 I think we'll call a meeting to order 6-1 chair is gonna be a bit late getting here, but so we're gonna get started with Mr. Canary. Oh dude was that first? Those in favor Kind of caught me off guard here. Is there already if I stand up just like I Yep, Jamie can already on the superintendent I'm here tonight to provide a brief Presentation of the board approved budget that you'll be considering And also just to give folks an update Which it was a bill that was passed in the spring of 2022 that you've been reading a lot about or hearing about in the news And I'll talk about what provisions of that bill are impacting the white rubber unified district And in general the good news is for white rubber unified district that that bill did provide and I'll show you how here in a minute additional tax capacity without impacting Royal tin or bevel voters in order to generate that tax capacity Which was what that was in the heart of the bill. Okay, it's to provide rural districts like ours who have actually quite a high rate of free and reduced lunch population of students that we serve to increase the ability to add additional supports to best serve our kids without having to increase local taxes to do so The bad news as I go through this report is going to be that your common level of assessment And I'll show you what that all means here in a minute Drop significantly in Bethel and in Royalton So the tax increase this year is general is being generated due to that common level of assessment Not actually the equalized tax rate due to the local student school district budget Okay, I Did have a slideshow Wow, it's always been the common level of praise Not assessment. It's appraisal. Okay. Sorry. No, I'm not thank you So as the presentation is getting ready to go on I'll just talk to you a little bit about So This is all in there as well, but the first one is We did add a 1.0 FTE for Tech education And so right now we have a 1.0 FTE that we share across our middle and high school campuses The high school enrollment is actually up 24 students this year Which is great and a majority of those students are tuition students tuition into our district from local choice districts and So the idea is to be able to provide full-time tech education and Makerspace like hands-on learning for our students at the middle and high school throughout the entire day Right now. It's only offered at the middle school first thing in the morning And then that teacher travels over to Royalton and so we want to be able to provide that opportunity across the Continuing on the day at both campuses We increased point for FTE and intervention and we'll do some reassigning to make certain that our middle school has a full-time math Interventionist right now. We have a paraprofessional doing a really nice job We want to bring a full-time licensed math interventionists in place at our middle school here in bevel We budgeted for That one's not the one but The where you're budgeting for a 1.0 across both campuses a social worker To help provide additional supports for our kids But also our families and link them up with resources that are provided via the families and essentially With a real focus on making certain we're holding our community partners accountable To best supporting our family. So when you say community partners, what are those Claire Martin Center? Department of Children and Families other folks that sit down at the table with us to really make certain that those plans are being followed through And that our families are getting their supports that those other organizations are able to provide them. That's the one You're good. I'm in the I'm on slide once We also budgeted for a full-time administrative Assessment to support the high school guidance office So what you're what you'll find is that our high school enrollment now is up to the last two cohorts, we're actually at 60 kids At the high school, which is a significant increase and a majority of that increase is actually coming from Students choosing to attend our high school now Via the Supervisor and Union choice district. So that's Rochester Stockbridge students We have Granville Hancock students at our high school now First branch for the first time and a very very long time. That's Chelsea Tumbridge set more kids to our high school Than any of the other surrounding Independent or public schools. So and that is each one of those students Is next year at nineteen thousand nine hundred dollars in revenue? Okay, so that's what the announced tuition is for next year and You'll see in your in your budget when you look in the book that we're budgeting for 45 tuition students our sense We are budgeting conservatively there. Our hope is that that number actually is more like 55 students for next year You may say Jamie then why didn't you budget 55? When we got in trouble financially in the past one of the things that I was concerned about is that we were sometimes overstating revenue in those Tuitions and as a school district, I can't sell things Meaning I can't just generate revenue and so we need to make certain we get that revenue right And so some of the surpluses you've been seeing is actually we've been able to generate some more revenue Because we've had more kids choose to come to us than what we budgeted as we start to feel better about what those figures are and those Kids are staying with us for a full year. We'll start to budget closer to the number, but right now we are budgeting Possibly ten students under or about a hundred and ninety thousand all right But it'll ensure that we're not running a deficit that we will continue to run budgets that are in the black We got some elementary classroom instructional materials specifically for literacy in this budget as we look to really shift and Ensure that we're doing a good job with the science of reading Which is essentially making certain that we are doing a good job in teaching our kids phonics and phonemic awareness And then finally we partner with tri-valley transit to provide us some after-school transportation in midday Transportation for our students. It's a really good bang for the buck for us to be partnering with public transportation It's actually how students get to us right now from Granville Hancock area Over to our high school the timing works for those routes And also we have a commuter bus coming to us from Stratford. We actually have a couple of tuition students from Stratford now choosing our high school So that's what the changes in the expenditure budget were The next slide it breaks down the expenditure budget our budgets up ten point nine percent overall What are the driving factors for that? I'll tell you one of the biggest ones is health insurance for us in in our school systems across the state are up sixteen point four percent and Just a reminder for folks that that is a statewide bargain contract And so health insurance is bargain statewide And so we have no control in regards to where the that those premiums get set The the other thing is of course Budget increases for staff our our faculty right now their budget increases just over four percent Increase for next year and for our support staff. It's about six to seven percent depending on what type of professional development they do And then in this slide You'll see our equalized pupil our Rate went up significantly and that was due to act one twenty seven because we count pupils differently now and The big generator for increased pupils for us. So for next year That divider for us is up to one thousand ninety five point four two So we actually just from last year to this year in long-term weighted pupils. We gained sixty four point seven four That's good because it's a divider I'll show you how that mechanism works here in a minute But as that number goes up and we hold spending the same your equalized tax rate goes down So that's a good thing And so next slide. Oh, so our per pupil spending is eleven thousand nine hundred fifty and forty two cents Don't compare that to last year's if you look in your book because it's a whole different funding formula They changed how the pupils were weighted All right, so what I would what we are providing to you is what your proved pupil spending would have been last year with the long-term weighted figure And so last year would have been eleven thousand three twenty sixty eight and now you're spending eleven thousand nine fifty and forty two cents All right, so the change was six twenty nine seventy four. All right next What's that they increase spending so it's yeah, so that is a figure based purely off of What we're spending minus local revenues and I'll have a thing to break it down here in a minute Divided by your per pupils and that's how you get your per pupil Yes So what is act 127? There's a lot of provisions in act 127 currently in law My pillier is looking to revise act 127 Within the next two weeks and the piece that they're really focusing on Actually is nothing to do with how we budgeted at the White River unified district. There is a Per-pupil ceiling in the bill currently that if districts to spend less than 10 percent Increase in their per-pupil cost that they're able to benefit from a by a five percent tax cap on their equalized tax rate Okay, well if you're spending more than five percent Locally that money has to come from somewhere Meaning if another district spending more than their equalized tax rate that five percent cap Which districts are that money has to come from the Ed fund We have a statewide Ed fund So the way that money was being generated was There's a figure called the yield which I'll talk to you about in a minute when that yield number drops What it's doing is it's increasing taxes across the state meaning if a District north of here was spending the equivalent of they're underneath this 10 percent ceiling cap per pupil But their actual tax rate should have been 8% But they're capped at 5% that remaining 3% came partially from you in White River Unified District Okay, because the when the yield drops everyone across the state pays more in taxes And you were well under the cap your equalized tax rates actually down three cents Your your equalized tax rates not close to five percent increase So every time in White River Unified District that that yield drops your taxes go up No matter what we do and it's really hard for us to change our budget here locally To make a difference so the last time we got a figure in December one About where the yield was projected to be and then we got a new updated figure in early January It dropped it increased your tap the yield dropped to a level that it increased your taxes by four cents Okay, it it takes us to either increase revenue or cut expenses over just over a hundred thousand to get a penny All right, so that change of what that yield meant 400,000 and change that we were gonna have to either cut from our budget or generate more revenue to make up that difference the good news For you in White River Unified District is that the the changes that they're suggesting that they're gonna take action on Should result in your yield increasing again So by the end of the presentation, I'm gonna talk to you about if it goes to where they think it's gonna go because spending across the state's gonna go down Specifically of those districts that spent more than what they were paying on the equalized tax rate If they take and pull money out of their expenditure budgets I'll show you where that yield is projected to be and what it actually means is really good things for our local tax rates in Royalton, all right, I'll show you what they currently are now and if they take action what we're projecting But the big thing for you in 127 is your per pupils increased because the way that we count a student now has changed Students who are served via English language learners like English is a second language. They now count for like two and a quarter students Okay of that per pupils that I talked to you about Students who are served via free and reduced lunch count for an additional third of a student So there's changes in the waiting factors that weren't there prior and you may say Jamie Why is that well, there's what has happened is is that they've recognized that We need more resources to serve students who are maybe coming from generational poverty Over time right and we need to get additional supports in place So they changed the way that they figure these weights to allow districts Who haven't been able to generate revenue locally to do that work in order to do so hence why we have put a social worker in We are able to do that and you're in your equalized tax rate is not going up. You're still down three cents All right, so next slide this is all on our SU website. You can find this 127 I've broken out what is in our control Everything in the red we don't control locally Those are all figures that are set up in Montpelier like the yield which I was talking about Okay, what our per pupil calculations are those are provided to us by the agency event All right, what we really have control over is our general budget Making certain we have a good capital plan And in Chris's on the facilities committee We've been working quite hard at the White River Unified District to have a plan that we're putting money away And that we're able to do improvements and that we're not going to be in position to have to go to bond for deferred maintenance Okay, that's been a huge goal for us across the Supervisor You it's why we're going to ask you to allow us to put a big trunk of our surplus funds into capital reserve So that we continue to build up our reserve funds and I'll remind you we just did $1.6 million worth of work at Bethel Redoing the heating system that was failed Without needing to go to bond and we were able to do that by grant funding by tapping into our Facilities fund and through some performance contracting that we did all right So that was a big deal that we didn't have to bond in order to do that So how do we get the tax rate next slide just to remind you it's broken down of per pupil spending well Jamie What's that? It's our budget minus our revenues Jamie. What is revenues for us for you and Rudd? It's really your revenues are title funding Okay, which are federal grants to help to support our interventionist all right. So those count as local revenues It's also students that we receive via tuition. All right, that's the biggest chunk of your local revenues All right, that is then divided through by your equalized pupils and that's that 1,000 and Your your pupils is 1,095 point four two So we take your acts so that that spending is called act 68 education spending Once you deduct your revenues from it you have an act 68 spending of 13 million 90,728 and then we divide that through