about the town's budget. Yes, sir? Municipal taxes, yes. And I'm wondering what with this new city here in Williston that's moved into our task corners or is that gonna hurt us with all these new houses and all those large buildings that are forced story or is that gonna be a real help in the tax situation? Well, there's no easy answer to that. I can tell you quite a few years ago when Act 60 first came into play and I don't know if you're familiar with Act 60, but long-term residents certainly are. We were very concerned about that because it was shifting taxes out of Williston to the state and for example, a lot of the commercial development according to the study was not paying for itself because that tax money wasn't coming to the town, it was going out of town. However, because the local option tax, I think that does change the equation. On the residential side, I would say that the homes do pay for the services. In other words, the value of their homes do cover the cost of municipal services. And all the commercial activity generates a lot of calls for public safety, police, fire, ambulance. And as I said, with the advent of the local option tax, I can say that they are now paying for themselves as well. But that initial study showed that they weren't, but things have changed. Well, don't they have a property tax just like the individual owners have in the town? They do, but because the municipal tax rate is so low, they aren't covering their services. And it used to be that they paid for themselves in a different way because the money would come to town to pay for education. But as I said, that money goes out of town now to the state. I don't understand. If I'd pay, let's say $2,000 a year for property taxes, I drove through that area last night. I was amazed. There must be 4,000 to 5,000 people that are living in that one area. And I live right across the streets and I have them there since 70. And you mean to tell me, we can't get a lot of money out of all those homes and everything to help our tax rate? Well, we are. Yes, absolutely. Any increase in the grand list does help keep the tax rate low in Welleson, absolutely. And we still have to. That is projecting. It's just about a half cent, yes. Any other questions? Is there a broader vision about walkable, bikeable for Welleson? How you're hooking up the Burlington, that kind of thing? I find it a little more persuasive argument to say, can I have a vision as a town where we actually get things built and greater density is actually the right thing environmentally? I like that about Welleson. There's a couple of places that don't want to develop. And I think it distinguishes us. I'd like to support that kind of movement by the town. Well, it is supported in town, comprehensive plan of development. And that plan has been in place for longer than I've been here. Many years ago, I remember constant complaints from outside of Welleson about how Welleson was an example of sprawl. What they didn't understand is that the town did have a clear plan in mind, and that was to concentrate development, which is exactly what is happening now. And concentrated development makes the delivery of town services much more efficient, which is, I think, what your point is. And the connectivity is certainly part of it. And I'm sure there'll be growing discussions, not just about sidewalk connectivity, but also roadways. And in fact, the next topic I'm gonna talk about, there's a connectivity issue as part of that too, but I'll get to that in a minute. But anyway, I think I'm agreeing with your point. Yes, yes. So I'm not sure if I'm on the wrong topic, but so I'm wondering, where do most of Welleson's people's taxes go? Well, I can go back a couple slides. That's the expense chart. So in reality, most of the tax dollars that people that own property and town goes to the schools. A small portion of that goes to municipal government. And municipal government services are represented by that pie chart. And as I said, maintenance of the roads, police service, fire service I call public safety because their job is to make the roads safe for the public, to make sure the protection from police and fire and all that. And that represents the largest piece of that pie is for those kinds of services. All the other services are much smaller slivers of that pie. And so that's where, when you say municipal tax dollars, that's where your money is going. Did I answer your question? Good. Yes. Climate change is an existential threat to this community. I don't see it represented in that pie chart. How are we addressing climate change and our fiscal budget? That is, as you know, a work in progress. The, your committee has been working on preparing a recommendation through the planning commission, which will be then going to the select board. And so that at that point, it will become a topic of greater discussion. And if there are elements that require our cost expenditures, those will have to go through the same process as any other expense. But in a way, we're seeing some of that perhaps through some of these major storm events that we've had. And again, I'm going to about to talk about a bond vote that involves partly damage that was caused by a major storm event. Other questions? If not, I'm going to jump right into the next article. Okay. This is the Muddy Brook Culvert. This is, I believe, Article 7. You'll be asked to vote on this tomorrow in addition to the budget. Now in April, 2017, the damage was done to this culvert. And we're not quite sure what storm event caused it, but there was some erosion of the soils around the top of the culvert and around the bottoms and sides. And what we thought was a little pothole turned out to be much greater than little pothole. There was a huge cavernous opening underneath the pavement surface. And that caused us to close the road immediately to traffic and we were able to work with the city of South Burlington, which border, both towns border on this Muddy Brook, which uses this culvert. And we got a temporary bridge put in with the help of the state of Vermont. And this temporary bridge was installed by the end of April, 2017. After the bridge was installed, the town worked with South Burlington to hire a firm to do design work. And a preliminary design was submitted to the select board and the city of South Burlington's town council in October of 2018. After looking at this preliminary design, the select board and the city council in South Burlington approved the preferred alternative. Then in October of 2019, that culvert you can see is being washed down the stream. Now, in addition to that, that wouldn't be so bad, perhaps, because well, the culvert's gonna have to be removed anyway, after all. But the storm did significant damage to the supports to the temporary bridge that had been put over this culvert, forcing us to again close the road to traffic. Fortunately, with the help of the state of Vermont again and some federal funds, a temporary repairs were made and the bridge re-opened in December of 2019. The design work on the permanent replacement is about 90% complete as I understand it. The permitting process still needs to get underway. And if it is approved by both city of South Burlington and the town of Wilston on the vote tomorrow, the work could begin as soon as this fall of 2020. And it's about a nine-month process to complete the job. So we expect if it starts in the fall, it could be completed by the spring of 2021. So as I said before, the select board had approved a preferred