 agenda is the budget. Yeah so I mean there's there was one slight change and part of it that slight change was underneath the contract with services we did reduce that down from a hundred thousand five hundred down to seventy and what that's under operations and building and so it's on page 10 of 11 this is what Andrew had raised his hand asking a question about so what is budgeted in that 70 is to do finish doing trim painting from the buildings that's something that we have been budgeted for last year we were able to do some of it this past summer that's South worlds and I don't know if you notice but we pay in the front doors and South world still a lot of trim to be done at the royalty campus and then we did receive a quote at the Buffalo campus for last summer and the trim there was going to cost 45,000 so the big chunk of that 70 is going to be essentially cover the rest of the paint that that we that we have a day of the tackle over the last several years and so also others those are the biggest two money value jobs and like I said the quote to do that pull all the trim in the front part underneath the windows at Buffalo campus and I'm not going to picture there's no light underneath all the front windows is in need of some intensive work there too and in the back I actually think there's going but we were able to dial that in so that's the decrease that you see from last week's that was the adjustment there did we make any other adjustments I would say we we didn't decrease anything this year the next year 12% increase in health insurance and negotiated raises I feel if you send me how do you feel to tackle just over 4% compared to where some of the other colleagues have seen their budgets right now yeah I guess my question was just to finalize exactly what is the tax rate increase in Bethel and in Royalton compared to last year so if you go to the do you have your packet Peggy no I don't have it in front of you yeah just to get finalized because everybody was saying one cent and three cents but yet it looked like more to me so that's why I was confused yeah so when we're looking at the tax sheet we'll start right up at the top so the current expenditure budget is twelve million nine hundred sixty eight thousand five hundred and fifteen dollars we've been back out from that you're offsetting revenue of one million three hundred thousand five hundred and sixteen dollars so that gets through your act sixty eight education spending of eleven million six hundred sixty seven thousand nine hundred and ninety nine dollars we divide that by the equalized pupil of five hundred and sixty six point nine four and that gives us the education spending per pupil cost of twenty thousand five hundred eight dollars and sixty six cents we then take that number and we divide it by the yield which is fifteen thousand four hundred and seventy nine dollars and that gives us the equalized residential tax rate of one point three two nine six which is a reduction of twelve point seven cents over the current tax rate so from there we go to each of the individual towns so in Bethel we start with the equalized tax rate of one point three two nine six we divide that by your common level of appraisal which is eighty eight point four zero a reduction of eight point eight four percentage points from the current and that gives you your FY twenty four homestead actual tax rate of one point five zero four one and then we back that out from your current tax rate and it's an increase of point zero zero four eight in Bethel non-residential yep half a cent non-residential tax rate is up point zero six zero three so six cents in the non-residential tax rate in Royalton again we start at that one point three two nine six divide that by the CLA of eighty five point four four percent which is a reduction of nine point nine percentage points and that gives you an equalized tax rate of one point five five six two which is an increase of point oh two seven zero or two point seven cents in Royalton and then the non-residential in Royalton is up eight point four five cents you do the same thing with a non-residential rate you take the non-residential rate and you divide it by your CLA and that's how you get your the state's non-residential rate divided by your CLA and that's how you get your non-residential rate right we don't our budget does not control the number nope that's all done by the state okay thank you you're welcome questions regarding budget I think well again that being my first year I've been kind of just going with it so kind of information but just kind of some of the knowledge that I've gained through this experience and some of the people that I talked to on the state level like how was that a meeting a week and a half ago where there were two secondary departments that were there so kind of asking them how things are looking in Montpelier right so other than the transportation budget which you know there's a new T-bill that they're trying to find their matching funds for because they have plenty of pet clothing for it all the other departments at least from what I gather starting next year they're looking to try to build those because the fed money is going to start running out after this budget soon so it sounds like that sounds weird but you know it looks like we're if we don't make any our decisions in this budget we're gonna have to make some point for it or the tax rate is going to go high because you're gonna see a lot of these programs that we have funded with that money that gets passed down to the state and to the HSU so I guess I'm just you know just concerned on that you're not carrying any positions next year that are fully funded by us yeah just so we're clear when you're born yeah I mean halfways of things have been built into this but you're gonna see a lot of things like you know there's a lot of things you're gonna see the equal even though people where you went up a thousand this year you can see that get changed drastically