by your pupils, which is 1,095 42 and we get the per pupil spending of 11,000 950 and 42 cents okay After that We have to get to the equalized tax rate. That's your per pupil spending divided by the yield So when that yield drops when you heard me talk about it dropping that increases your equalized tax rate When the yield increases Then that equalized tax rates gonna go down because it's a divide and so what you have in your books Is the lowest yield that has been sent projected to us thus far all right I expect that the yield is actually gonna go up because I think that spending is gonna go down across the state Over the next month. You may say Jamie house. Why is that? I believe that budgets will go down in some places I also believe that people are gonna amend their budgets from the floor when that cap provisions taken off And there's no more cap and So the final tax rate though is the equalized tax rate divided by the common level of appraisal Okay That is that was not good news for us like I said and it was not just in white River Unified District It was in every district across the supervisory union and I would say it's in 90% of the towns across the state that the common level appraisal dropped a great deal and Not to go into all the details tonight because I know you have a lot to cover The common level appraisal is dropping because assessments Haven't been done in quite some time and or were delayed due to COVID in a lot of towns And so the assessed property values across the state are not what the actual sale of property values What we're seeing okay, and they adjust the CLA across the state to ensure that in general the grand list makes sense For towns, okay It's also a mechanism to ensure that you didn't have listers in one town that tended to assess Properties lower, but they actually were valued more so they're not paying their fair share into the Ed fund All right, so that's why the CLA drops Now let's say you reassessed in the CLA increased Well, that's great what I would show you could be a tax rate going down But you're now gonna pay that tax rate at your new assessed property value meaning your taxes still increase I just don't show it to you because I have to show the CLA and my making there that your tax is gonna go up either way So if we assess We say that they may go up But it depends on the value of your property because if the grand list rises and our expenses don't rise We would be distributing them over a Different amount of money Now is 300,000 you're gonna pay this tax that's gonna be different. Yeah, but I just think I'm actually seeing you as a school district We try to show that to folks So that I'm not gonna take credit if your tax rate that I show you goes down because your CLA jumped because you were reassessed I try to explain to my towns when that happens like yes I'm showing you your tax rate down, but your house may naturally be reassessed at a higher value now So what's the yield I've got a little slide on that that just kind of breaks what down what it is It's the factor used to convert between Perpupil spending and the equest tax rate It's adjusted depending on how much the state needs to collect via property taxes for the Ed fund The legislature has very little mechanisms right now That they can use to increase revenue into the Ed fund. They're actually quite limited it's mostly property tax and It the only lever they have to generate property tax in the statewide Ed fund is the yield The tough part about this is we never know what that is until late May the yield All right, so every time I talk to you about your tax rate. I'm saying to you. This is the best number We have right now But depending on what budgets are approved and where they're voted upon across the state and what what the you know Joint fiscal office determines and it advises the legislature that they need in order to fund the Ed fund That yield will not be set typically until late May And so just know that because it's an important factor Feel that if that there'll be budgets that are voted down and you think that's why the yield may drop Was that what you said earlier? No, so Was dropping significantly Yeah Yeah What the projection actually was and I actually believe it's accurate that based on that cap It was gonna resolve any yield that put everyone over over the cat Okay, and so they're now looking at taking the cap out Budgets have all gone to print So I will give you an example. I have a district in the SU Stratford They budgeted essentially for flat staffing that they had but they lost pupils in Act 1 27 They were a district that lost 4% tax capacity with the cap Their tax rate was gonna go up Just about 18 cents when the cap is removed. It goes up 36 cents. That is a big deal in that community so we're gonna probably have to cancel our vote and Try to figure where we're gonna either Cuts cut spending and or take some reserve funds and put it in to offset taxes I give that as an example to say why I believe funding will spending will change So finally I have my a slide that shows your equalized tax rate calculation and I put in yellow And you can't probably see it folks on the TV can see a lot better But if the yield goes to a nine thousand six seven nine figure, which is what the last figure we had for the yield When they were to house ways and means was taken testimony on this last week What you're gonna see is that your your tax rate deduction and your equalized tax rate will go from three cents To about ten cents So that yield could contribute another seven cents savings for a white river unified district listen, I am not in the business to Predict where the yield will be but if I was a betting person I would tell you that I believe it will be closer to this nine thousand six figure then The prior yield that was released that was much lower than that that we actually have in your books that nine thousand one figure And again why because I do believe that at spending is going to be adjusted So common level of appraisal Just so you guys know in Bethel it was at eighty eight point four oh percent last year It's down to seventy nine point seven seven percent this year Royalton was at eighty five point four four percent last year they went to seventy nine point four four percent this year I want you to know that's the only reason your tax rates are different Okay, so why taxes are gonna go up more in Bethel this year? Currently right now them in Royalton is because the change in the CLA was greater in Bethel than Royalton You're a unified district. You're equalized tax rates always the same The only reason that the final tax rate is different in the unified district is due to that CLA All right, and I try to say that over and over again because I worry about as we merge it throughout this supervisory union I don't know how well we we educated folks on that like the why of that and that really is the why it's how But how much of a change happened that that That current year to the CLA And then we have a little slide that just shows historically how your CLA's have dropped. You're actually essentially the same now It's just that Bethel dropped more this year and then finally We've got a summary on your implications of the tax rate Per pupil spending went up six hundred twenty nine dollars and seventy four cents that result in a change in your equalized tax rate of Actually a decrease of three cents Okay Jamie if you're telling me I'm an equalized tax rate went down why are my taxes going up? That last divider, which is the CLA which dropped which right now With the yield that we put in your book with result in about a twelve and a half cent increase for Bethel and About an eight cent increase for oils Okay, and on a hundred thousand dollar home in Bethel. That's a hundred and twenty four dollars and sixty three cents 250,000 dollar property value. That's three hundred and eleven and fifty seven cents, and we broke that out in your mailers, too Now if that yield goes up because spending across the state goes down meaning we change nothing Just spending across the state goes down It would result in an increase of only about four cents for Bethel So that that's a big difference for a hundred thousand dollar property. That's only a forty dollar tax bill We change nothing just spending across the state changes and I'm really emphasizing it this year because I think we heard act 60 and then we heard act 68 And I don't know how much even personally on my own property taxes as your superintendent I always contributed to that statewide ed fund in that yield Like it was in my mind But the more you start to see the yield as it plays out this year because it's fluctuating a lot more this year You start to realize how big of a difference that is Okay And in Royalton, it would essentially it would because their CLA change wasn't as big They would they would actually be It's pretty much neutral. It's point zero zero seven. It's not even a cent On their tax rate if the yield plays out of which hopefully it will The last three years have been on the board with school as well, and I Think some things that at least I've seen during that time one. I mean Jamie's Fabulous Superintendent so we It's been Long time coming. I think we we've had many pitchforks and torches meetings with our superintendents in the past And Jamie really has his foot his finger on the pulse and and he's not a you know He's not going to just tell us one thing do another so he's you know He's really straight shooter the the budgets that we have put up last year as well Have been have been very Responsibly put together and meaning it's kind of tricky when you know COVID money started flooding in and the state They're saying Here's all this money that you can use to spend right and it's so easy to say Oh, well, I'll take two of those and three of those and you know and all of a sudden you start growing, right? What we've done with our budget is the good thing is our unified district is is Growing because of popularity so we have more children coming in From other other areas, which is a good thing so there are some things in the budget that we do have to increase because of that increase of children come in like counselors and things like that for services, but the rest of And you've seen the last couple of years including this year that we had some significant savings in our budgets And that isn't because we're sandbagging the budget what this has been is I'll take it in our community. Anyways, we've been taking that federal money and tucking it aside rather than Start, you know, let's have two more of these people Let's let's change this around and any of our spending that we have done is like one time Spending so it's not spending that you're going to have to budget in down the road It might be let's do some matching money to take care of some infrastructure at the schools That's needed so we've been putting that one-time money to good use rather than a budget that's going to carry you down the road Now on that it is so easy for us, especially if you know right now We're looking at you know significant tax increases potentially is so easy to say well Why don't we just take that money and just offset our taxes, right and short-term makes sense But but we also have to think about the long-term picture of what that money really does for us and and the aging of our Buildings and things like that. So, you know, it's very easy. You know, we're looking at Putting aside about $900,000 worth of we'll call it savings, but it's responsible savings It's things that you know, we haven't grown into the budget that we can put somewhere for one time So we kind of need to think about that when we go to the the the polls as well But I mean I think the When we first started we were we were very excited this year We started off with our budget, which is the same budget haven't changed it and there was a seven cent savings Which would have been for Bethel that was our first draft Before things started to move at the state and what we were going to do at that time is we were going to give a Two cent savings to Bethel and we were going to take the other five cents Which is it's like one pennies a hundred thousand dollars and we were going to take another half a million dollars and put it into Future projects for our school system. So that was kind of that was where we were heading It was gonna be a two cent savings. We were gonna tuck even more money aside for future projects And then we went from seven cent savings to Okay, now we are eight cents up just because of the common level appraisal and the adjustments at the yield and then you know Then it changed again, which were up to 12 So it's it's very difficult on our end is we thought we had and we do have a very strong budget that we put together and You know when you start thinking about how much of the budget you really control without taking Unless making it a detriment for the children that are actually going to school There's not a lot of money that you can adjust in there without without really changing the The quality of the education at the school But you know, I think Jamie for coming in tonight. It's That the school is never an easy topic I think at the the town meetings if you look at last year I think in Bethel went up what a half a cent maybe or something like that You know this year 12 cents is a lot. I think we all can agree that 12 cents is a lot now It's definitely not as much as our neighbors And you know some of those numbers I've seen it was high as 40 cents and some towns So but you know the governor was talking a few months ago that you know percentage of taxes were going up to to XYZ things so and school is definitely one of them. So And we'll talk about the our budget tonight You know our budget is our budget at least that at the town level we control a lot more There are some factors like you know some inflationary costs and things like that that we don't control that we have to figure in but but the school I will tell you you know one of the reasons I got on the school board was really just to Understand it, you know a lot more and you know it is a Albert Einstein calculation to figure out what these tax rates are that Two-thirds of those tax two-thirds of the calculation doesn't come from you comes from someone else sets it So and and the one third that we did set this year was the savings and the two-thirds that come from the state has been a drastic increase, so I think we should also say that the Your school vote is from the floor. Yep. This year. It's in Bethel I spoke to Pam who's your town clerk and she said there was only 12 Bethel residents 12 Bethel residents in Royalton last year that voted on your $12 million school budget So I suggest as a Bethel resident that you vote on your school budget that you