alternative. This preferred alternative is a significant improvement over the current layout of the road. It allows for pedestrian access across that road by providing a separate pathway. And by separate, I mean there's separation between the roadway and this pedestrian crosswalk. So that is a significant improvement. And this is part of the plan that was approved by the select board. The cost for this work is 1.8 million and that will be split 50-50. So the town of Wilston's cost is $900,000. The plan is to finance that project over a 20-year period. And we're estimating the cost impact to citizens will be about $3 annually per $100,000 value. And with that, I'll answer questions you might have on this particular project. Yes, ma'am. The question is, will the road be closed during construction? The answer is yes. So if we start in the fall of 2020, this coming fall, then it'll be closed until it's completed in the spring. And as you probably know, that's a major problem because the traffic caused by people finding alternative ways is a huge problem. Bumper to bumper from Kennedy Drive all the way to, we're too wet. Yeah. Things learned in this past, what we had two months of this kind of traffic, this past year, people were taking notes of maybe we should put it back away, where we drive over to, maybe we should close it in traffic, you know. Well, we're gonna have to have some conversation with South Burlington on this because there are some things that perhaps can be done to ease the traffic concerns a little bit. It's not gonna be 100%, but there are things that can be done. Is that a much longer period of time? Yes. And it did seem that there must have been some adjustments to traffic lights because it did improve after about a month. But I don't know if it's because people decided, you know, they were gonna go a lot of the way. Yeah, I think that's a large part of it. People adjusted their schedules. But yeah, it's a concern that we're gonna have to try to do something about. Any other questions? All right, oh, yes, sorry. I was just wondering, as you've been talking to me, you never see a show of hands of food uses the route that, I forget who's talking about, but somebody's talking about it, like between the Kennedy Drive, yet E2A. Well, the gentleman was asking if he wants to see a show of hands of people who use that section of road. And I think most of us do. So, okay, then we're gonna move on to some of the articles, what is it, 8, 9, 10, I think it is. And Eric Wells, the system manager, will be addressing those. All right, so I'll run through there. Our three charter change article proposals here. I'll start with article eight. This applies to practice of self-governance to allow the town to make some decisions related to its charter without approval at the state level. It's a question of local versus state control. So I'll back up and talk about charters in general here. A charter's a document that defines the organization. Its powers, functions, and essential procedures of municipal government. So I'll take a brief moment for a name this 19th century justice here. Anyone name this former Iowa Supreme Court justice who has impacted Vermont law? All right, I've stumped you. This is a former Justice John Dillon, whose namesake is Dillon's rule. So Vermont is a Dillon's rule state, one of a handful of states left in the country that follows Dillon's rule. Meaning municipalities are creatures of the state of Vermont and as such must have permission from the state to define governing terms in a charter. John Dillon, the Iowa Supreme Court justice is a namesake of this rule. It stems from his 1868 decision that determined the bounds of a local government's legal authority. He wrote municipal corporations owe their origin to and derive their powers and rights wholly from the legislature. As it creates, so may it destroy. If it may destroy, it may abridge your control. So this decision continues to drive the relationship between municipalities in many states today. Charters enable municipalities to debate from general statute in specific instances. Currently 57 Vermont cities and towns have charters and 24 villages have them as well. In the process of change of charter currently, it's approved by a Vermont municipality that has to then be approved by the legislature to become law. As such, the legislature can modify or strike charter changes that were approved first at the local level. On the flip side of that, since the charter is state law, the legislature does have the authority to change municipal charter without the people of the municipality first approving that change. And I'll, I forgot, here's the article on the screen. So this proposal in section two, article eight on the ballot would allow any charter provision approved for any other municipality to be adopted by a majority of Wilson voters as a provision in the town's charter without that need to obtain approval from the legislature first. So our thinking behind this is if one municipality in Vermont is able to do something under charter, then any other municipality should be granted the same authority if it is the will of the people. So that's what this question is asking you. And any questions there? All right, thanks for bearing with my charter history overview here. So I'll go on to article nine. Sure. Yeah. Got some. Can you go back to? Sure. So does that work under Dillon's rule in Lawrence? If the citizens of Wilson can say if the legislature approves the charter change for any other municipality, we want to have them able to do that. So that's a good question. So at that point, the legislature would then need to approve that charter change with starting the house, the government operations committee. So this brings the discussion to them. And exactly. So this Vermont League of Cities and Towns has driven this conversation, this biennium. There's been a bill in the Senate for a pilot committee for some self-governance work. It's currently in the house. The house hasn't taken that up yet, but other municipalities are talking about these issues. So this is a way of us looking at that issue locally and kind of raising this point of if another municipality is able to do something by charter, why shouldn't Wilson be able to do that if it's the will of the people? Yeah, essentially they would have to approve that change. So then they'd have to look and say, well, that goes a bit against Dylan's rule, but it broadens that conversation and gets it some attention, I'd say. Other question? Yeah. So I'm assuming that there's an issue that prompted this revision. We didn't have a particular issue and I'm looking if there was anything here, but it's more of that conversation. We've, managers in the state have been looking at this and discussing with VLCT for over a year and we brought this to the board this issue and I'll turn it to Rick as well. What kind of things would it be referring to? What would it be about? It can cover why range of issues. This is an issue actually that I feel really strongly about because the state increasingly has, and the state legislature's been increasingly taking more and more authority away from municipalities and making decisions for us and it's getting really frustrating across the state. And I think the state actually is losing out partly because they aren't allowing towns to make decisions for themselves. They're not allowing for some maybe experimentation on different things that if it works out then maybe other towns should be looking at it. The state has been very paternalistic