 Welcome to ongoing election coverage by town meeting television. I'm your host Stephanie Lehar and today we'll be hearing from we'll be hearing the town of Williston's budget and ballot item presentation, and we've got three guests with us today. Eric Wells, the Williston Town Manager, Terry McKay, the Williston Select Board Chair, and Shirley Goodall, Jackie, the Williston-Ananson HR Director. So town meeting TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with the issues that shape your local community. If you're watching this live, we welcome your questions. We'll take them at 802-862-3966. So feel free to call us throughout the show. And watch town meeting TV on Comcast Channel 1087, Burlington Telecom Channels 17 and 217, as well as online at town meeting TV's YouTube page. So I'm going to ask Terry McKay to start us off, the Select Board Chair. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for the opportunity to be with you to present the town budget for fiscal year 2021 for Williston. So as our moderator mentioned, we do have town manager Eric Wells with us is his first opportunity to present a budget as town manager and Shirley Goodall, Jackie, our finance director. Thanks again to town meeting TV and Channel 17 for hosting the show. The dates this year for town meeting, we'll be doing a public information hearing on Monday evening, March 1, which is our usual time for the town meeting at the school. But this year, of course, we'll be doing it by Zoom at seven o'clock in the evening, as we usually do. And the link will be shared on the town website in the warning and on social media. And on Tuesday, March 2, as usual, they'll be voting at the, at the armory from seven in the morning until 7pm by Oscar again ballot, and early and absentee voting is available and encouraged. And we'll be talking about little, a little bit more about this at the end of the show today. And the main subject for today is the town budget, which Eric explained in a few minutes a little over 11 and a half million dollars down from last year. And so that's the main main consideration for this year. And so I'll pass this now over to Eric to tell you more about the general fund budget for this year, which is article three. So Eric. Thanks, Terry. And good morning, everyone. Good to be here today. So when we talk about the budget, I always like to step back a little bit. And before we get into the fine details, look at what a budget is. It's really a budget supply. It includes the services to be provided, the cost of those services, and the revenue needed to pay those services. And the budget is the best revenue and spending model put together the information available and town staff and select board start the budget process in the fall and work through through the winter. We're looking ahead for a budget that starts on July 1 to June 30 fall year. So we're trying to anticipate what those needs are for services and what the revenue and expenses are going to look like over that period. So this year when we went through that exercise, we unfortunately had COVID-19 as a factor to deal with as well. So we add another layer to this exercise as we put together our best budget plan for the voters to consider on town meeting day 2021. So next I'll kind of take the high level view here at our budget as Terry mentioned we've done operating budget just over 11 and a half million dollars in this proposal. This represents a reduction of just under $100,000 from its level of the FY 21 budget point 86% reduction in operating expenses. The projected property tax rate in this budget is level at point 2750 cents. A reminder the final tax rate is set in July after the grand list for the town is finalized in the spring by the listeners at the assessor's office. The grand list is flat in this budget projection for our town assessor a little more information on that as we go through these numbers. But at this point I'd like to toss it over to Shirley our finance director to drill into some of these expense side numbers a bit further. So you're up Shirley. Good morning. This is just a list of some of the more significant changes and our expenses this year. So wages, our wages increased 150,000 and 3.2%. We have a cost of living increase of 1.4% and a 2% merit built into the budget, which looks like it would be, you know, 3.4%, but most of that but there's also some transfer between other expenses so I'm going to talk about programs for a minute and see that our programs went down 65,000. Actually those are programming wages for the library and we're budgeting the library a little different so those those wages are now sitting in wages and not in programming expense. So there's an increase there as well but offset by the fact that we did have a reduction in the town clerk's office by one employee. The REC department in FY 21 budget had a new full time position slated but with COVID of course and not being able to program that wasn't filled and we aren't expecting to fill it now until the spring of 21. So there's a few variables in the wages that are making up that increase but there's some decrease in there as well. So insurance, insurance is up 13.6%. And that is not health insurance that's the town's property, casualty insurance which protects us from lawsuits, you know, crime, cybersecurity, so all the insurance that covers the town and the town's operations and that's just unexpected. Many of our, as we're seeing our own insurance premiums go up that has increased for us as well. Benefits and training. So a small, small increase but for