go to the meeting and I'm sure all that information is out there. It's on the superintendent's website We'd put it out. I think on Facebook and from porch forum and Because I have three votes At that same night So I'm in sharing this year, but we will have business office folks there and your board has a good grasp of the budget No, no voting from the floor you vote school from the floor Change Yeah, you can't do a full vote from both towns we would have to warn an article That the electorate would take up in regards to whether they're not they wanted to pursue Australian ballot That would be the way to do that Yeah, you have to take that up at the school don't look at me Yeah, it's a it's a thing to think about for sure because you do vote Yeah, and you do Yeah, oh just know Thursday at 6 30 is we're having an informational meeting. It'll be hybrid in Bethel and virtually There's another hybrid one that's going to be coming up to in Royalton. I don't have that one off the top of my head But it's in your mail these informational meetings are in your mailer So there are going to be two other opportunities to see a presentation similar Coming up prior to that Monday night vote Nope, you just you did there's a link and you just follow the link. It's a Google me And the process to go about doing that and we have kind of informally talked Amongst ourselves in regards to that because there are there are some nuances to it that don't really make a lot of sense in two communities like Like potential like signatures if you want to run or or if you're going to like I learned two years ago If you are going to run as a a write-in campaign that you need 1% of the vote in each town not just your town So there's a lot of kind of little things in there that maybe Weren't thought out as best when the articles of origination will put together But the only way that we can change anything right now is that the first thing Written in the articles of origination that is that 80% of the board members have to agree to do something So you pretty much need all the board members to be on fall to change any of the major pieces You mean like if you want to go to Australian ballot that's just to okay at the board discussion So the board would have to have 80% buy-in and then you can go to the voters About changing the articles of origination So that that would be the path that that one would take if you wanted to change anything like we were potentially just talking about we have a committee out there right now just exploring how our things going with with the With the district right now since we formed it or is everything going the way it should be Are there things that aren't working that maybe we should look at changing and if we did anything majorly changes We would have to take that same process. So On the cover it says in-person vote and then right below it. It says vote by ballot Which is misleading because you're saying you can't vote by ballot you vote Australian ballot for your office But it's just for the office for the officers But maybe I think that like if I read that I would see that as like oh I don't need to go in person because I can vote on the budget the next day And then you'd be sorely disappointed. Yeah, so just clarifying it maybe Yeah, we will yeah, so I'm wondering if anybody has any questions Thank you me in light of the presentation or Is our people like I am just feeling overwhelmed And know this I'm doing and I've tried to push it out and Paul's come at once I am holding these little Friday morning drop-in sessions at 8 a.m. At central office and virtually On top of the informational meetings that we'll do in the evening in case that's easier for folks, too I've got one coming up this coming Friday And we'll talk more in detail that if people have questions It's across the SU to which I think has been helpful for folks to just get a little bit of a sense of the flavor And what does it like how how this impacts all of us? Across the 10 towns of the supervisory union actually is quite different And because it is a statewide Ed fund and everyone's situation is unique But I think it was helpful for neighbors to hear that and see how their neighbors are navigating this as well So those I've got two more of those coming up And always reach out to the office. I will we will set up a time to connect I really pride myself in trying to be available. So no, I'll do that. You're not that's never a bother Thanks guys, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Excuse me Yeah Didn't run this year, so it's probably gonna be vacant I think I didn't hear anybody else I Know Doug's got a lot of time on this plate just saying just throwing it out there Doug That's right. Thank you so much So much it was very helpful All right, all right, so we have Kurt Representative Kurt White was going it's kind of just Well, I don't know if this is we're back on track now with I know the last year or two Kurt's kind of floated in and out just kind of give us some updates What's going on in legislative process and Montpelier. So is this are we starting that off formally or well? Probably he usually comes once a month. He's a good egg about it So usually are you willing to come back once a month and like you did before? Yeah, he's always good about So the tomatoes you saved under your seat So you see I'm wearing these and I'm not sure I'm going to because This one died on Friday. Oh, no, and so It was helpful to listen to Jamie because I'm not So what will happen is if you have a question and I go ah, you'll know what that's about So we can Okay, I'm up to speed here So, yeah, thank you for having me where they're particularly do you want me to talk about the state piece? I thought Jamie did a great job on I was I was a little bit worried. I was going to have to lay out all that math for you And so I was really glad that he had the opportunity to do that because he did a great job And and one of the reasons why I originally supported at 127 was precisely because I knew that it would benefit our towns because with the people waiting You know again, it was designed to help schools that had more rural students You know because and and so I knew that it was going to be a benefit to our town one of the well the things that that Jamie mentioned was the of course the common level appraisal that is what it is, right? I mean because and some of that is because the We all know During COVID a lot of people came in Bought houses unseen for insane amount of money and that changed changes our Entire tax base and so the CLA is off and it has to be and we're having it reassessed and Hopefully level of that out But that doesn't mean you end up paying less taxes unless as you pointed out It just means the numbers read correctly So the CLA is the CLA the yield There are as Jamie mentioned there are a few levers that the state has but not very many and but one of which is During COVID especially people People still had their jobs. They were still bringing in money Some of them were getting other relief things, but they weren't spending it like you know the money income was coming in But overall revenues for the state were up I mean people were spending it but they were spending it on they weren't going out to restaurants. They were buying stuff So there were sales tax, you know and and so actually state revenues work up during COVID We they brought in a lot more money than they thought they were going to and they put a bunch of that in the ed fund So for the last few years, they actually were offsetting some of the The what would have raised the taxes They're using some of that reserve money to offset that to keep the the yield up And and but of course with inflation and all the other pressures that we're all feeling You know that They don't have much left in that reserve fund the most recent Revenue Prediction I heard last week is they do think that revenues are going to be up a little more than they thought They were going to be and so there may be some money not enough to make a big appreciable difference But there may be some money that they can put in there But the biggest biggest thing is to try and fix this problem with the caps because The original idea was that With the with the weightings you know Towns that like like Bethel Roylton, you know because we are rural You know, we were going to get our students were going to be weighted heavier And therefore we were going to get more money for them. And so that was going to be good for us schools that Were probably more wealthy schools. So they had kids that came from families where where You know As as Jamie talked about generational poverty, you know, the people who come from generational wealth Are easier to educate because you know mom and dad take them on vacations to museums And mom and dad have college degrees. And so they Encourage your kids to read and study and learn and so they're easier to educate And so they they don't cost as much to educate. And so that's the idea was that They should get less money because it costs less for them to educate those kids and so certain districts in the state we're going to see there and We in general would probably think of them as wealthier towns They they were going to pay a higher There's we're going to jump significantly Stratford is an example, right man. He pointed it out. So they were gonna It was going to be a significant leap And so the idea originally was well, you know, we don't want to be mean to any one town So what we'll do is we'll put this cap on there that if they raise their budget If they keep under a 5% increase in their budget then or you know, then Well, if they have to go over 5% of raise their budget, we won't charge them for that extra Over that instead what will we will and if you don't charge them that means Jamie said Right, it spreads it out. The idea was for five years Got edge them up a little bit over that time to make help them make that transition What happened was those schools and then a number of other schools. I I liked this it was a It was an end VPR Commentator made this statement at this comparison. She said if you have a weekly grocery bill of a hundred dollars And and the store one time says tell you what if you come in anything you buy over a hundred twenty dollars We're only going to just charge you a hundred and twenty dollars You're going to buy three weeks worth of food Because it's only going to cost you a hundred twenty bucks and that's what a lot of these schools did They saw they said oh We're not you know, we can we can go 25% over but we're only going to pay for 20 for 5% That's a deal And you know as Jamie talked about like the our schools have been very good about With the reserve funds and being able to kind of make our own improvements But a lot of these schools have not been doing it. So they saw this as an opportunity. Oh, we'll put in the budget a new furnace for the school I knew whatever and so so that really inflated it and that basically is what The budgets that were being sent to the agent of education Department of Taxes were all going to be really really high and that drives the yield down and that means everybody's Taxes go up and ultimately it that would erase the benefit that towns like like Beth on and Royalton We're supposed to get from this process. So it it undermined the whole thing. So the current bill which is House Bill 850 if you want to look it up Was just passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee and Somebody asked me not too long ago. They're like, I never understood what ways and means is Ways is ways and means are the ways and means that we get the money to pay for what we want to pay for and So that's whatever you do through taxes and grants and other things how we get the money and Then appropriations is how we spend the money Just to clarify that and so the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday morning By a 12-0 vote, which means all three political Parties and say of them all signed off on this plan, which is a good sign, right? When everyone's agreeing on it for this to pass this version of House Bill 850 and it now sits in appropriations and the the plan is fairly straightforward versus you take off that 5% cap and and so schools that Padded their budgets Are now going to have to pay for that padding and that's why Jamie said he suspected a lot of towns are going to be dropping their budgets And that that's going to then help the yield And then they but they didn't want to completely leave them at you know because what they what they'd like is for them to You know to go back to what it was with the original intention was which is which is to give them a little bit of a break So it's not quite so painful, but not so everybody could take advantage of it So there is a new plan out where? particular particular schools that we're going to notice a certain amount of Increase not just any increase They would be given like one cent off You know off their their weight and the idea is is so that it's specifically limiting particular schools that due to the weighting not based on their budgets, but due to the pupil weighting if it was going to Throw them into a really high tax bracket. Give them a little break for for a few years and add and the break Diminishes as time goes on the this is the part that appropriations and ways and means are Negotiating is how much that one set rate is So I so it's it's a little bit fluid, but the idea is basically to to for the most part get rid of that extra Get off the thing from the cap And then the other piece of the bills is a straightforward that all the select boards have already created their budgets and and have worn those budgets and are now Got if this is going to change so they're all kind of you know in limbo So the other piece is to give them a another month or two to to rewarn and to so for school boards and there's a Appropriations currently set at five hundred thousand dollars to to offset that cost for them So so those towns are paying for for that. So I think you misspoke you said Gluckboard, but you meant school board Yeah, yeah, and so Yeah school board. Yeah, so I had a question that I think it kind of goes with the topic, but not But so recently Vermont started to allow sports betting the sports betting Sports betting, okay Where is the revenue for sports betting going is that going to the education fund or I tried to look it up And I couldn't find where that money is being appropriate. Do you know I? Don't a hundred percent, but I think if I do think it was but I I don't want to speak But because it's under liquor and lottery and and usually they're Typically goes to the education goes well. I found it You know coincidentally that this was going up and at the same time we were allowing sports betting So I