in the way they're treating municipalities which I find somewhat surprising since a lot of people that have served in the legislature at one point were on select boards in other communities. And so I just increasingly over the years have been, I've become increasingly frustrated with the level of control the state exerts. And frankly, there are many municipalities that really are, what's the word I wanna look up, are nervous about what we're proposing only because they're afraid the state may go the other way and take stuff away from the communities that have charter provisions. And the state may say, well, wait a minute, we don't want this community to have it and then other communities will want it. And so we're gonna take it away from the community that already has it. And so there's a lot of that kind of thing going on. So I just feel a little more strongly about it what Eric stated. So for example, what are some ways that the state has imposed its will over the municipality? Well, a good example is article 10. We have a union contract with both the police and fire unions. And we have a specific method that we negotiated to resolve disputes. And for disputes that involve grievances, we go through a process. And if we can't reach an agreement, we go through something called binding arbitration. For contracts themselves, we don't have that provision. We specifically did not negotiate that because we thought it would put the town at a disadvantage. Well, the state went ahead and imposed it upon us. Last legislative session, they voted that for public safety unions, police and fire, binding arbitration is required as a contract dispute mechanism. We don't have a choice. So we lost out on the ability to negotiate that and someone other than townspeople or get voting on the union contract if we reach an impasse. The good news is we've never reached an impasse where we got to that point. But it really is taking the decision totally out of our hands. And so that's article 10, which we're gonna talk about shortly, but that's an example of the type of thing that the state's been doing. Just jump back to nine here quickly. So article nine is a proposal in section 16 to provide the town manager with the ability to hire or remove the library director with the advice and consent from the library board of trustees through a majority vote. So this is really looking to formalize a practice that has occurred when the library directors have been hired twice over the past 20 years. It's protecting the status quo for this process. The select board and the library board of trustees are supportive of this process and this language and the charter proposal for change. So this came about when we hired Jane who you met this evening last fall. We realized that charter was silent on the ultimate hiring authority. And since we were working on other charter amendments, it was a good time to include this language to make the process clear. The manager's office and the trustees have worked well historically on this and this charter change formalizes process so that it's there for the future and it's something we can look to when a library director needs to be hired down the road. Any questions on article nine? Yes in the back. Sure. I guess the statute that makes me start taking into our phone and we have the men power to not be able to receive. In terms of staffing for addressing. Issues that might be on ourselves at a local level. Do we have the men power that we can look into issues that might arise by something to do with the past and start about and it's one of them. How do you get to a local level? I know we have a very active and busy planning department and I know as issues like that come up, if it's something we need to just take a broader look at, we have other resources to call upon if it was a legal question to check with council and it would depend on the circumstance I guess to address it. You don't mind if I jumped in here, do you? There's such a wide range of possible changes in the charter, it's hard to really answer your question properly because many times it doesn't involve any changes at all in terms of staff requirements. I think the important part is that any time the town's considering doing something like that if this was to be approved, it would take a town-wide vote by Australian ballot and I would presume that the town would have to go through a process of identifying any potential advantages and costs associated with that kind of change. Question? Rick, just kind of revert back to the hypothetical situation you brought up about, we haven't really ever had the situation arise where we've had an impasse, we've been able to solve issues, but are you basically saying that the state could technically step in or prove a budget that they don't have to pay for, but the local townspeople would have to buy by if they approved some increase in salaries or whatever were at an impasse as far as contracts with the unions? Yes, yes, if we reached an impasse with one of the unions and the arbitrator, it went to arbitration, the arbitrator made a decision, let's say to increase it, whatever percentage and whatever it is, let's say 5%, we were saying the most we could afford is 3%, the 5% would roll and we would not have a choice and that's an independent arbitrator. That's article 10, which we're getting to next. Yeah, I'll just quickly, article 10, just to make sure we've outlined it here, this change in state law requires the arbitration to take place. If there's an impasse and a public safety collectively bargain contract, that exists for 20 days after the release of a fact finder's report. So the charter change that we're proposing, it would be a new section of the charter which defines the process for us to fall locally and if approved by the voters and approved by the legislature, this charter change would then replace what's in state statute as our own process to resolve a contract dispute that's reached an impasse at that juncture. That's correct, that it would follow Dylan's rule and it would need to be approved by the legislature for us to deviate from what was in state law last year, so. So, yeah, thank you, good question. Any other questions on charter changes? Thank you. That concludes our meeting, thank you all for coming. I made the same mistake that Tony made. The school would like to do a brief presentation on their budget, right? Floor is yours. Oh, perfect. Yeah, I'll just, good evening. Thank you all for staying, I know it's getting late. My name is Jocelyn Adams and I'm Angela Arsenault. We are two of the four Williston reps for the Champlain Valley School District and we were hoping to go quickly through slides that outline not only our budget but a few bonds that will be on tomorrow's ballot. So our agenda is we will have a quick introduction. We have some points of pride for the Williston schools and CVU, enrollment projections for next year, what our proposed budget for the year of 2020-2021, including our budget goals, the budget factors and our tax implications, and then there's a stewardship bond articles and then we'll leave it open for questions. So our mission is to learn, think, live, contribute and pursue excellence. All of our schools revolve around this mission and you'll see that our budget goals go into this as well. So we are a consolidated school district and our school district, although we will be focusing mostly on Williston, the larger budget does encompass Charlotte Central School, Hinesburg Community School, Williston Central