you know you're on yields your yields and stuff like that can change full pounds are going through a CLA issue I know that full is gonna be going through the rephrase the process starting next summer so that's a year and a half process I don't know where else to start that but because the CLA's are you know at whack right now so there's a lot of things that are against us yeah so I mean I guess not like getting into the all the departments because I just kind of on a big level I guess the concern I have is again having the the the valleys and you know hills on our budget instead of a nice slope I think I think that's one of the reasons why we're trying to you know both this year and last year trying to put as much money in those reserve funds as we could so that then yeah we can at least try not to touch educational portions because I use some of that money to offset some of it so you would start right that's one way we consider things out plus you know if we we do still have semester money coming from extra this upcoming budget so if we can get one more surplus this upcoming year then use that pay down even things out that's another way that that's kind of what I was talking about last time he wasn't here for that I mean I think the whole reason why I got on the board one of them was just you know on the budget ends you know it's a great learning process because a lot of complicated factors that I really control this level right that we're up against but but again the better bell curve that we can have that you know better for everybody especially what we're going through right now I mean to play devil's advocate I would I would say as a taxpayer methyl I would expect the three or four percent increase this year just based on what I'm seeing for budgets everywhere so to see a half a cent that's great for my pocket but I kind of worried about longer term are you gonna ask for six cents next you know I mean so you could increase your tax rate and we could take this 200,000 dollars right that's what I brought up last time I mean the board felt like based on inflation of things I know people are hurting but it's also you know if you want to send messages to higher ups on that people are hurting the only way they see that is with budgets you know if we pass a budget that is a half a cent people in Bethel would be happy right but we don't know what that's gonna be next year you know it's kind of like the days of you know some of the school budgets got voted down to send a message I'm not saying that we're sending a message to appeal here but the thing is a lot of the reasons why we're in this position is because of people that are making decisions and if we don't send a message the decisions are being correctly I don't think everybody feels that way but but I just worry you know a long term not the short term yeah and I think the issue if we're sending a message this year though like the decision that they made which was to have a high yield is beneficial for us sure and if we push up Bethel it's gonna push up oil too much already three percent so three cents so you're right that's not gonna be possible no I've you know I haven't this up last time and we kind of discussed it decided to not you know that's fine so but I hear what you're saying about having a lower rate this year meaning that there's a potentially a higher rate why not just in case for instance in the town of Bethel anyways we've gotten used to for a certain level of services that there will be certain levels of increase that go along with that so many people are expected to see a two or three cent a year increase to retain those services based upon inflation and different things are going on the most the more difficult thing though as you remember and from in this state is one big part and so as a town you can really control that the tax rate locally is really hard for us to dial in and assert meaning if right now they weren't giving back the money that they decided to do and again from sir plus to me you you would be looking at a significant increase in taxes and that's kind of where by point but we can't adjust our budget enough Chris to make up that difference we're talking about 12 cents no no and I under again it's great to have the conversation that is exactly my fear what you just brought up there is had they not have done this we would be in this position and I think it's easier I know it's difficult because the easy button is to say everybody can afford this or keep the level of education have but had just not come through we would be looking at having to do something right right I mean that's why we talk about it since October right like what is the program that you want to have we're never going to know what the yield is going to be for the CLA until December right so that's what's really difficult around the budget process right so I think my goal is we every year do zero-based budgeting so that we really come to the board and say these are the physicians that we need in order to do the programming that you currently offer in order improve the programming and it's also an opportunity for the board to say you know I'm feeling like we are over staff of this area and that's one to give that direction right because trying to adjust once they release all their data in December is really hard it's really late in the game and I think a lot of our job is education like making sure people understand that we're doing the best we can to you know take taxes under consideration but also provide the services that we need and then you know we have to like once the CLA adjusts like that will knock the tax rate down a whole bunch and it's not anything that we've done it's just because it's numbers and you know it's not actually changing the amount you wind up paying because your home is valued more and we just need to make sure that people understand that so that they don't just look at that you know tax rate and see a number and a change and take that that's why we