figured they were trying to offset some revenue there, but I couldn't find it I tried to look at the state level to find out where does that revenue for sports betting go and I couldn't find I would have to look up the the actual bill as an active and and that will say where it goes I my my guess is it does but but on the other hand Yeah, they may ways and means may have had a different thought on that and may have Divided it amongst them, but I don't know if you want I can send you an even I can look it up Give you a second and then the last question I'll leave you alone the last question that kind of pertains to some of the discussions We've had at the board here when we were talking about You know policing in our community is is often when we're talking about how do we please certain? activities in town and most most of it comes up with the you know drugs and things like that is is that The way the system works right now is you know, they're picked up They're they're arrested, but then they go to the judicial portion of it, and they're not reprimanded for it And they're right back on the street has has there been any type of Action at Montpelier to talk about either strengthen strengthen in this or doing something better And the bill hasn't I don't think bill has come out of the committee yet, but But there are a couple bills in there that are designed to so part of it is is that you you know person X Commits a crime and and it's a misdemeanor and So they just get a little slap away you go right? we set a court date and There's a part of the problem there is we don't have enough judges And so there's backlogs of months to years some of some of these courts And so they let them out before they get a chance to go to court They've had time to commit a whole bunch of new crimes, right? And so so that so there is a bill in there to to increase the number of judges and to somewhat change the way Even that whole judicial process goes to make it easier to get those people Processed the other piece of the bill things different bill is is to aggregate those misdemeanors so that It's not because right now. It's like you're being charged and and and the penalties also is This misdemeanor and this misdemeanor and this misdemeanor and each of them are separate and carry whatever small Small terms so what they want to do is they want to say oh you have seven dis misdemeanors Those equal felony or or you know or that equals a bigger a bigger indication of crime So it's a bigger crime not a smaller crime by aggregate So that's one of the bills to us is so that you can take these people who are coming all these little crimes and Actually charge them something that's going to have a bigger impact than just let them you know, okay, so you got Seven days and County Jail So yeah, that those are the two that come right to mind. I know it's an important It's one of the important priorities the legislature legislatures priorities this year. We're housing Economic development as always and that includes workforce development in particular because We don't you know, we need more workers to do the jobs we have it But we need housing so if those hot workers can have a place to live And and another one of the top priorities was public safety And that's around the courts and the police and and trying to to make that process easier and make that Because because you're right there. There are especially repeat offenders all over the place. There are not really seeming to be Taken seriously enough and so so they are really working on that And that's all in the judicial committee and and I I Yeah You saw our focus mostly on your own committee until things reach a certain level of And they start popping up and I say so we're thinking about this Had several instances in our town this year of individuals that are the Rapsheet this long that affected us, you know, we had to break in at the town garage You know the person's got a rap sheet a mile long We had a high-speed pursuit through town person's got a rap sheet a mile long And then we have others in town that we're trying to deal with that doesn't seem like we can get anywhere because just as soon as they get Processed they're back out again. Yep. And so Really started to affect us. I think it's my first year in office and there was a number of neighbors came to me about one of their problematic neighbors they they were pretty certain selling drugs and I actually called the state police barracks And it was just like so what's going on here? Yeah, all the neighbors can tell you exactly when the drug deal happened You know, how come you haven't you haven't been present to intervene and and and I got sort of a big answer Sort of a well, we have to get there at the right time. We have to know their process You know, we have to you know, we you know, a lot of them are smart You know, they keep it in the woods and so when somebody comes somebody goes out all that stuff, but I was still like, yeah, but You know, if you never drop by You know, it's gonna happen even though everybody knows it 3 a.m. On a Tuesday a white van stops in front of their house And it's only there for 10 minutes It's definitely hard. I think for I know just policing has a shortage as well and certainly so um But 30 police I think our state police force is down 30 police Yeah, at least and then I know the sheriff's office and then obviously locally and smaller departments and I mean I've spoken to several and and People it you know and they just call Vermont is like a catch-and-release state I mean because and and I've spoken to the commander at the state police barracks about issues and he'll say look I can bring in a rap sheet show you how many times we've arrested them, but they're still out So I think it's good that the legislature is picking up on you know on that and trying to you know Well, that's the state does not stand behind the truth. No And that's why they got they got eight cruises behind No drivers. Yeah, nobody wants me to be so upset because They the state doesn't stick up pretty well. So what's up happens? They're always wrong. They're wrong. They're wrong So now they're saying I'm not even gonna put a band on. Yeah, that's the problem Certainly is part of it. Also. I think I think some of its budget. I mean And so yeah, it's budget it's it's a whole actually across the state state government itself Doesn't have enough people to process. You know is somebody who says well, how come it took me so long to get my you know Whatever tax Some of the state or how come my unemployment insurance didn't pay as fast. I wanted or whatever is is You know, we have a workforce shortage in the state government itself And that's and that's also a problem So you don't have enough people even even in the police hire the Department of Public Safety even even in their department They're missing people in the upper realms to help supervise or provide the support for those police themselves So it's it's an issue. It really is an issue It's also a nationwide stigma to be a police officer has a nationwide stigma at this point Yeah, it's so it's not yeah If somebody has a warrant for arrest that they're not allowed to be picked up outside of court hours and brought in due to the lack of being able to handle them in the court and Had not heard that but I mean it could be true Again, if they don't have they'll have anybody to process them You know you pick them up and keep them in the in the cruiser. You know, I mean It's an issue You're correct So is there anything else happening at the mob failure level that that we here in Bethel should know about or Could affect us in some way positive or negative? I mean, you know, they're You know in my in my in my committee We're always trying to come up with more grants and programs and processes to help help towns like Bethel and yeah, and And there are There's probably going to be a bill that goes through to Create a fund to help schools Upgrade their their equipment and because a lot of these schools falling apart. We're all built built 1965 or whatever it was And and they've all reached the end of their life lifetime Even would stop you'd think would stop to be able to afford to fix your building But you know at this point they have septic issues And and they're considering leveling the school and starting over And so so they're you know all the schools need money and so there's there's a discussion about creating a fund And so again Bethel school might be able to Bethel schools in Roylton schools may be able to take advantage of that and Then use some of the reserves for other things There are those programs Is there any programs in regards to like housing Pieces that may be some of because we you know we still have several Buildings in town that yeah could be good prospects for housing But I think those individuals that own the buildings may not have the funds to be able to get them to What they need to be so is there any economic development money? We are we about that they would like they did last year and Kirk wasn't sure if they were gonna fund it again or not there was a product enough Program out last year where if you own so a building and you're gonna rehab that you got so much you and I emailed about it Yeah, I mean the thing is is those programs were snapped up like that and and so Almost certain those are those are coming back But they ran out of money So and actually there's that people have sometimes expressed frustration because it's still listed on the web page and and people and you can even still sign up people are like and then they're told well There's no money and I go why did you have me sign up? But the whole reason is is because that puts you in the queue So if there's more money that comes later, you're already in the queue as opposed to you know shut it off Everybody starts. So yeah, no for accessory dwellings. Yeah, putting an apartment on your house so you can rent it out and provide housing Programs to help renovate You know rental properties And or repurpose older homes get those up like you talked about we have some of them. I actually was it Was the last year that I reached out to some of those people and said hey, yeah, get in the queue Yeah, there are there are programs here, and you know, and for most part was ignored For what he was it's unfortunate, but he tried Forever is no there there is money for that. There's also a reworking of at 250 To try and figure out how to to make that Less of an obstruction for for that kind of stuff And especially especially if you're building housing within a designated downtown or in this region so so, you know, not so much Housing development in someone's agricultural field, but rather, you know to support downtowns to do that And You know and again money to help Seconds second and third story Commercial buildings that one have housing upstairs more money to try and help them do those kind of things Yeah, there again housing is one big big priorities on the list and and All those things I listed workforce housing public safety You know though there is no disagreement between the governor and the legislature on those that those are priorities And they need to be done Yeah, the lead from the legislature's point of view the problem is that the governor frequently says housing We should do something about it. Give me a plan and The legislators like do you have any suggestions? And he's like no you come up with it. I'll let you know if I like it right and I get it's a great political approach because if the legislature comes up with something he doesn't like he can say stupid Legislature and it's great for politics, but but it's less of a It's not always efficient Because you create something and then somebody shoots it down rather than if you built it together So that's the that is the legislature's frustration on that piece, but no we're working on it and at 850, I mean as far as I know the governor is also 100% on board with signing that into to eliminate the cap and do those pieces too So I think you'll see this move this week. I'm pretty sure it won't come out of appropriations this Possibly tomorrow and they'll fast-track through the system to get to help the schools So I just have one last thing I heard about it Right before I came here tonight to set up is that the legislature is somehow Considering monkeying with the tax sale process. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but I know But I know that VLCT executive director Ted Brady went and testified to the legislature Because it sounds like in the little snippet that I understand I'll have to do some more research tomorrow But is that the legislature is considering making tax-sailing for the towns a little bit more difficult and So obviously the process is difficult enough. It's it's labor-intensive but I think that one of the the key points that the legislature needs to remember is It's not a mechanism. We take lightly And certainly we need to collect taxes, you know, and Whatever that mechanism is we do payment plans. We do all that sort of stuff as I'm sure most towns do But what the key thing is the legislature needs to remember is they've already Legislated that we the town collect school tax and we have to pay the school in full by June 30 Whether or not we got the money or not So if they want to make tax-sailing more difficult for the towns then they need to think about The fact that they're gonna have to either Maybe we're not gonna pay the school in full by June because it's gonna put more burden on the municipal Residents because we're gonna have to get tax anticipation notes or something and pay interest on money Because we've already given it to the school even if we haven't collected it. So I'm not my guess would be that people are To maybe being a little soft hearted It's not like we're throwing people out of their homes that we take that lightly But there has to be a mechanism at which some point someone has to pay the bill So I just want you know, if that comes across your desk that you you know Thinking about that and that I'll do a little more research and maybe email you but that you know They need to think about the big picture Which is just another burden that it would put on Municipalities as well as the taxpayers because we're gonna be carrying everybody's not if nobody it's not like we force them You know, we don't put people up for tax ill lightly nor do we do it for $300 or the current tax year, but It's a mechanism So I'll keep an eye out And if you if you find something that the LCT yeah, yeah, I can email you and if you can just Right Yeah, I haven't heard I mean If it were in the house There's a chance I might have heard it's in the Senate. I probably wouldn't have heard. Yeah, I'm not sure I just heard about it right before like at the end of the day