School, Allenbrook, well, Williston Schools, which is Williston Central School in Allenbrook, Shelburne, CVU and then St. George comes into Williston. And not surprising, the Williston schools have the largest student population and we are right around 992 and we also have the largest staff of about 213 for the elementary middle schools. So points of pride for Williston schools. We have a focus on nurturing strong trusting relationships with students and families, ABS and WCS are PBIS exemplar blue ribbon schools for multiple years running. Teachers who continue to contribute to their field recognize for excellence on the state and national level including an impressive list of national board certified teachers. We have a thriving CUI mentor program that has about 60 middle school students that are involved, just a little plug. If you are looking to maybe get involved as a mentor, Nancy Carlson is always looking for committed mentors for next year. There is an active school safety team with close working partnerships with local agency responders. We have a system wide emphasis on community service and helping those through the eighth grade challenge projects, disaster relief and various fundraisers. We have a vibrant co-curricular programming featuring high participation rates, athletics and drama programs and we inspire curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. There are a variety of experiences in the essential arts including design and technology and family and consumer science. I also wanted to add that our first and second graders at Allenbrook were involved with the kids heart challenge and they raised over $11,000 for the American Heart Association. Points of pride for CVU. Our Latin teacher, Lan Morton, was awarded UVM's Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Cole Glover, who is a CVU student, was selected as a muralist for the Burlington Community Arts Mural Program. 98% of our students graduate or complete school at the end of their senior year. Special Olympics bowling team came home with gold, bronze and silver medals. CVU student Sabrina Brochu is serving on the State Board of Education. 61 students and faculty slept outside in solidarity for homeless and youth in our communities. They raised over $7,000 for spectrum youth and family services. Both cross-country teams won the state championships and the girls won New England's for the second year in a row. CVU's Racial Alliance Committee led the effort to raise the Black Lives Matter flag. Girls and boys soccer and boys and girls volleyball were division one state champions and the 315 students of CVU's class of 2019 of those students were accepted into 238 higher level institutions around the world. So assessment results for Williston. This is, it's kind of hard. I'm sorry that these graphics aren't the best for being so far away, but essentially what they're showing is that Williston compared to Vermont is above the rest of the state. Except I believe it's grade four math, which is just an area that we've known has been something that we're focusing on, but overall our students are testing higher than their peers in Vermont. For assessment results for CVU, for grade nine language arts and grade nine math, CVU students are scoring higher than their peers in the rest of Vermont. So enrollment, this is something that's big across our state. It's a continuing concern for our state, but in Champlain Valley School District, although you will see that there was a slight decrease in student enrollment from the 2018, 2019 to 2019 to 2020 school year, which is this year. It was really tiny, 0.9%. And for next year our projections are to be pretty negligible. We think it's gonna be about maybe a decrease of six students. I do wanna do a little asterisk there. We have a really difficult time projecting what our kindergarten enrollment and what our ninth grade enrollment will be. We've been trying very hard to change that and we're doing a much better job. We have someone from Allenbrook who actually goes to all of our community partners who are serving preschoolers trying to get a better number of the kindergarteners. So although it's showing 963 right now, that may not be what happens come the fall. But our district feels very good about what our current enrollment is. We're pretty level, we don't expect to go down. I know that all four reps from Williston are constantly asking the town manager how we're not seeing a big increase in students with all of the building that we know is happening at Finney Crossing and across the town. So enrollment trends for CVSD altogether is there's a projected of a negative 1.3% for next year. So that's across all of our schools, all of our elementary, middle school, and then CVU. Again, 1.3% is a fairly small number and it's not something that we're concerned about and we also won't know until September what our actual enrollment will be. So just like the town, budget work happens year round. We mostly focus on it from November until tomorrow. That's when it looks like we're doing most of the work. However, we're doing it all year round. So we normally have a school board retreat in May where we start making our budget goals and our goals for the year. And then a lot of work happens at Central Office through the summer. Our special education budget actually has to be done before school even starts. So that portion of the budget is already complete just because of the state regulations surrounding that. And the entire time this is happening, district office is speaking to the school principals, getting feedback from teachers about what they need, what's working, what's not working. And then in November, the finance committee starts really deep delving on the numbers. We do several community outreach, trying to present where we're going with the budget, why the numbers are looking the way that they are. And then we communicate it, which is happening right now. And then it gets voted on. We just wanna say thank you to all the parents, our community members, teachers, support staff, administrators for all the feedback we get. There's specifically one meeting that the community's invited to at CVU where you can get more information about your specific town and we get feedback that way. There is a community survey that goes out that we've gotten and then staff and our administrators give us a lot of feedback as well. So our board budget goals. When we start thinking about where we wanna be for next year, what we're keeping in mind is supporting and the implementation of our mission, which was at the beginning, meeting or exceeding education quality standards. So those are the standards that have been put on us that we need to meet. Implementing key initiatives, implement and continue to improve the budget process, including the focus on community input. We are very grateful that you all are still here at 10 of nine. Community input is so, so important for us. And all at a cost that we think the community will support. So we could shoot for the moon and the stars, but if the community's not gonna support it, that budget doesn't work. So right now, so one of the education quality standards that we follow tells us that for kindergarten, we need to keep an average of students in a class. The class size needs to be under 20. For K through three, it also has to be under 20, 20 or under, I should say. And for grades four through eighth, they need to be under 25. Right now, our averages for kindergarten are 18.3 with a range of between 17 and nine. K through three is 