benefits we actually had a 4% increase and this is our health insurance which is with MVP. So 4% increase but yet we only have a 0.7% increase. So some of that relates back to the reduction in employees that I was talking about for healthcare and also departments really looked at their training budget. So to see what we could decrease there and some of that is impacting the small, so the benefits increase offset by some of the training decreases as well in the FTE decreases. So debt service, debt service at 13.4%. So that is primarily made up by three things. First of all, back in March of 2019, the voters approved bonding of 1.4 million for two new fire trucks. I don't know if you remember but with these two new fire trucks and all the number of fire truck vehicles is decreased by one. So that was approved by the voters in March of 19. It takes a while for the RFP process into design the fire trucks. So that happened and then in March of 20 we went out for RFP and those fire trucks are now being built and to be delivered in April. The next piece is as most of you are well aware of that lovely bridge that goes from Williston to Shelburne which we call it goes over the muddy brook. We have $900,000 of debt in there which is approved by the voters in March of 2020 and that should be constructed this year. And the last piece is some short term debt for $100,000 for the fire department roof. So as you know that building is still fairly new but the asphalt shingling is not holding up. So there were several quotes received and we have decided to reroof it with a metal roof that will last 50 years. So that's $100,000 and we're looking at short term borrowing you got five or seven year borrowing for that. Capital projects now that looks like a really big increase at 37%. And it is, and that was really a lot of working with all the department heads to see what projects we could defer what projects we could fund with a little less money. And most of our capital projects people think oh capital project you go out and buy a dump truck and that's that's you know your expense but what the town does and it's really great planning is for many of the ongoing costs so you know our dump trucks are large equipment are police vehicles. We fund those incrementally every year to build up a savings so when we need to buy that big $110,000 dump truck. It's already been paid for by the taxpayer was over a period of time so we don't have these large increases in our capital expenditure so. We in an effort to know keep the budget increase from being high we really took a hard look at all the capital projects. But at the same time we made sure that we were still funding what we needed to fund in order to replace things when they needed to be replaced. So if you want to go on to the next slide, we will talk about those operating expenses and this just this slide shows you the percent by I'll say function of the town but I'm going to talk to you about a few of the increases or decreases within the town's budget so for the first time this year, really a decrease of the pie but it's different and people are used to seeing it is the cemetery budget. So this is really just an accounting change that cemetery used to be in a fund all its own and we used to have a subsidy but the cemetery operations are really part of the town general fund. So that just recognizes bringing those cemetery operations back into the general fund of the town and eliminating the subsidy that used to be in the public works budget. Capital expenditures and debt we 13% of the budget and all we talked about those increases and decreases just a few moments ago. Administration within there is the finance department, which is is showing a 12% increase this year. But a lot of that is the fact that the voters may remember we decided to segregate the clerk treasure function so the treasure is now an appointed position and resides within the finance department. And we're just moving wages from the clerk to to administration to finance so not not a real increase in the budget overall. Open space preservation is only 1% of our budget, but it does represent a 15% decrease from last year. And again, that's the what's represented is the affordable housing fund the environmental and again is still wanting to fund those things but we just funded them with a little less this year to help keep the tax rate as minimal as possible. Outside services 5% of the budget but actually represented a 7.6% increase over last year and in there is $34,000 for the town share of a fee to the Chittman County Public Safety Authority and this authority is a municipality. And its purpose is and kind of Wilson has been involved with it for several years and its whole purpose is to look at regional dispatching to hopefully help the towns and Chittman County Fire Police, reduce their dispatching cost and provide more efficient dispatching through a through one entity and sort of everybody sort of doing their own. Let's see. Parks and Recs 4% of the budget but actually has a 14% define from last year. And that is primarily about in regards to the position that I talked about earlier that now in an effort to and to increase opportunities for town residents we had in created an FTE to help do more programming because we have a one person department for Parks and Recs and that position has just been deferred and hence the decrease in the budget. And I am good. Well, I'll talk one more thing planning and zoning 4% again of the budget but they also have a 7% decrease in their budget and most of that is due to consulting