really go into like how it's calculated and you know one of the things we can do this year is say we we tried to keep the tech or we purposely kept the tax rate down this year we're anticipating this will be do a higher jump in taxes last year but this means that you paid less taxes overall between the two and even though there's probably going to be a good jump next year in two years because if that jump lasts which will be paying more this year Peggy said last time was I'd rather keep the pocket the money in my pocket this year and pay that and we just need to explain that that we're letting you keep the money in your pocket we're not going to take it this year but we're a little concerned about next year like I said you know when it gets down to nuts and bolts of features and programming stuff I've been just so over level budget and you know I know some people you know frown at me but I've been in budgets for a long period of time I have you know my daily life is working with $100 million a year budget so this is easy to but I'm just the whole point you know some of the things that we just discussed is exactly the concern that I have but not I'm not saying let's change this with this program I'm saying is had the money not come through we would have been in a really tough situation let's say the money doesn't come through next year plus the state has to change things like equalize people's and things like that because you know funding is tight which is likely to happen then we're even a even larger jump and I think it goes back to yes I'd like to keep all the money in my pocket that I can but I can't I can't budget my life here one year here next and down the next one right and it's difficult to budget your schools that way too right because one year you're you live in high in the next year you're trying to figure out where you buy and look and we've seen that in Bethel in Royalton over at least in Bethel in my time we've seen that many many times before you got here you know right well I mean I think the best that we can do is do the budgets that we think is appropriate and I have a hard time saying you know we should have less resources no so you know we do the best we can and then we educate and we've also we have planned you know by putting aside some of the surplus money and doing us or the way that we did it we've been planning for that sort of eventuality so we'll be able to have some money set aside or I think we've done what we can I mean I would think you know overall the tax you know this is approved here I think people would be very happy but if there's nothing else motion motion made to approve the 2023 2024 budget in the amount of 12,968,515 dollars thank you Tara second all second Tara can you type that into the chat I'm not in the room oh okay never mind I can have use race computer sorry seconded is there discussion okay all in favor say aye aye why are we able to show the annual morning here so the legal voters of the White River Unified District consisting of the towns of Bethel and Royalton are hereby notified and warned to meet at the Royalton campus of the White River Unified District in Royalton Vermont on March 6th 2023 at 6 p.m. to consider and act upon the following articles one through 12 and to discuss the article to be voted upon by Australian ballot article 13 only article one is to elect a moderator who shall assume office immediately and serve a one-year term or until the election and qualification of a successor article two to elect a school district clerk who shall assume office July 1st 2023 and serve a one-year term or until the election and qualification of a successor and p.m. Brown has agreed to do it another year for you to elect a school district treasurer who shall assume office July 1st 2023 and serve a one-year term or until the election and qualification of a successors and p.m. Brown has agreed to continue to be your treasurer article four to hear and act upon the reports of the school district officers so this is where the presentation will happen and we'll do the slides like we've done the last couple of years article five is to fix the salaries in the amount of $600 per member for the school district officers for the 2023 2024 school year article six to fix the salary in the amount of $1200 for the school district treasurer for the 2023 2024 school year article seven shall the voters authorize the school board to borrow money by issuance of notes not in excess of anticipated revenue for the fiscal year July 1 2023 through July 30th 2024 so that's your tax anticipation note that we get in order to pay the payroll and bills until the tax revenue comes in September December and April article eight this is your budget article shall the voters of the school district approve the school board to expend $12,968,515 which the amount the school board has determined to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year it is estimated that this proposed budget if approved will result in education spending of $20,580 and 66 cents for equalized pupil this projected spending for equalized pupil is 6.13 percent higher than spending for the current year article nine shall the voters authorize the school board to establish a white river unified district capital improvements in maintenance of facilities fund article 10 shall the voters authorize the school board to transfer part of the audited fund balance existing on June 30th 2022 estimated to total $795,605 and an amount not to exceed $700,000 to the white river unified district capital improvements and maintenance of facilities fund an article 11 to transact any other business which may legally come before this meeting article 12 to adjourn the meeting until 8 a.m. March 7th 2023 when voting by Australian ballot shall commence and then for the purpose of voting by Australian ballot voters of the town of Bethel will row at the Bethel elementary school at 273 Pleasant Street Bethel Vermont the polls will open on Tuesday March 7th 2023 