18.5, with the range being 17.25 to 19.5. And for four through eighth grade, it would be 20.3 is the average with 19.4 to 22 as the range. And I'm sorry, it's not current. This would be for next fiscal year. We are meeting EQS this year, but this is what it would look like with the numbers that we have. So district initiatives. We, the administration came to the school board and these were the things that they were asking for. And I do wanna back up just a little bit. There is gonna be a place for me to say this, but just as the town was commenting earlier, we are seeing a significant raise in health insurance costs. That alone is a 13.2% increase from last year. And we also are seeing a huge, huge maybe isn't the correct wording, but for special ed spending, which this is money we need to spend, the federal government says that these are kiddos who need certain services and we need to spend that money. It's up 5.2%. So I just wanna preface that. But we are wanting to increase in early literacy supports for struggling learners. And this is actually not any new positions. So there is something called Act One Funding, which funds early literacy funding so that we can have early literacy teachers in our schools. And it is all based off of students being qualified for free and reduced lunch. Because our district, there are certain districts like Burlington as an example, who they have a large enough percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch that their entire district receives it. That doesn't happen here. We don't reach that threshold. So our schools are actually compared to one another. And if one of our schools has an increase in the free and reduced lunch, it can actually affect the other schools. So there was actually an uptick in Hinesburg, which meant that Shelburne, who has received the Title I funding, no longer qualifies. Those students, there's still the need for that early literacy support. It's just now not gonna be funded by the federal government. And so Hinesburg actually gets more support that's paid for, but we can't, in good conscience, take away 1.5 FT. So that's essentially one and a half full-time teachers to do that work. So we've added that into the budget. Investments in pre-K through eighth essential arts equity, including science, technology, engineering, and math. One of the things that we have been looking to do since we consolidated is taking a really hard look at all of our schools and making sure that all the opportunities given to our students is equitable. And last year, one of the things the school board had asked our administration was what's happening in essential arts, with art, music, gym, and then life sciences. And Williston is an example of one of the towns that our students weren't getting as much of that as other students. And so we are gonna be adding 1.8 of a teacher, so that's one whole teacher, 0.8, across the whole district to help even that out. For Williston, that means we're gonna be getting 0.8 more teacher, which is going to go over art and music. This is really great for a couple of reasons. First, we've been having staff who have been having to go between Allenbrook and Williston Central School. We're paying them to travel, and it's also inhibiting our schools from being able to do a better master schedule. I know at Allenbrook, it's been making it so that kids can only have morning class at maybe art or music, rather than having the flexibility of it going into the afternoon. It's really kept to Williston Central School from doing some really creative things they wanna do with their master schedule. And so what will result out of this is that kindergarten will get an additional 40 minutes of music, which will make it two classes of 40 minutes weekly. The pre-K kiddos do not receive music education at all at this point, and it should allow them to get either 20 to 30 minutes a week. And then in first and second grade, they will be getting an extra 40 minutes of art a week. And this just really helps the schedule and also it will make us fall in line with Shelburne, Hinesburg, and Charlotte. I believe it's Hinesburg and Charlotte will both be getting 0.5 because they were also behind Shelburne. So yes, that is, so that'll utilize the staff time better and the master schedule, which is very important. And then right sizing of the CVU leadership and guidance staff to match increase enrollment. So the ask of the school board was to add a additional guidance counselor and then an additional administrative staff member. I believe it was five or six years ago. Yes, ma'am. It was gonna be at the end, but if you'd like to... Oh, I'm sorry. We were right sizing it to the level that we thought the students should be receiving. So I don't believe that Shelburne, so Shelburne was getting the most essential arts, but after discussing with the different schools, I think that it was, it's not, I think, I know that it was decided that that was the right level. And so we were bringing, we're trying to bring Hinesburg, Charlotte, and Williston up to that level. And it won't mean exactly the same. It would mean that they would be at a one teacher, it's a one to, it will be between 61 and 65 ratio. So one teacher does 61 to 65 students, which I don't have the numbers from the current, but I think it's closer for Williston being a one to, I think it's just under 200 ratio. Fast, education quality, CVU, which is one of the things that I was gonna, yes. And one of the questions I can tell you that the school board was asking last year was, so if one of the schools is getting more music, say, say they get a lot more music, are those kiddos, when they get to high school, are they the ones who are pursuing music in band or continuing on with that education versus the kiddos that don't? And it's just, it's one of the things that we've been trying to untangle. But it was, we have been meeting EQS, but it's what our administration and what the school board believes is what the level that we want all of our students at. So with regards to the right sizing of the CVU leadership and guidance, five or six years ago, like the rest of the state, we thought that enrollment was gonna be dramatically going down and continuing to go down. And at that time, it was decided that they could take away a guidance counselor and take away one of the administrative staff. However, there was a little dip at CVU and then it went constant, it came back out. And what we've found is we have not been meeting EQS for guidance, meaning that we need another guidance counselor. And then for the administrative staff, there are, I believe it's four houses. And we only have three house directors, which has been really putting that of real strain and Adam Bunding, the principal, this was a request, hopefully making it so that the administrative staff are not just constantly putting out fires, but are actually being able to be preemptive, having relationships with students, being able to catch things before they happen. And we thought that it made a lot of sense. Social emotional learning supports in all schools. So there are things called like planning rooms or what? Treehouse. Treehouse. And so these are programs that are social emotional supports for students who need extra support in the classroom. It's where they can go if they need a break. They have trained professionals who can help them re-regulate so that they can get back into the classroom. And we're currently doing an assessment of trying to figure out how to best strengthen those programs. And if it's