services. Many of you have probably seen in the paper heard that we are working with a consultant to help with our growth plan and form based code especially in the growth area. We just, that's, you know, one time cost and it's less this year than last. So I am, if you want to advance to the next screen. So we try to like every municipality I'm sure we try to not rely on property taxes anymore than we have. So other sources, most people know is our 1% local options tax and it definitely provides, you know, this year we have 3.1 million in the budget. And it provides the largest source of income for us to offset expenses but we have impact fees, post town fees, those are fees that we get from Pasella and the solid waste is great based on tonnage of, I'll say items processed through those facilities. So we apply for any federal and state grants that we can to to help pay for expenses or capital projects and then, you know, various user fees, they're the smallest piece of that but and that means those are simple things like your dog licenses your marriage licenses your passport fees, even though we're not doing that one we hope someday to get back to that. So, if you would like to go to the next slide. I think I'm up. But back to me I get the revenue side. So, thank you, thank you, Shirley. So surely went through the expense side to balance the budget we have to look at the revenue side of the budget to make sure both of those are in agreement. As we develop this FY 22 budget, a primary focus was the revenue side to create that balance. COVID-19 has affected a number of revenue streams for the town. And when I look at this, we'll get to a pie chart slides but there's really three primary areas of the town's revenue side of the budget. The property tax revenue, local option tax revenue that Shirley mentioned, and then kind of everything else the town fees and another income that make up the rest of our revenue pie if you're visualizing it here. So an impact on one of these big three areas would be significant in any year in any budget process. But this year we're looking at significant impacts to all three of these budget areas. So that added another challenge as we work through developing this budget during COVID-19. So we're hopeful the positive news about COVID with vaccinations moving ahead will continue as we go forward here but as we put this budget together we had to take a conservative approach based on the information we had at the time. So I'll look at each of these areas and a little more detail here. The first is the local option tax. We use information in our modeling to predict a $25,000 reduction, our local option tax revenue for fiscal year 22. And how we did that is we typically budget using a three year rolling average to come up with what we think the local option tax revenue will be each year. So we had some information from March and December when we were in COVID last year to help us determine some trends in modeling to help predict what this would look like moving forward. The best we could with the information available. So good news, our sales tax revenue was expected in a little greater than budgeted during this period that we examined. On the other side, our rooms and meals tax was significantly lower for the receipts we collected. So our financial model scales back this rooms and meals tax revenue. Quarterly an FY 22, hoping that's going to improve each quarter looking at some historical averages. So you kind of blend that all together and that's how we came up with a $25,000 revenue reduction on the local option tax side. Which we've said in every year it's a very, can be a very volatile source of revenue, where there can be a lot of swings to it and we do our best to predict what we're going to take in and that piece of it. Next, I'll look at the user fees investments and other income. Overall is about a $93,000 reduction in this revenue area for the town. So a few significant items of milk. We're not sure about passport services moving ahead that the clerk's office has offered for a number of years will be to offer those to any extent in FY 22. So we budget a significant decrease in that revenue, about $70,000. In addition, our investment revenue has been much lower this year, due to the economy. This is town funds that are in CDs and money market accounts. So based on the current interest rates in the path ahead, we had to budget about $64,000 lower in this revenue stream. When both of these are offset a bit by an increase of about $75,000 for reporting legal documents predicted. This is tied a lot to the real estate market right now with home sales and also a lot of refinancing that's going on as well. So next I want to look at the property tax and grand list. As I mentioned earlier, the town assessor advises the budget using a flat grand list through the current economic climate. This is a big shift in Wilson's grand list has grown about one to 2% for most years, the last 20 years or so. The grand list will be finalized in the spring of 2021. And as I mentioned earlier, will that will be used by the select board in setting the tax rate probably in late June or early July for FY 22. So I know I've kind of thrown a lot out there and thought is how do we how are we addressing all these revenue stream changes this budget you're looking at and orders are considering in March. You'll see the use of the fund unassigned fund balance or property tax relief was increased about $76,000. And our expenditure decrease of about $100,000 is helped to offset these revenue decreases. Those