at 8 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. voters of the town of Royalton will vote at the Royalton campus of white river valley school at 223 South Windsor Street South Royalton Vermont the polls will open on Tuesday March 7th 2023 at 8 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. the legal voters of the white river unified district are further notified that voter qualification and registration relative to cell meeting shall be as provided in section 706 U of title 16 and chapters 43 51 and 55 of title 17 Vermont statues anointed upon closing of the polls the ballot boxes will be sealed transported to and reopen at the superintendent's office in the town of Royalton where the ballots will be commingled and publicly counted by representatives of the board of civil authority of the towns of Bethel and Royalton under the supervision of clerk of the white river unified school district to be voted on by Australian ballot on Tuesday March 7th article 13 to elect directors to the white river unified school district as follows Royalton one director for a three-year term Royalton one director for the remaining two years of a three-year term Bethel one director for a three-year term and Bethel one director for the remaining one year of a three-year term don't forget the deadline is the 31st to get your candidate forms in to Pam board Carmen I do have a typo on there so I'm going to fix this title is felt wrong in that last so if you want to approve the warning as red yeah and I'll take out location thank you Ray okay so candidate wise this make sure you have your candidates up in like Monday the fifth because it's six Mondays prior to oh sorry thank you guys hope you miss it by a day yep sorry you're right which can happen so I had a few questions regards well one question regards the warning as it stands and I had a couple of questions in general for maybe why don't we make the motion so that we can do it as red okay and then we can do discussion on motion if that's all right unless you think that well it's not all on the motion but that's but it could potentially do this whole process of identifying some things that don't seem to line up with the article of origination so going through the candidacy piece of it so looking at the articles of origination but when we tied the schools together so some of the things that don't seem to jive is so for one the candidate has to get signatures from their given so one percent of the voting population about the world so no world in person inside the best of form no better person inside the world however that however you do vote on that person in both hands so you know we're all 10 votes for the best low and vice versa so it seems a little odd that you you can't put your you know I have worlds of people that can assign you for them like that you can't sound like a rose in the same one no it's not but the other thing too is then if you're a writing campaign like that out of last year or this year if you're writing campaign then you have to get one percent of each town so yeah so so the article of origination there's a lot of this well I think this is how it's set up in the beginning I think there's the nomination process which is separate from the voting process and the voting is only both both counts and the nomination process is you're nominated from the town well which kind of makes sense because you know you're representing you're representing that town for the whole district and voted on by the whole district I don't know that's not sure it would make more sense if duffel's representation was that was very clearly debated at length um when the this was a majority and it was felt that that's all folks um and we're all two folks wanted the opportunity to vote on all the members well I mean again that was X amount of years ago it's always good to open up the to look at other things the other thing just kind of looking through the whole thing too is you know um it you know earlier days you know we used to do the budget in May to be in school vote in May because by that time you had the accurate data from the state on exactly where your budget stands um where right now we you know we have numbers that could change between now and then where the other and I know some of the arguments in the past has been you know if we had it in May and it gets voted down then what happens in general but you can the school doesn't shut down you continue to operate on 80 percent of your current your current budget that you're in so I don't just you know yeah maybe it seems like you know we're just we're playing in the dark you know we're you know this is what we think but it hasn't been confirmed you know and it can go one way the other it can help us right or to hurt us those are some of the things that that I was thinking about I will say these you know it was very nice having our budget all set and put the bed when we were reading the articles about some of the other talents oh yeah go through things you know and then just in regards to this warning here so I have to set some questions so the in regards to the district clerk so I see that there's no salary for the clerk but there is trekkers that never happens and then as far as the the directors because this was kind of a bit of a ring around the rosie the other day trying to figure out what seat what seat so would it be helpful to put like you know term expires 2024 or 2026 because this year for instance there was some confusion with the two baffle seats and which ones those were who was in what seat or what seat was so I mean I know a lot of times there's towns will put the the expiration of that term on the morning so it's easier for the town clerk to figure out what she's seeing so there's no questions that I have do you want to adjust that and that during the expiration of that kind of is there a reason not to language wise would you be able to do that why do you fix your check up you want me to put this I think I might be able