determined that Williston needs it, then there is a 0.5 behavioral interventionist position that's being held for us if it's deemed that we need it, if it makes sense into the program. And there are some positions that are going into the other schools as well. And the last one is additional middle school substance abuse personnel, which is grant funded. And we are, so that's an SAP counselor. So that is all Medicaid funding. That's not actually something you'll see affecting our budget, like with what the community needs to pay for. But currently we're at a half time position and we'll be going up to a 1.0 position. And so I know it seems very heavy on what we're adding for personnel, but we actually are having three full-time staff reductions and it's all based on EQS. So this year, because of what we believed would be the projection for Williston's kindergarten class, we went from six kindergarten classes to seven. We actually also increased a first second grade teacher as well. The first second grade teacher we needed, definitely needed this year, seeing what we're going from kindergarten to what's projected for next year. We actually don't need that seventh kindergarten teacher. So that's gonna be removed. And there are two other positions similar to that in the district that are not needed purely because of EQS. So that's purely meeting how many students should be in a classroom. So that helps offset some of the increases that you see here. So our CVSD proposed budget is 82,309, I'm sorry, yes, 398,769. This is a 4.4% change from last year. The cost per equalized pupil, which an equalized pupil is a fancy algorithm that the state figures out. They give weight to our students and they add them up and they divide them out and then this is what they give us. 16,585, which is a 3.2% change. And so I just, there has been information that's been presented in two different ways. So I personally got some emails about it and I just wanna make sure that I'm linking those two together. Salary and this is based off of what we guess will happen because we are currently in negotiations for salary. We believe there will be about a one point, so of the 4.4% increase for the whole budget, 1.3% of the increase from this year to next year will be in salary. So that's our teachers, our staff, everyone. Health insurance, so there's a 4.4% increase, 1.3% between the two years is gonna be health insurance. However, that is the number that we're going from this year to next year's 13.2% increase, but it makes up 1.3% of the increase. Special Ed is increasing 1.1%. Again, I mentioned before that that was, it's a 5.2% increase from this year to next year, which for the whole increase accounts for the 1.1%. 0.3% is our district initiatives, which is what you saw on the last page. So all those ads with the positions that are being removed account for a 0.3%. Tech center tuition is going up, which is like our high school students going to the Burlington Tech or to the Essex Tech. That accounts for 0.2%. Educational supplies, those tariffs, they're accounting for about 0.2%. Other benefits are accounting for a 0.1%, similar to the town, we are also saving some money on debt services for the upcoming year, which is negative 0.1%, which amounts to the 4.4% increase from this current year to next fiscal year. So tax calculations. So we take the budget expenditures, so the 82 million that we're saying our budget will be. We know, I should say we anticipate revenues of about $13 million. A lot of this comes from Medicaid and from the federal government. So the total net spending ends up being just over $69 million. We have an equalized pupil count of 4,176. This is a little bit more than we actually have enrolled. Again, it's the algorithm that the state puts our students in and how they weigh them and then they spit them back out. The spending per equalized pupil is 16,585. That's the 3.2% up from this current year. The statewide yield, so that's what the state says that we should be spending per pupil is 10,883. That's 152.4% for district spending adjustment, which equals out to $1.52 for the homestead rate. In case you're not as familiar, when we became a consolidated district, part of us consolidating was to give us an incentive. So the first year, we saved 10 cents on our homestead rate. The next year was 8%, the next year was 6%, and this, what, cents, I'm sorry, sorry. And so this year we still save four cents and eventually we get to zero. So although it's at 1.52, we're actually gonna be at $1.48 pre-CLA, which I wrote down just so I make sure, common level of assessment. This is really hard to read and what it's basically trying to show you is that in 2017, which would have been pre-consolidation, the Williston tax rate was right about $1.50. And so this year we'll be coming in at 1.48, so we're still actually lower than what we were at in 2017. The other lines are confusing because they're for the other towns and they don't actually show them on the bar graph. So this just shows you what happens for Sherlock, Hinesburg, Shelvern, St. George, but for Williston, we are at an equalized tax rate for pre-CLA at $1.48 because of our common level of assessment. So this is the appraisal that the state does on our town. It adjusts us to $1.60. This is a 4.7% change from last year and what this means is there's a $71.88 increase and I made sure I did the math. So if you own a $400,000 home in the town of Williston, this means that your taxes will be increasing by $287.52. Just to compare our district, so the tax commissioner sends out a letter at the end of December every year telling us what he expects is happening in the state and he said the statewide assumption was going to be 5.01%. Our proposed budget is coming in at 4.0%, so it means we're coming in better than the tax commissioner's letter. We have a change in equalized people count. The estimate was going to be 0.49%. We have a 0.8%. This is also better, it just means that the state will give us more money and then growth in spending per equalized people, the assumption was 5.53% and we're coming in at 3.2%. So we're coming in under what the tax commissioner was assuming would happen for the rest of the state. You may qualify for an education property tax credit for if your household income is less than $138,000, $138,000, $250. So it used to be called the income sensitivity, it's now called the property tax credit and you can go to www.tax.vermont.gov to see if you qualify. Actually, okay, I'll finish this and I'll see if there's any questions before we get into any of the bonds. So this is just what will be on the ballot for tomorrow. Shall the voters of the Champlain Valley School District approve the expenditure of the board of school directors of the sum of 82,398,769 dollars, which is the amount the board of school directors has determined to be necessary for the insuring fiscal year commencing July 1st, 2020. And it's this bottom thing in case it's hard to read. It's estimated that the proposed budget, if approved, will result in education spending of 16,585 per equalized pupil. This projected spending per equalized pupil is 3.2% higher than the spending for the current year. I do have a couple bonds I need to discuss, but I just wondered if there are any questions about the larger school budget before I continue. So the school district has something called a fund balance. This is essentially money that taxpayers have already paid. It usually is that we did better than our budget. So we budgeted for a certain amount and then it