are some larger components of it but as you drill into the budget in the details, there's a lot of accounting and numbers and thought that went into creating this this budget and in a fiscally conservative approach, to the new side as we prepare for FY 22. I've got a chart I'll show which this visualizes what I described with these kind of three main revenue cost center areas the property tax at about 50%. Our rooms, sales rooms and meals tax about 25% and everything else making up the little pieces of the pie that last 25% of the town's revenue typically takes in. So I'm going to toss it back to Shirley here to look at the tax rate and a little more detail for us. I'll just say that the pie charts are very helpful nice nice diagrams. And so we'll have about five minutes to talk about the impacts on the tax rate. Thank you. I just want to mention that the slack boards direction was to keep the tax rate flat based on the current economy and what was happening and just not sure how long we covered would go on and what would taxpayers and businesses. What would happen at the end of this what happens after there's no federal government money coming in. So a decision was made to keep the tax rate flat. So that's what we did for for this year to hopefully help taxpayers offset some of the other, you know, loss of wages or financial impacts they're experiencing because of coded. Do you want to advance it for me area. So this is just a chart it shows the tax rate history over the last five years for Williston so and this this is value the value of the home is 100,000 so on $100,000 home over five years you experienced a $12 increasing your taxes and I think, the town is really concerned about maintaining and improving our service well at the same time, minimizing the financial burden to the taxpayers. So if you would flip it ahead one more and over the 13 years represented in this chart of the tax rates. The tax rate has increased point 075% and I think that just goes to reflect the financial management of the select board and town manager and again, working to maintain services and improve services while keeping financial expense for the taxpayers in mind. Probably many of you have seen this before, since I'm still, you know, I've been here almost two years. I can say that Williston has, or I've seen this chart for three years and has continued to be the second lowest tax rate in Chittenden County and I think that's something we're very proud of and makes Williston, you know, affordable place to live. And I'm going to shoot it back over to Terry. Can I break in for a second Terry I just wanted to say if anybody has a live call for us I just wanted to say the number is 802-862-3966 and I'm going to also offer you all up if you're watching this at another time. Please feel free to call the town offices for for more information on any of these numbers surely good old lackey it's the finance and HR director Eric Wells as the town manager and back to you Terry McKay select board share. Thank you. So, you'll find a couple of additional items on the ballot this year that ordinarily are not there they usually have ordered on at the town meeting but since we're not going to be doing an official or a town meeting that would allow us to do much of a vote. You'll see that article one will be to set the dates for the tax payments. As usual August 15 November 15 and February 15 and article two will be to accept the annual reports of the town officials, and you should be getting a copy or opportunity to get a copy of the town report in a few weeks. So we're going to be doing as usual for balloting. You'll be able to ask for early or an absentee voting ballot, you can request one by an absentee ballot by contacting the town clerk. The balance will be mailed out around February 10 when they're available, and a few of the options to return the balance you can, we will be providing a prepaid envelope for those who requested an early ballot. We have a secure drop box behind the town hall which was greatly, greatly successful in November, or you can come to the armory and vote in person or return your ballot between 7am and 7pm on March 2. So in person voting for March 2nd, we'll be using the COVID safety protocols that we used in November and masked and social distancing. So Eric, I'm going to toss up to you to wrap up the conversation. I just want to close this morning with giving folks watching Alma some options to learn more. We've provided an overview of everything this morning. If you want to visit the town website, we'll have a page on building the next few days that will have our complete budgets, a full detail, both the operating capital budgets to review. We'll also have the annual report, sample ballot, and the town meeting warning going on that page as things are finalized over the next week. And as Terry mentioned, we've got the public information hearing on March 1st over Zoom. We'll also be having another hearing on February 16 during a select board meeting on Zoom, and you can watch to find the link in the time for that as we finalize those details. And as Stephanie mentioned, questions are always welcome encouraged town staff, myself as the town manager, Shirley is the finance director. Reach out if you have questions about anything, but before you vote. I can end the slideshow there. That's all we had today, Stephanie. All right, well, thanks everyone for tuning into 10, 10 meeting TV ongoing coverage today of Williston's budget and ballot items and you can find this and more forums at www.ch17.tv. So, thanks everybody.