to do that I know I got a couple of emails from from Christy trying to figure out who was in yes we we your seat was our problem seat we could because like when you went from Bethel to Royalton and like trying to remember which one so Royalton one director for a three-year term I'm going to put in parentheses expires 2026 one director for the remaining two years of a three-year term so that is going to expires 2025 oh it goes to another line all right Bethel one director for a three-year term so that's going to expires 2026 and one director for the remaining one year of a three-year term expires 20 and while we're editing this is actually the register for the court camp that's right you we changed that yeah uh Andrew's starting this what's going to go into the person did you have any other uh excuse me yeah can you uh tell me what years the the uh directors expire in Bethel again so on the warning the one director for a three-year term expires 2026 and then the one director for the remaining one year of a three-year term will expire in 2024 okay and I expired because the term yeah and then the one I mean is expires in 2025 yep okay I just want to make sure right that was the confusion in Bethel was that Rodney had come in Rodney had come in to finish up Lisa McCroy right he'd been expired but then he but then he ran for a different c and so we were trying to figure out I was like well I'm going to go talk I spent an hour with Pam yesterday going over all of these making sure we're on the same page and then Jamie spoke with her about staying on board as the clerk for another year definitely appreciate yeah she's great at what she does definitely an asset to the team um article nine the capital improvement funds is this going to move funds from the previous ones nope so we would still have the two individual reserve funds for Bethel and Royalton we can add an article to this if you want to ask the voters if you can move that money I think that I thought we were good yeah I would okay um and if article nine is not approved what happens in article 10 we could amend the article from the floor to put it into the individual funds it could become very interested with that right but if the first one goes down then we've got some there could be a lot of motions being made for different funds we've had one for reasons of two years so definitely we do that's always what comes up when I was when you say like oh let's meet in May and that that meeting comes back to mind I'm like oh my god to have to go back and like renew the budget in a hurry is never we do vote two other issues I know the other thing is it's probably nicer for Pam not to have all the budgets at the same time we have two in there right we have four in March so just just so we don't get caught off guard at the meeting once let's play that one so let's say article nine goes down as a board one of our thoughts in regards to article 10 if someone makes a motion and we want to speak on it do we have uh at that point do we have some sort of board recommendation or what we want to do or that last year we split it equally into the two current reserves and can board new members make motions to amend the articles or just though I'd like to make a motion I think typical practice is that the board doesn't the um like last year we we talked what we were like that's 700,000 we split it equally into two zones last year that's a performer's approach we had 350 to royals and 350 to well I'm just thinking if it goes down and then all of a sudden somebody gets up to make a motion on what they want to do with that money you know do we have some sort of recommendation you're only options that might steer the ship a little better than your only options with surplus funds is you need to put it in your budget as offsetting revenue through taxpayers or you have to have the taxpayer vote to prevent reserve funds and you only can use reserve funds that you have established unless someone from the floor is going to create a reserve fund yeah so article eight's already been approved for that budget level we still would just it would still go into revenue it would be in the future revenue okay it will it'll stay in your general fund and it will become your unassigned surplus in the fiscal year 23 audit that can then be used with 25 offsetting revenue if any effect it does it just stays in your general fund and carries over from year to year well is there a limit on that don't you have to reconcile within three years of yes yep okay all right so I have now added article 10 adjusting the remaining articles so article 10 now reads shall the voters authorize the school board to transfer the funds from the Royalton Building Reserve Fund and Bethel Building Reserve Fund and to the White River Unified District Capital Improvements and Maintenance of Facility Funds so article 11 is now the transfer of the surplus article 12 is now to transact in the other business article 13 becomes to adjourn to Australian ballot in the Australian ballot article now becomes article 14 and I've changed the language in the first paragraph um parentheses following articles is now one through 13 Australian ballot parentheses article 14 all right does anybody have any other things on the annual meeting warning they want to discuss and entertain a motion to approve the meeting warning as read and amended so moved second okay any discussion all right all in favor of approving the meeting annual meeting warning as read and amended say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? okay great so Peggy and Rodney if you can come up to Central Office and sign the warning ideally by Monday if you can so that we can get it to Pam and have her sign it and get it into the informational mailer thank you all thank you hey yeah well I'll ask uh budget approved for March thank you all right we don't have any other so I make a entertain a motion to adjourn all right thanks everybody we'll grab that off the printer so you guys can sign it