came, we didn't end up spending it all, so it goes into this fund balance. And for us to use it, the voters need to approve it. So we are asking that the voters of the Champlain Valley School District authorize the board of school directors to allocate its current fund balance without effect upon the district tax levy as follows. Assign $725,000 of the school district's current fund balance as revenue for the 2021 operating budget and assign the remaining balance $1,750,407 as revenue for future budgets. So this does not affect our tax rate at all. We have this money currently in a balance and by using $725,000 of it, it actually saved us one cent on the tax rate, thank you. So it would have been one cent more if we didn't utilize this money. Bus purchases. We currently have 62 buses in our bus fleet. This covers our entire district. Our goal is to replace three to four vehicles each year so that we can keep the average lifespan of our buses around eight years. We currently have buses that are well into the late 20s and I'm not sure if we still have one that's like 30 or 31 years. What's really exciting about this is we're asking for three school buses but Champlain Valley School District was awarded a grant where if we buy two diesel buses, if we put up the money for two diesel buses, an organization is going to pay the difference which is about double for us to get two electric buses and those will actually all be in the Williston schools because we have the best current infrastructure to be able to support that. So that's actually something we're really, really excited about exploring the use of electric buses. So the Champlain Valley School District, shall the voters of the Champlain Valley School District authorize the board of directors to borrow money by the issuance of notes not in excess of $266,000 for the purpose of purchasing three school buses. Capital maintenance, this is really long so I'm not gonna read it all but you'll see it on the next slides. We are asking for voters to shall general obligation bonds or notes of Champlain Valley School District in the amount not exceed $6 million subject to reduction. Okay, I'm not gonna read it all. We're asking for about $6 million for a capital maintenance bond which will provide $4.5 million to Charlotte Central School and I will explain in a moment what that is for. $445,000 for capital improvements at CVU, $395,000 for capital improvements at Hinesburg Community School, $380,000 for capital improvements at Shelburne Community School, $90,000 for capital improvements at Allenbrook and then it's $90,000 for stormwater which anyone who lives in Wilson probably is familiar with what we've been having go on in our state with stormwater. So the CVS board is committed to putting the district on a path to a sustainable capital funding strategy to minimize costs and stabilize tax impacts. We don't wanna be coming to taxpayers and asking for $6 million bonds every year. That's not our goal. We're trying to get our buildings in a healthy enough situation where when we do have to ask for bonds it's every few years and they're small. We have a beautiful building here which only happened because we took out a bond to work on this school. The same thing happened at Shelburne and the majority of the $6 million bond is for Charlotte and if you're not familiar with Charlotte, that school is in dire need of remediation and of major infrastructure. And so what we're hoping to do is to get all of our buildings up to a certain level so that all we're really doing is maintaining not having to constantly put out fires. After a period of catching up, district voters will see consistent small investment requests. There would be stewardship bonds prioritized to eliminate the need for the large construction projects being seen by some of our neighbors. Double or triple digit size bonds are a result of deferring necessary maintenance projects. So when you see a couple pictures of Charlotte you'll see that's a perfect example of what happens when we defer maintenance. And deferred maintenance also causes health and safety impacts to students and staff, costly secondary facility problems. Again, we went and did a tour at Charlotte and that day they were having to pay someone over time to come in to look at burst pipes because there's no insulation and the pipes froze and burst and if that hadn't been their current environment we wouldn't be paying that. Inflation drives cost increases so paying $4.5 million now rather than in 10 years looks very different just because the cost of material and the cost of labor goes up from year to year and workers' confidence insurance claims do it to accidents and injuries. So again, just to highlight, so at CVU we are part of the bond is for $545,000. This is to improve drainage in two of the natural grass fields. They currently I believe have five fields and they're not, they have drainage but it's not at a level that's working. They, this past year our maintenance staff put in some drainage a different type and it worked really well and so we wanna do two more fields with the idea that then the following year we could do another two. That is not the field that anyone is hoping for a turf field. And resurface the track to meet safety requirements. We're getting to a point that the track is falling into such disrepair. We will no longer probably be able to do track meets in the next year or two and replace windows in the 1981 wing for energy efficiency. At Heinsberg Community School which accounts for $395,000, repaving parking lots and replaced sidewalks and curbs. Some of the curb work actually happened at Allenbrook I believe last year or the year before. Safety upgrade, HVAC and second floor classrooms. At the Shelburne Community School which accounts for $380,000, paved school street parking lot, drop-off and pickup area, kitchen, mechanicals to code. School security upgrades at Allenbrook School that accounts for $90,000. Part of that is the sprinkler system and then the other half is having architects come in and do an assessment of our school for safety concerns. If you've never been in Allenbrook we have an open concept where there are no, there aren't doors on the classrooms and so really the only protection of being able to close off a classroom if you wanna keep children safe if there is a critical incident happening is closing the doors of a hallway and so we wanna have an architect come in and see what we can do to try to make those classrooms safer and see if there's a better way to utilize their space and just figure out what that looks like. And then district-wide stormwater improvements is $90,000. All schools but Williston fall into the same watershed and there is a nonprofit that has been matching anything we put up. They have been matching that money to remediate any stormwater issues and so we just need to make sure that we have those funds there and then of course if Williston is needing work to be done we need the money for that. And then Sherlock Central School. If you've never been to Sherlock Central School it is essentially buildings that have been hobbled together. There's very old buildings, there's been some, there's one part that that was actually tore down and rebuilt I think about 12, 2012 maybe. Because it was so bad, that part was so bad that they found it was cheaper just to tear it down than try to fix it. And I just wanna show some pictures. There was actually way more pictures we could have had and this is just what was put out. So what we're talking about is it's not