I was coming here to set up and yeah, and someone told me about it. I'm like so I gotta look into it but you know, there's an old part of tax sale rule that nobody knows It's just about restraint saying that if you owe taxes I could sell your ATV or this or that But I don't know if it has a lien on it. I don't know. There's a whole that part of this law is antiquated But you know the majority of the law works and works well So I just you know seems like you have bigger fish to fry than monkey around the tax sale But yeah, well the other things for housing that actually my committee weighed in was and And I have to admit we giggled a certain amount because it was house bill number 666 and and so and it was It was a bill that is designed to if someone is building a doing a development and they're so they're building a number of housing units and they You know and they're and they're and so they're it's all new construction and they're taking you know Someone's making a deposit right now the way the law is written is they have to take that deposit and and they basically have to put it in an escrow account and In case the thing falls through they have to be able to give them back that money and So then in order to complete building the project they have to take out a loan to you know fund the construction And so what this bill is designed for and it's really for bigger developers. It's not for you know one guy who builds one house at a time is that They can take a surety bond out on the escrow account and They can take a certain percentage of the escrow money and use it for construction costs Well surety bond is like insurance. No, I know so so it will yeah So yeah, so so so it's good. So it's guaranteed that the Homeowner will still end up with the with being paid back their money if they if they can't you know if If they if things fall through and they need to be paid back so so their money's protected and safe We that's a thing we want went over we talked to many surety lawyers insurance lawyers all that stuff Their money's safe. It just gives those developers a little extra money to build those projects so they can build them faster So yeah Yeah, one there's a difference between housing and affordable housing that's sure so Whatever we're doing around housing needs to be affordable and that's More and going it is more and more difficult as Vermont becomes a destination for climate refugees Which we are seeing already people here in Bethel who are fleeing the West and The South and so Yeah, I know you have a agenda after me I'm also happy to answer questions people have Spending the time with us. Yeah. No, I have to see you again. And yeah And I will give a little talk at town meeting as long as you all are okay with it And I'll I think I'm talking at Stockbridge at 9 and then Bethel at 10 So Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you All right, and then we have public comment Is there anything that anybody wanted to bring up this evening? It's not on the agenda anybody that might not You go Eli has this pick on you Next I would like to make a request I would like to request that when you are making decisions that affect the workings and functions of the recreation committee That you have a committee member here to be involved in it and and part of the discussion That's my request Next with the news Survey your recreation survey That's in and on the last page of the town report I would I'd appreciate knowing how have you decided how to collect the information? Assemblement what you're going to do with it how you're going to get the information out I'd like to be a part of all that Survey monkey the day you emailed Denise had been in I'd never done a survey monkey survey online before and Kelly was out So I kind of muddled through it But so we're getting those I haven't collected them all wait till the April time and anyone who's males a minute drop Off we have a big envelope and then we'll do the same thing that the town did two years ago And they had a survey as we'll just collect you know We'll add up the answers and then just provide I'll give it to you as direct obviously we'll give it to you and Give it to everybody. So we'll just do the same thing we did last time Which is just add up the yeses and the no's and the ideas and and put all the information together And then we'll send it to you and and also you know publish it so people know what it says And I did try to go in and amend those things so that they knew when the meetings were so they could come and and so far We've had some online. I don't know how many I get notification that one comes in, but I don't go read it I won't read it till the end and then I think we've had a couple of paper copies That have been brought in but so far that's it hoping that maybe on Town meeting day, you know, maybe more people will do it will do it then and then just We'll provide the information and there's no grand plan for it. We just wanted to know, you know, kind of What to do especially now that the pool we got a fix there for a while and kind of see what people are interested in and and So They've been able to do it several times so they're doing it I Check it out and if you can't because it knows your urlr number or whatever it is It's got that down because I asked her about that and she said no Hey, they might be able to finish it, but it won't go through because it goes by a certain number. They know who Not named but they know who's doing it So you can't go in and do 15 and 20 minutes and say there I patted it because I asked Kelly about that the other day Because that was my question as well Because survey monkey survey monkey has a system where you can't do that If it was going just right through the town office, but since it goes through survey monkey It won't acknowledge if somebody puts in a whole bunch of and I haven't got that many either So there's if someone did it 15 times in a row No way because I'm getting like I get an email that says somebody did it and I've only had a handful So um, but I don't I can't I don't go in and look at the result I'll just wait till the end because we'll tally up the online and add them to the paper ones and No, hopefully it's good information for the rec area You know where they can only pick one or that they've been able to do it several times Yeah, no, well, thank you. Yeah, and I did try I fixed those things that you mentioned and then there was hard copies in the office So people can fill them out. Okay. So, yeah, I don't know we'll find Be interesting to see what we see with a result. So, okay, thank you for answering those questions. Absolutely Yep on that same subject. Have we put the survey out for our middle school kids and our high school kids? Have we done it in the schools to see what they know No, but it's only gone out and the town report and well, I guess I wouldn't I put on Front porch forum and Facebook So I don't know how would I don't know how to get it I would probably just reach out to maybe Jamie or the the principles of the school but through their advisory in the morning They can they can have kids like go on to their computer and fill out a survey right then and there like they're usually all on their computers during Advisory and there's sort of a they actually they actually sometimes use survey monkey in classrooms for different, right? So it would be really familiar to the students and I think it would just be a matter of getting The individual schools aware of what the link is and getting it like the middle schools In advisory it's like homeroom But like the middle school's the middle school's advisory will be different than the high school's advisory Yeah, and so it's like you just have to get it to the individual principles and ask them to share the link put it into the morning Advisory slides, okay, I can do that's a good idea All those kids yeah Sure, then somebody could pick them up. Yeah, just think that they're the ones that use it Yeah, just talk to Jamie about it. Yeah, we're willing to get it It'd be great to get their input. Yeah Great idea Anything else public comment wise I know I talked to trees about this But I would really like this like board to look into a local fax like Rutlandtown has me list and stuff I don't know what it involves. I don't know how the money comes back But I think it's another way of getting some revenue into our town Talking about tip district. Maybe you could start by calling one of those towns. It does it to somebody I'm sorry I'm interested in us getting a local tax like a penny on the dollar From it and that I mean I think it would generate some money Yeah, it's like I said in the email back to you some people are in favor some businesses like local businesses may not be because someone may say Oh, I have to pay this extra to the town like Williston has a 1% You know sales tax but different tips and you can the good thing about tips are you can say? I know towns that do them and that money goes to the fire department for equipment or it can go It was certain thing or just to the coffers, but I did print out the information and threw it in the Select board box to talk about after town meeting. So I did I did print that out was kind of a something to talk about Yeah, yeah, that's why I tossed in the box for after town meeting, but I did print it out and and because yeah, you're right to vote and it's a Process, but it's definitely it's a way to raise money that You don't you know that it's another way to raise money. So you got a good point It's gonna hear and just letting you know I'll be back on the 26th to go through the warning See who wants to speak on What article and I realized most of them are extra money articles, which there may be people from the community who are involved in these various Programs that will be here to speak on that but as far as the select board goes to get that In your mind, so I'll be back on the 26th to go through the one You guys finally put on the agenda for that. He's warning. Yeah, he's coming back Anything else public comment lines anybody online if not, we're gonna move forward with the Budget informational portion So Like we normally do I will go over this in like higher level And then if anybody wants to dive into a deeper level of a specific part of the budget Then just let me know as we go through that and we can stop or take some questions on that So usually what I like to do first Before we go into the budget it's just kind of explained How does the budget this year look versus last year because it's always easier to compare apples to apples type deal or follow along And then just kind of looking over the history of our of our budget, so we We talked about I don't know. It's probably seven years ago now is you know The budgets in the town used to be kind of up and down all around and and you know, how could we better bell weather curve the increases So that we can plan to afford it, right? So so that we have better future planning. So You know, so what we started years ago was we have lots of different funds now for establishing Projects in the town over a long period of time So buying piece of equipment fix in a piece of road those types of things that we can do over longer periods rather than just say All right, we need $300,000 this year because we want to go do this project, right? And then we don't do anything for five or six years and then we come back and say we want $300,000 more right? So now we're trying to plan it over a long a long term So just kind of looking back We established it, you know when I first came on the board about nine years ago Well two things one we had looked at our budgets weren't Responsibly put together and what that meant is We went to the tax Payers with a budget, but we didn't always follow that budget So there was a lot of times where you know, we drew negative budgets because hey I know that they didn't want to pay anything extra, but we really had to do this So we just did it anyways, right and then figure out how would we pay for it down the road? Which you know which ended up being you know about nine years ago We had to bond to retire a pretty large deficit in the town And at that point we established What would be a number that we could set our budget against every year that could Responsibly put a budget together and allow for increases rather than have these peaks and valleys so So what we've been trying to follow over these years is what we came up with which was a three cent increase So we established that we thought that three cents based upon inflation and other things would be Something that we could use as a baseline to follow that individuals could afford over a period time Now we don't always I'll tell you that a majority of time we haven't even hit three cents. We've been under that So two years ago two years ago even though we had a about a two or three cent increase budget Once the grand list had gone up enough Because it's kind of like the schools we set our budget and then a period of time later a month or so later The grand list gets officially accepted. So there are Periods of time where your budget can move while you're waiting for the grand list So two years ago we had put together a budget that was supposed to be about two and a half cent increase to everybody But we had such a large movement in the grand list that year that we ended up having a an even it was about zero change last year we had a little bit of the opposite where we had Kind of similar to this year where we had proposed a base budget and then there was a bunch of add-ons, right? so that the The budget last year started off with about a two cent increase on the base Amount of what the select board thought we needed for a budget and then we had about four cents worth of add-ons That were added last year and some of those were to finish up the skateboard part Some was extra money for the library. Some was the playhouse So those were extras that we voted on The other thing last year is everything got accepted. So the the base Budget got accepted as well as those add-ons But then our grand list actually Shrunk a little bit last year So the tax rate went up slightly more than we had anticipated when we put the budget together So for this year what we're looking at I'll just start with the revenues The revenues at the local revenues in town So for anybody, you know a majority of the revenues are raised by taxes and then we have local revenues Which are usually in the 450-470 thousand dollars a year which is local revenues that we get from either the town clerk's office for for things Money that we collect from the state for for roads and bridges and things like that The revenues don't usually change much at all. They go up or down a very small percentage The revenues are gonna go up about four thousand dollars this year. So again, it's not much of a swing on the revenue end and then what I wanted to do just kind of go higher level over and then we can dive deeper is is the changes to our budget and And then what were some of the major movers, you know up or down and and why did that happen? So Right now we are looking at with our budget a When I say net increase so that the revenues were up four thousand dollars The cost is up seventy two thousand dollars So the net the net amount is sixty eight thousand dollars that we're looking for for an increase in budget And that's sixty eight thousand dollars So for every penny, it's about twenty one thousand five hundred dollars So every twenty one thousand five hundred dollars that we spend as a town is about one penny on the tax rate And I don't have it in front of me. I should have brought it but one penny on the tax rate is like twenty five twenty five dollars on a two hundred and fifty dollar house increase so Put that kind of perspective So we're looking at about a three cent increase at the town based upon Where where we believe the grand list to be right now? and This doesn't include any of the add-ons that we have in the budget and we'll go through those add-ons at the end So what the three cents what the three cent increase at the base budget? goes for is and I'll go through these Just like any year there is Well, there's never downs, but there's always ups when it comes to benefits and insurances pieces of it This year's budgets a little difficult to figure out because we had moved So like public works even though benefits continue to rise the public works one will actually show it going down because we moved Half a person from public works and we put them into the parks piece And then we made the parks piece of full-time position So kind of most of the money just kind of got shuffled from public works down to parks But there's still an increase. I mean all everybody's health insurance retirement benefits Another mover lately has been just building insurance has jumped up quite a bit Or insurances that we have for the fire department and things like that have all been going up So it just this kind of goes in order Some of the big movers the two years ago if you guys remember right we budgeted higher for salt coming out of COVID there was the I don't want to say the salt crisis, but there was we were all told to start using, you know, we used to spend It was anywhere, you know, 70 80 dollars a ton for salt and then all of a sudden they're like well You better budget a hundred and fifteen dollars for salt because it's all going up, right? So we had budgeted for that and it actually didn't didn't change in the way that they thought that was at the same time We we put we started putting a little less salt on the roads So we've had a year or two to kind of look at the salt that we're using and Adjust our budget accordingly. So you'll see that the salt went down from 90,000 to about 60,000 dollars in salt But at the same time when we're not putting as much salt down then we put a little bit more sand down So it's not like the cost completely changes. It's just we're putting a different product now sand is much cheaper than salt So anytime we can get away with putting sand down we put sand down as as Doug knows, right? It's like a lot cheaper The on You'll see that the gravel budget has gone up on the roads now some of that is We have talked about for a couple years now that we don't put enough gravel on our roads, right? a Piece of that is we determine that if we're gonna take some out of the salt budget Then we're gonna add it into the gravel roads so that we can add to our gravel And then as we all found out with the flood and stuff like that as we seem to be using a little bit more Gravel than normal just because all these things pop up that we don't usually have budgeted. So those those are in there the the Under the highway rehabilitation fund and that is the money that we put in there for doing Infrastructure improvements mainly road Roadway and we have done a pretty good job or Teresa's done a good job in the last couple years of getting some grants for us So this year we did sorry. We had rebuilt the Christian Hill 0.8 mile section there that was done with grant funding so grant funding depending on Depending on what the grant is we have to come up with our match portion, which is usually somewhere in the 20% area we have We have grant match right now to do the Sand Hill So we have the the waterline phase 2 project that's going on and part of that project not only is the water line Going to be redone on Sand Hill, but then we're going to come behind that and do stormwater improvements And road road improvements on Sand Hill. So there's some match money for that We have well we have have had a grant match for a structure grant which With the flood it went from one product to another to another again To pay for it. So there was some matching money there And then we have the Pleasant Street sidewalk grant that we had gotten last year That's still I don't was it a next-year project? Maybe or the possibly that's a couple of years out But we're just starting to add the match money in there So that again we're trying to match our money so that we don't have to all of a sudden ask you for a large amount of match money the July flooding oh geez so So So we had the we had the 2019 spring flood and We spent 2020-21 and into 22 budget paying for those Flood pieces that we had done so FEMA FEMA comes in and pays 87 and a half percent of what we had done for work and then locally we're on the hook for 12 and a half percent of that So we had and you'll see there's an e-rath piece which is our portion of Paying our debt over a period of time and we tried to do that in three years which we did And just as we were coming out of the hole here comes another one So just as this budget. We're in now. We just finishing paying off the 2019 e-rath Flood stuff now. We have a new one. So So now we're budgeting for the next two to three years on what we think That our portion of this past July flood is going to be so So that that piece of that that e-rath is for that It's still a little early. So we we were a little more conservative on this and put a little bit more money away Because we haven't quite finished all the jobs yet. Well, their jobs are all done I submitted the last project today, right? And I'm just going through all the last paperwork and actually my calculation today was that we spent over $73,000 Just in gravel that in that that just that's just One that doesn't include all the contractors all that we figure. We're at about Oh Million and a half In that flood and so we'll be on the hook for 12 and a half percent of that and then of course what Chris is referring to Is 2019 we still have to put in a Pinello bridge the permanent bridge and that will go out to bid this winter We have a budget on it So we have liked to think that we've paid the e-rath on it, but it really depends how the bids come in and we're looking at a You know what I tell you two point I Say two point one one point two million. It's gonna be a brilliant price one point two one point two million to one house so that's going in and That will be so hopefully we've covered the e-rath on that but and then like him At one point Jean had alluded to earlier in the year is Like we know that these events are going to happen and unfortunately because we where we live Is we live in a funnel area where all the storm water collects from the mountains and it comes into the valley and here's Bethel So we are the collection part of the storms and so we know that these storms are going to happen, right? I mean, it's almost like clockwork every four years. We get hit with one so The goal for us was to start setting aside some money in all these budgets so that we have it But we haven't gotten to that point where we can set it aside. We're still paying for it So and here we are again We're you know this this budget and and the budget next year will be paying those You know this this flood that we just had this this July and hopes that maybe we don't have another one for Well, so yep Of saving or you just covering this is what we think it's gonna cost for this one That's only a portion of what's gonna take us two or three years to cover our nuts. So no, it's not padded any more than So, okay, three years. Let's say you have 70,000 so over three years. That's two hundred ten thousand dollars is our portion That's what you think it's actually going to cost for us at the 12% of FEMA of whatever it is Not it'll actually cost us 180. So we've got 30,000 that can now be in a no It's just what we budget for capital if we were to do that We wouldn't budget through you wrap budget through highway rehabilitation But we do know for right now coming out of the gate We're like, all right, where do we think we're gonna end up like I said, I just submitted the last project today I'm going line by line to make sure everything we voice everything out. So We we do set money aside like an highway rehab, but and we did do more this year like more gravel And I've got a hazard mitigation grant going on on Gilead right now And so we're always looking for money, but you know, you're a long-term resident There's certain areas of Bethel that are gonna blow out every time Now I will say Exactly and I will say that the number that we put in there again, we start this budget process early So we start thinking on this budget in October, right? So at that time because we were still actually Building doing work. So we were trying to take our higher estimate of what we thought we would have to pay out and put it in Our budget and I would say right now. It hasn't gone over that it We know don't say we aim for the stars, but I think we were more realistic with our number So now will we have to ask for another 70 next year? I don't know Look at that some of it. It does depend on one project from 2019 the Pinella Bridge one That we haven't bid out yet and prices for construction stuff have been much higher in the last couple years than they were in 2019 So probably some of that is gonna weigh on that Project because it's a very large project. So But no, we haven't gotten to the point where we'd like to be like Jean was saying does start putting some money aside So that make it up five years from now. We have an event we can say oh We already got some money put aside so we don't have to go ask the voters for as much I think we haven't gotten there yet. No, we're still at the level where we're trying to you know find the areas that What can we do to improve those areas so we don't keep getting hammered in that one spot if there's something we can do What is it? I will say in this kind of a backwards way of building your roads is a Very large majority of the roads that we had issues with in 2019 We didn't have issues with on this past storm Now all storms hit the town differently So it's hard to tell like sometimes you get a storm that just hits north road and sometimes you have a storm that just hits Gilly area, right? But overall there even on some of the roads that we did work in 2019 and this year They weren't most of them were not the same spots on those roads So some of the areas that we had done work in 2019 held up But the areas that we didn't do work on 2019 were the areas that that didn't hold up So there are improvements that are being had through the FEMA process But again, we're still It's new it can take more next time but yeah Having to take the volume that it wasn't because We do clearly and I won't get too far off we do clearly have problem areas that we fix over and over again And and and we are looking at those problem areas to see what can we do longer term so that we don't have to keep Keep doing this and you know Doug probably knows we're all of them I mean there we know where all those little problems every time it rains no matter how much rain it is We have an issue right there. So well, there's also two is in the town report Which is an addition this year is a kind of an informational about storm water about One of the issues is like on Whittier has blown out both times Well, the water coming off from private property is just sheeting off and tearing out the road We did rebuild Whittier and part of that is you know people Managing their own storm water So what happens is if someone has say a long driveway and they don't have it Crowned and they don't have it ditched and they don't have a cover all that water comes down with debris plugs our culvert and tears out a section of the road and So a lot of the damage that obviously we sustain is water coming off from obviously other, you know private property so Whittier is a good example of that because we Managed to rebuild that Both times and but the water there's just no way to go the way that the road is set up And it's coming down and it's bringing stuff with it. So so to keep on track with that. So the last budget When it comes to highway equipment, we were starting to budget for a new grader We still need a new grader we do but instead of Well two things instead of actually purchasing a new grader We ended up putting money into the greater that we have to allow a few more years of use before we do it just because Two things one trying to get graders are more difficult right now Just like trying to get a dump truck or whatever else we want to buy But right now the cost of everything just spiked So, you know, did we want to buy a greater well one Can we find one and do we want to buy one at the peak price right now? Or do we want to hold off for a year or two and hope that those prices start to come down because the prices for? Yellow iron as we call it have gone through the roof So we decided to take some money out of our equipment fund To invest in the greater for a few more years that we feel confident that it should hold And then kind of wait a couple more years to hope that the prices come or stabilize at least So you'll see that last year's budget. We had some money in there for a greater It's not in there for this year But what we did is we increased the equipment fund cost because Pieces of equipment right now just like a new pickup or whatever you want to buy is more expensive. So so we're starting to Bridge that gap of the difference between what things were costing what they do cost now so there's an increase in there as you know a majority of people that were here, you know We had a sizable discussion about our our local policing and the difference between a constable System that we were budgeting money for but not necessarily using and the sheriffs About having protection with the sheriffs and it was determined that we wanted to go towards the method of having the sheriff's department do it So