for the whole school. We don't, that would ask for too much money right now. This is for about 70% of the school. The school, the part that we're talking about was a one-story building and at some point a second story was built on top. However, they literally built on top of the roof. They put down plywood and then put carpet over that. There was no insulation. So if you look in this first picture anywhere you see yellow that is from the outside of the building that is hot air just coming out. Hot air is just leaking out and in the second picture it's really hard to see and I apologize that it is but there are lines going down the whole building because there are metal, there's metal and there's just no insulation. And we actually saw, when we went inside in the art room the windows are literally just like falling out. They brought us into a couple classrooms where the smell of mold was so strong that I literally looked at Angela and said if my kindergartener was in this classroom I think I would pull her and send her to private school. It's just they, what we're asking for the $4.5 million is to change, is to fix the envelope of the building. So this is not to change any of the aesthetics or anything, it is to put insulation in the wall. The outside there's like a stucco on part of the building which is just literally saturated. So they need to replace that. In some of the classrooms when you go in you just touch the wall and it's ice cold. There are like parts of the building where like water is just like leaking down. It's also to change some of the HVAC systems right now and I don't know the official terminology for it and maybe one of my peers does but they have like individual heaters in the rooms that are so out, they're completely outdated but they make such a loud noise that the teachers actually choose to turn them off and let the room get cold because the students just can't concentrate. It is so loud. They turned one on for us and it was just so loud. So the $4.5 million will allow us to properly insulate, fix the issues with the walls so that water is no longer getting in and to change the HVAC system. Am I missing? Okay. And then I already spoke to this about Alan Brook, sorry that I jumped the gun on that. So the fire alarm system and then looking about improving our security situation in our open concept school. So tax implications of the bond, the highest tax impact on the bond will be in year two which is fiscal year 2022 to 2023 with principal and interest payments estimated $426,486. This translates to one cent on the tax rate or if you own a $100,000 home, it's $10. If you own a $500,000 home, it's $50. One caveat I would like to add and I wish that they had included this slide for us to present to you is there is currently a CVU bond that will be expiring in the next few years. So although this one will be getting added on will no longer be making that CVU payment and that will make a difference that year that the CVU bond expires. Please vote. Please vote yes on the school budget, on the bond for the buses for the general fund and then for the capital improvement bond. Any questions? Yes, sir. My name is Brian Forest, I'm the kind of Indian coordinator and the International Panel on Climate Change in 2018 gives the 2030 to the change for carbon, create a fossil fuel society to a carbon-free society. The town is, it started aggressive with the town entry report and the students are responding to it by forming groups like the Sanctuary Billion Sunrise Movement and Youth Climate Conference here in July. I understand that this is a two-way conversation because you do not control your budget or your actions. I'm asking that the CVU have a conversation, start the conversation that how CVU is going to, how they're going to decarbonize school district. That's it, that's it. Talking about eating and riding the schools, buses, they're all cost money, but we spend $23 million, we spend $23 million a year to the school district to get our children. We need to have a plan for a plan that's going to live on when it's a graduate. Thank you. I can definitely bring that to our board as a point of discussion. Thank you very much. I would say that the renovation or construction that was done here at Wilson Central School was very much focused on efficiency upgrades and improving our environment, the output of the building itself, same as through for the Charlotte Central School renovation. And of course, if you could just see that our Jean Jensen's excitement, the geologics, she told us that we got the grant for the electric buses. So there's definitely excitement around the topic. And as you mentioned, of course, student-generated interest. And so yes, it can certainly be a focus for us moving forward. Thank you. Chapin Caner, and maybe everybody knows this, but as I understand it, the $19 million or so that we bonded to bring Wilson Central up to where it is, that debt is part of the CVSD now. And so although this year's request is mostly for other schools, the total debt load on the district is not unbalanced to my, is that an accurate statement? Chapin, thank you for bringing that up. That is actually, so this is the second time I've done this presentation. The first time was at the Wilson's family as partners. So that's our local PTA. Again, a little plug if you wanna get involved. That was one of the discussion points is that we benefited with consolidation when we got our bond. I actually believe that only Wilson voters actually voted on that bond, but then with the consolidation, all the town's bear the cost. And so kind of the mentality I would hope that other people in Wilson would be thinking is, I mean, the school is beautiful and we got some much needed improvements. And now it's our turn to help another one of our schools. And I've only been on the school board for two years, so I know that I've kind of come at it from a certain perspective because I don't really know the district as anything but being consolidated. But really, even though $4.5 million is for Charlotte, really, I mean, it's for our whole school district. There are schools. All of them are our schools. All of those kiddos go into CBU. They all get mixed together, so Chief, and thank you for making that point. Yes, Craig? One of the reasons we require $19.8 million budget upon to address the issues in this facility is because of years of deferred maintenance. You know, you do what you can each year under your maintenance budget, but there are big ticket items that you need to address at fall outside of what a maintenance and annual maintenance budget can handle. That's why I'm really encouraged about this proactive, smaller bonds in terms of stewardship and keeping things at a level of maintenance where we're not gonna be facing 12, 15, $25 million proposals that are required because of deferred maintenance. So that's one of the reasons we had such a big ticket on this building. And our district is very fortunate to have Jean Jensen as our COO. She's, I really feel like she's a visionary and really thinks long-term. And so we need to put some money into Sherlock. There will probably still be some money that needs to be put into the other schools as well. But if we can get to a point where all the schools are in at least fighting shape, then we can get to the point that we're only asking for small stewardship bonds every few years. Are there any other questions? Well, thank you very much. Please tell all your friends vote yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Thank you.