there was an increase that came along with that which was about $15,000 So that's in the budget The rec committee budget is down 30,000 about but most of that was the One-time money that was asked for at the last town meeting to finish up the skateboard park So that's why you see that the drop in that yes, Ellie short Huh, I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you Yeah Improvement fund Under skateboard park it says minus 65,000, but we didn't use any improvement Well, you did only because we put the money in there. That's where you're $30,000 every time you had a voted appropriation from the floor That's where we put it. Yeah, but so 30,000 minus But you had private private prior funds remember you did it when you originally had the skate park all your money goes in there that You fund raised all your so all your fundraising money went in there your Marco Grant get in in there You're your original money that you got from the voters and then you came to the select board and they authorized money And then you went to the voters again. So we just have to put it somewhere. So all goes into the wreck It just goes into that one big pop Yeah, it all goes into the improvement fund the recreation Why does it go into the improvement because that's the only fun you have it's only fun you have for recreation Because it's the only fun. It's only fun that the recreation department has that is able to bridge the gap from year to year Yeah, it's if you're capital funds So but it's all accounted for because I give you that spreadsheet that So it's just one you there's multiple, you know pots of money in there We do that with other funds too. You're not alone. We do that with We need a collection place. So all wreck goes in your they're fine 54 57 whichever one you are and Then we account for it separately. So Okay Yeah, so that you'll see the wreck department is down, but most of that is is due to the one-time skateboard Influx of money from last year that was voted in Like I said when you get to the parks The public places piece you see that it's increased a bunch, but again a majority of that was money That was taking out of the public works and put to the public To the parks and public services as we move the identity of the person from one to the other The Municipal office there were some increases a majority of the increases are due to the health insurance benefits Insurance and things like that. We did have a little extra money to help with some staffing Because we Have realized that we often don't have enough staff there and especially when you get into like this year with you know just the FEMA and in those types of pieces take almost a full-time person to just dedicate on Is the health insurance overstated it appears like so 22 23 Actual 86 pretty close last year was budgeted at 107 and Currently we're only at 40 so we're on pace to be under 90 again, and we're budgeting So so the challenge there's two things between last year so the challenge is that you have with the health insurance is Is one people can elect to take your health insurance or not at any time so so we So with the staff that we have usually we have a pretty good snapshot on who's taking health insurance Who's not but any time we get into a position. Let's say we are looking to hire somebody Now we have to if we're gonna look to hire somebody we have to look for the largest piece because There's a big difference between an individual that doesn't have a family and they go on themselves or an individual that comes and has a family and the average Compensation for benefits is like 40 some odd thousand dollars for one person so normally what happens is we will budget the higher amount and then if someone elects not to take the insurance then Then you would see that savings, but the tricky thing is and we had we actually had that one year prior to you coming is We didn't benefit we didn't budget enough money, and we were looking for two positions that one year and In the past it was kind of overlooked that in the past those positions were in Individuals that didn't take the health insurance and we had that year that both people took health insurance and it you know Our budget was off by like $60,000 of the just that Or or people that Or people that we do have because sometimes someone might have the insurance and then decide that they don't want the insurance or vice versa Right Yeah, the other thing too is the payment and lieu of insurance went up significantly So someone in the municipal office takes takes advantage of that The other thing is we only know to calendar year to calendar year what? What the premium is so I can I can do the exact math for part of the year And then I estimate wire increases and remember what I used this year last year because the premium went up Significantly this year so then we kind of estimate for that last six months so it shouldn't be too far off in the end, but It depends what the you know that magic of what that six months is because I know six months out I can tell you about half the year. I can't Yeah Under the government ops part of it. We had increased the capital reserve fund this year as well and Then you'll see towards the end that there is a payment in there to start paying for the water bond Which was $14,000 in there because we are it start paying for it So those were the kind of the major changers up and down and then the board had decided that we so Most of the time we have a budget There's always pieces that do get Voted in separately. So like the human services piece gets voted in separately every year The White River Valley ambulance gets voted in separately every year So there's just some of those pieces that do get voted in and then once in a while there happens to be a specialty item that might get Added to it and the additions can happen either at the select board level or they can be petitioned So somebody could go and say I I would like to have this on the warning and They go get X amount of signatures and then we have to put it on the warning. So playhouse Right like playhouse theory. So there so sometimes so often we don't have a lot last year. I think we had three so this year we had a couple of well we had more Organizations than normal that had reached out for extra monies and So for instance, we had the food shelf That reached out for twenty five thousand dollars alone now just to put that in perspective and I don't have a friend of me, but Typically food shelf would fall under a human services piece umbrella and our total human services piece is like twenty eight thousand dollars So what they were asking for is actually pretty much the whole entire budget that we have for human services So we decided that that piece would go on by itself And then we had the South Royalton senior center that don't have in front of me either But they typically around four thousand dollars All's just coming on all my human service guys Yeah, but they they typically are part of that twenty eight thousand that we do a year four thousand goes to South Royalton senior center and this year they had asked for ten So what what we had done what we agreed upon at the board was let's keep the four that on human services And then asked to be voted on the extra They requested for and then after they submitted and the human services agreed then they looked at their own Finances and then came and said actually we need ten right so they had to petition for six thousand more because they were given their four Through the human services, but they looked at their books and apparently They lost some funding So they had to come back so that they had to petition for and that's extra and then the playhouse last year the playhouse theater And Randolph had asked for a thousand dollars and that was done through petition a hundred percent petition So they had gone out got the voters to petition for a thousand dollars and this year They had done the same thing, but they had changed the amount to three thousand dollars so that Anytime someone petitions it even if the wording isn't ideal as you know is we have to put that Great, I mean what they petitioned for and they get the signatures for is exactly what goes in In the warning even if some of the language doesn't make a lot of sense And then the other piece that we put on last year So to back up About four years ago, I think correct me if I'm wrong the average We have appropriations that we that we have in our budget to go to certain identities that are not human service related So one of those examples is the library so Might be wrong on this we typically used to give the library like twenty five hundred dollars, right? Does that sound about right? Yeah, so yeah, so it was like it was like twenty five hundred dollars and then And then I can't remember the years because a little here But then it doubled because remember you guys want some computers and there were some things that it wise So we went to five thousand dollars like two years ago three years ago and then And then it went to seventy five hundred dollars and then last year went to ninety five So we had no 75 And then they so at that point what we did is the library came in to have a conversation of kind of you know What what does the vision or what does? The road ahead for the library look like and we had a pretty good conversation about like for our size of the town What should that? Budget for a library look like because because a majority of what the library will one the library is not a town library And the library functions on I don't want to use endowment. Is that the right word? And endowment that's not the right word So they typically have a pool of money that Collects interests on years that have high interest which isn't very often So the issue the library was having is they were drawing more money than they were collecting interest on so it was just a matter of time That they were going to run out of money so we were talking about you know, what is the right path ahead for the library and The discussion on a library of our size for our town would be something like a hundred and twenty five thousand dollar budget to Based upon looking at other areas now our just put that in perspective our library has a budget of around sixty Yeah, so so we're not even operating on 125 we're operating on you know bare minimum So we started talking about how can we relieve the library from keep drawing money faster than faster than the The interest rate and The number that we had come up with last year was was to add another twenty seven thousand five hundred dollars So making the total amount thirty five thousand so of the budget thirty five thousand would come from the town And then we would revisit that year to year so So what we had done is the same thing as is His budget again this year the seventy five hundred dollars and then an extra twenty seven thousand five hundred dollars For the library to be voted on and and I think we can all agree that at some point we need to find a What does that path ahead look like and what does that funding mechanism look like for the library? Because we kind of all talked about that the library should be a Hundred and twenty five thousand dollar a year library not sixty or fifty But once again this year we have it at twenty seven five, so it's significantly larger than it was Five years ago, but it's the exact same amount that we had voted in last year So the idea is to spar conversation on the library and get more I Think to get more people to understand that because I think a lot of people still think it's town library It Yeah, right It's not town-owned that's what That's what moves people up as they think because you'll be town-owned right because you could flip to some budgets at some towns That has a town-owned library, and you'll see wow they got make it up hundred thousand dollars their budget for the library That's because it is a hundred percent town What where ours isn't so we're trying to kind of Figure out what that budget looks like for our library and where that should be going But for now would be funded the same if if it's voted in it'd be funded the same as last year That investment account to a crew rather than Depleting it at the cost of like three thousand dollars a year, which it's probably One do you have an estimated? I mean I can ask a time meeting to for everybody Do you have an estimated duration that you would be looking for those extra funds in? building the interest so I Think it depends a lot on on what? How investment accounts do in in terms of the next few years, but I think we were thinking somewhere between Five and seven years five and ten years maybe To see because what we were told That in order to generate those funds We would need an investment count of probably around a million dollars, and that would take a lot You know more than five years So but we have a We're starting a strategic planning committee, so We'd hope to do that this past year, and that didn't happen so that's happening this year our first meeting is next week and You know give an idea of What do we want for our building? What do we want for our collections? What do we want to provide in terms of services and what that looks like in terms of finances? And I think that's kind of exactly what we're trying to get out of it is Try to help them out temporarily and Also work together to figure out what is the vision for the library going forward and and and what percentage of that should be town finance versus privately financed and I think that we're Going to have further discussions this coming year on how How that will look so that when we get to the budgetary process next year we can say this is what we really need for Ever or for the next X amount of years so that we can everybody can start to really think about that Since it's the same as last year last year was approved We just need to remind folk this will not raise your your tax bill because you are already paying Well, this is what it's gonna be Yeah, I mean the library was Still raise it a penny or a little over a penny if it's well, but we raised it a penny last year Right, that's all I'm saying right. Yep. That was an expense. We incurred last year. So this is not an increase in Over what was paid last year. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. Yeah, I'm not saying it's a Well, I mean, yeah, and then if you look at last year, I mean Because there were some changes afterwards with the grand list that you know the the tax rate that was proposed in the tax rate that went out was Increased more So we're already Versus last year we have you know a proposed lesser budget than last year Actual and we're not anticipating any growth in the grand list. So we're expecting it to be stagnant Typically the grand list is pretty flat, you know, it does not change much and then So, you know when COVID happened the year after COVID we saw some significant changes in the grand list because of people buying properties zoning permits now now that was kind of good for the town for a very limited time But on the downside to that like we're seeing on the school end of things is that was not good because now it Separated our common level of appraisal by that much more, you know So what may we may have gotten advantage of them town in now? We're paying for on the school end, right? So it's kind of a Tricky one on that So that was kind of the high level if you look at right now the The proposed budget that will be voted on Line item I don't have the line item one in front of me So article to So article two when we vote article two in Which is tricky because Article two already has like what your valley ambulance and it has the human services pieces in it that we actually After the fact you add them into it. Yeah, but those pieces that we normally do is a three cent increase to the town and The if you individualize it the food shelf would be another It's spelled out there, but it'd be just over a penny the senior Center is about a quarter of a penny and The playhouse is about half of that because half of a quarter and then the library is just over a penny So you're looking at if you add in all the alternates, which there's four The four alternates unless they get adjusted. That's an extra almost three cents. So if this year we vote in the budget plus the Additions the total amount could be six cent increase in the in the total budget for the town and then depending on how the The school makes out me right now. We're looking at 12 cents if those changes would act 127 do help in a positive well Changes are changes are changes a less negative. So if these changes changes happen in the bill that We were talking about house bill 850 then those 12 that 12 cent could go down to four cents, but So if that does happen that you'd have four cents at the Four cents at the school and then a potential of six cents at the town So it could be a total of 10 cents if all those got voted in But the way it stands right now with the school is you have 12 cents at the school and then you have as much as six Cents at the town. So you could have as much as 18 cent increase between the two of them so So any questions anything you want to dive a little more into In the budget or any explanation To any of those pieces we do have a good worksheet that is on page 67 so And believe it or not, we didn't always have that page I Remember standing up at town meeting many times saying how many pennies is that gonna be and nobody had an answer for me? So the budget comparison report which is on page 67 kind of breaks down each Kind of line item and how much that impacts you per penny. It also will tell you about You know what the estimated, you know based on a quarter million dollar house what that would mean for you At budget time I think at on our end Services-wise I think we held our services pretty steady from year over year the only service that really was will change Was the policing services of going to the chairs department? A majority of our movers At the town level was the once again the health insurance and those types of premiums as well as we did see some inflationary pieces like You know materials and things like that that were purchasing that cost a little bit more and then and then the other pieces we've had more more More organizations that have reached out for funding than normal So those are kind of the the big movers in our our budget, so Any questions? I think we were at 25 hours if the $80,000 goes through it's 25 hours per week. Yeah They send that with their bill every month, that's super handy, isn't it? Yeah, they send that with a bill It's not perfect as they pointed out. There's like I-91 in there. So obviously that's not us There's a couple of odd ones Absolutely up and they were and there was two of them in the office today There's a deputy sheriff that's just starting Works full-time in Woodstock and he's coming on board with the sheriff's office, too So, you know, we've we've had a lot of positive comments about about the sheriff's office, and they're you know being present in town Amazing how that works Oh Yeah, that's interesting We also Yeah, there's also a new relatively new commander down there, too, so Maybe I don't know I mean other than speed enforcement has anybody had any dealings with the changes of Sheriffs or anything positive they want to contribute or I mean, I know I've just seen an increased presence That's all I've heard is people are happy of all times of day. It could be night could be day I see I see them all over which is nice. It's not like you can predict when they're there That's right You want us to close it for you again? Yeah, we can close it for you if you want We're gonna transfer all the phone calls to you. That's right. So they'll ring at your house Yeah, yeah Shrews the white church parking lot a little bit more because There are some drug Actions happening there in plain sight that the church is very aware of and it's a little unnerving for them And people going in and out of the food shelf to have people parked in there. So yeah, let's go there Mostly Oh The sheriff wants it to pass. He wants our budget to pass in March. So You know, he's you know, he understands that, you know Being seen and showing the colors is helping is gonna help get his budget get the budget passed so that he can Contract with us. So and again, like we talked about those are some of the caveats to Contracting their services as they'll be able to provide more hours than we contract Using some of the state monies as well. So 25 hours might turn into 30 or something like that, you know, because it'll be spent a little more time and right now I don't know how many hours they're using right now. We were kind of using up what we had in the budget right now, Doug Which I think is like 15 hours a week or something like that, but I've seen them a lot more than 15 hours. It seems like so Definitely Yep, yeah, right Exactly depends who's here if they're closer, they'll come if not. Yeah, then you get the state, please All right So not hearing any questions in regards to budget We'll move on anything from the select board. You guys all good Okay Did not have a whole lot left on here the budget takes up most of it and our And our presenters that we had which was great to have the school here So we had the public library's request to hold a coin drop on the 13th of april from 8 to 11 near the white church Okay, all in favor This right so just obviously if it's a Rain or snow it has to be rescheduled. That's just part of the rules, but hang on. So we need uh Just sign this hang on so two 12 24 Just is that diagram? No, just you what? Diagram that came with that. Yep, and they're never seen it before and their proof of insurance. Yeah, but at least that's just pretty thorough All right And we had the annual certificate of compliance for our town road and bridges standards Yep You sign that every year. This is actually one of those things that helps with fema because they were Wanting good night. Good night. Thank you. They wanted us to uh, yeah, take care they were saying uh It's emails about woodland and that there was a some 12 inch and 15 inch culverts And they wanted the cost difference and i'm like no because of our roads bridge and standards. We obviously we already said we'd go to 18 inch so then That's what they have to pay for so That's one of the many reasons you sign it Okay, okay All in favor those snakes everybody's signature the same thing with the next one And then we had the annual financial plan for the town highways, which just shows your Class funds that comes from the state as well as any type of uh earmarks or grants And then you have to divvy up your budget between winter maintenance non winter maintenance and all in favor town managers report Do you have anything that wasn't left on here? You want to go over any fema stuff or are you good? FEMA doubt Um So yeah, just uh, we hauled this conversation about the cla obviously our um cla dropped about nine percent and and Because it's your common level of appraisal. It's based on three years of sales So, you know covet is the gift that keeps on giving because in this year it was probably 2020 21 22 Next year my guess is it's going to drop again Thank you gene It's going to drop again because you're going to have a third year of covet sales where people are coming in and paying You know For more than the properties appraised at that really throws you out a whack. So um We do a sales study the lister's office does a sales study every year And mo and judy obviously did the sales study before they left um months before they left Rick Benson was reviewing it. We had some questions because once our cla dropped nine percent. We're like, hmm Can you let's look at the sales study? Well Some of the properties mo and judy made notes to have them Opted out of it because there was some big changes which rick agrees with But when the state did it they included those properties in it. So when rick contacted the state Property evaluation review they wouldn't even talk to him about it until we appealed So chris signed a letter on friday and i emailed it and they've received it. So hopefully this week They will actually speak to rick about the contents of the sales study So we're not sure it's going to change anything, but at least we'll get some answers about the cla unfortunately Our belief is that the cla may drop again next year because it will be three years of Really covet or post covet sales. So but then in 2025 We will be our reappraisal will be done by july of 2025. So You know, obviously then we'll be back in business, but it may just be You know, this year wasn't it'll probably be another tough year. It could be another tough year next year Depending but and so we so in bethle. We had started the reappraisal process about two years ago Um, and it's you know, it's not a process that you just sign up and get going on It's you sign up you get your place in line and and then it takes You know probably takes about a year or two just to start the process And then the process is about a year and a half process. So it's it's like a four-year process So we were we had been talking about this two years ago to start the reappraisal process I think we signed paperwork last year Yeah, maybe I'm and it's going to be starting this year Yeah, well, yeah, they're probably so it'll The the corrections or our new common level of appraisal Information won't be completed in time for next year's budget. So it'll be one more budget Now the benefits is we're probably going to get hit one more time But at least then you know the benchmark will be reset for us for the following year But some of the towns like Royalton for instance that they need to do it as well They haven't even started the process. So right now, you know, I mean, they're talking, you know If they're going to continue to take hits they're going to be taking hits for like the next three or four years because Just to get a firm signed on to get them ready to go through the whole process takes time But it's going to be more convoluted now. Now everybody's going to have to do it. Well, the state took over Townwide reappraisals for some unknown reason and we were lucky we signed our contract Just under the wire So now the state is going to be mandating reappraisal and I think and maybe even the organization that does it We're not really sure yet because thank god we dodged that bullet But it'll be a few years but somehow the for some reason the state has taken it over. So I don't know what that's going to be like So you'll see a lot of activity this year with that and then if they haven't been to your house and they Won't finish this year, but it will there you go. Oh, you didn't hear me. Yeah, really So I got the German shepherd. That's right. Go to the next house. So, yeah, so I think that's So, uh Or I'll loan out the German shepherd for a day if you need him you just have to feed him he's happy. Yeah, he keeps people away Yeah, so we So, yeah, that's it as far as um And we had the minutes Minutes from the 23rd of january any any, um Corrections to the minutes or are we good to approve as written? Who's name? No, it's there. Is it oh i'm on there You got me. I'm on there I probably when I added that maybe I fixed it there was a spelling it doesn't show in the present It shows that he called me I should have it under present. I'm I'm looking at the minutes that I printed out put in the pack Okay, and what was your where there was a what spelling here? Yeah Where I don't know gene has a d or shouldn't have a d or something like that. I'm looking Try clicking on the icon I don't know gene. I'm looking So not seeing that did we just approve the minutes as written? Yeah, it's just a d Second. Okay. All in favor All righty Other communications. We did have um the budget status report goes in there. So Yeah, and you can see I have I don't know people had some coding error code initial coding error. Yeah. It was pretty funny actually a couple of them I'm going through this and I'm like so just proves you that I actually do look at it because One of them was uh morgan's and I I couldn't figure out for the life of me Why and I got laughing. I'm like Why is his gas budget so high? I'm like there's no who's tooling around and uh So I pulled it up and and it was an easy mistake. There was just the invoice amount here We're like 500 but the whole invoice total including diesels 8 000. He just wrote the wrong number down and and nobody caught it So I'm like what is going on at the town garage And I'm like, okay So we had a couple of mistakes uh in there coding errors. So we got them all fixed and then today I did make a journal entry to move 73 000 and change out of the gravel budget Into fema so the gravels are still over by 23 for the year And um, so whatever gravels we do we're gonna have to wait until July or you know, he's gonna overspend gravel and he'll underspend salt and uh, gotcha You know because we end up putting obviously we had a december, you know mud season which you know cost us some money and uh So things happen, but yeah So basically that's I accounted for all the gravel that we put down and The the bummer of it is is that gravel that we used was at a different price than we're you know, then we're gonna be paying so You know We'll go dig it out of the river It's all in somebody's property somewhere. We're just gonna that's right. We'll get under the cloak of darkness darkness. That's right. All right Anything else come before the board you're none just need a motion to adjourn All right, thank you