 Good morning and welcome to Town Meeting Television's continuing coverage of Town Meeting 2023. Just when you thought it was over, there's the city of Essex Junction. So we're so happy to be here today to talk about their budget and the ballot questions that will be on and before the voters on the 11th of April. So thank you so much for joining us. Regina Mahoney and Andrew Brown. We're so glad you're here. Regina is the city manager and Andrew Brown is the president of the trustees. City council, but close enough. City council. It's not the trustees anymore. I know. It's one of those cultural things we're trying to get used to. Okay. City council. Good. All right. Well, we're going to run into some of those today. But right now what we're going to do is we're going to go over the FY24 budget and the ballot questions. And first, Regina, did we want to just let people know when they're going to be able to hear more about it and vote? Yes. So the couple of things that are different this year. Voters are going to go to the Champlain Valley Expo at the Blue Ribbon Pavilion to vote. And that will be April 11th. We will have the informational meeting the night before at 6 p.m. And that will be online only. The ballots will be mailed to everybody beforehand and also a newsletter will go out to everybody beforehand as well that has a bit more detail explaining the ballot questions. And so this is just the people in the city of Essex Junction, correct? This is the town of Essex is out of the picture now. Yes. Okay. Fine. So let's proceed and talk about the FY24 budget, which is Article 1. It's an $11.4 million budget. And I can't wait to hear all about it because you've restructured your finances in effect by decoupling from the town. Yeah. So essentially this is, it's a very interesting situation because we don't have a budget to compare to that is the same as what our FY24 budget is. So in FY23, this fiscal year, the village budget on its own is $6.3 million. That does not, for the individuals who pay their taxes, they're also paying a significantly more amount than that because of the town budget as well. So in March of 2021, the village put together a mock budget of what the city would look like on its own. So that was two years ago now and we are in unprecedented inflation times. And so what we did was take that mock budget, FY22 mock budget, apply an 8% inflation to it. And that's what we're comparing to what our FY24 city budget is. And so for the first time in FY24, residents will be, or taxpayers in Essex Junction will be paying their taxes that stay within the city for city services. And based on our proposed FY24 budget, that is a 6% increase over that inflation-adjusted mock budget. What it means today, folks are paying .9298 combined tax rates, so both for the town and the village, in the city, sorry. And FY24, the tax rate is .9432. So that is, oh, I apologize, this slide is wrong. It should be a 0.4% tax rate increase. 0.4, so less than a percent. Yes. So we'll get this slide updated. Okay. Yeah. And that, so well, it's a 6% increase over the mock budget, which is just really an exercise in comparison, not really a real increase in anything, right? But the impact on a taxpayer, a homeowner, is going to be less than a percent on their city taxes. That doesn't include school taxes and things they may also be paying. And so what is that, financially, do we know what that number is? If I had a half a million dollar house or, I mean, it used to be on a house worth $125,000, we would have this conversation. But what's the base and how do you talk about it now? Yeah. So for a $280,000 home, it is a $10.86 increase. And so that number is correct. The chart above it is not correct, but that number is correct. And one of the difficult parts of this is that unlike Burlington, Essex Junction and the town of Essex have not gone through our reappraisal process yet. So as we all know, with real estate prices being what they are, for somebody whose home may be real estate-wise valued at about half a million dollars, may very well on the grand list only show up at $280,000 being assessed. So it's important for people in the community to know that when you're wondering what this tax impact is going to be on you, it's not based off of what you could get on the real estate market for your home, but instead, how it's assessed at the grand list. And when's the reappraisal going to happen in the city? It should be done fiscal year 25. Yeah. So that's going to be a big sticker shock. I mean, in Burlington, they said, well, you know, it's supposed to be a neutral impact because the grand list is supposed to adjust, but that didn't happen. Our taxes went up quite a bit. So I think it's probably important for people to understand it's not because you became a city. Right. It's because the reappraisal is happening, but that's in the future. So we're talking about the 24 budget. So right now, people are looking at about $11 increase a year on their city taxes over on a house that's worth about $280,000. Correct. In the old days. Yes. Okay, great. So talk about the budget drivers. So what we've got in front, what the budget includes is some acknowledgement of a lot of costs of things going up, costs of supplies going up, costs of services going up, but it also does include new programming that I think Andrew can speak better to this, but I've heard from folks wanting different things like code enforcement for quite a while and the village hasn't been able to address that because we're trying to figure out the governance structure for quite a while. So now that we are a city, we have a couple of new positions in there to address some of these new services that the community has been asking for. So there's a code enforcement person contemplated in there, an administrative assistant, a town planner because there's a number of also committees that are joint committees now between the town and as the city moves forward, we're intending to have a strategic planning process to figure out what are the right committees that we want to have locally going forward. And then there's some other increases in here that just had to happen, including an increased cost for stormwater. Stormwater used to be completely within the town budget, so there's a minor component addressed in the village budget, so now we've got that accommodated, increased costs for Essex Rescue, Cemetery, a couple of city events, and a capital transfer because we've got a really very robust capital plan in the village, always have, and really help support that system going forward. So IBM used to be a huge factor now, it's not IBM anymore, but do they pay taxes or lieu of taxes or how does that work? And that goes to the city now, not to the town. So they pay their property taxes just as any other business would. Their appraisal would be done, or their reappraisal would be done by a different entity just given the complexity of that type of an appraisal, but they pay commercial, industrial property taxes just as another entity would. And they don't pay an inventory tax anymore or any other tax other than property? No, the machinery equipment got phased out, yep. I remember that was a big year. Oh yes. How are we going to do that? We did it. Yep. Absolutely. Through the other side. Absolutely. And then the rescue, talk about how it works with Essex Rescue now, does the city pay? Obviously they do, but it's the fee for service arrangement in effect for Essex Rescue. Yeah, so the village always paid for Essex Rescue, but through the town budget. So now going forward, we pay our fees directly to Essex Rescue on our own. So this amount is not the full amount of that cost. It's the increase over what we've, has been sort of the village portion of it in the past. Got it. Yeah. Great. And then the Memorial Day and Fourth of July celebrations, yay, because we need those. Those are what bring people together. Yeah. They do. And we're fortunate when we weren't able to do those due to COVID and so we want to make sure that we're able to get the community to come back together again. Yeah. That's great. Well, we all, we have them going back for years, so in case it doesn't happen again, we can always just run the old fields for the TV. I want to remind people that we're talking about the city of Essex Junction's first budget and ballot questions that are going to be taken up on April 11th. We're talking with Regina Mahoney, the city manager, and Andrew Brown, who's the president of the city council. You could call us if you'd like to. It's the 22nd of March, I think, at 802-862-3966 if you have any questions. Okay. One-time expenditures. Yeah. So we talked about doing the strategic planning work, so now that we are a city who really want to take, you know, big comprehensive effort to figure out what are our goals and our priorities going forward, and that will be a one-time expense, and so we were able to tag that to the local option tax. So the city of Essex Junction started the local option tax in October of 2022. So we've got three months of actual data associated with what that revenue might look like. It's in the holiday quarter, and so we've put some, certainly some conservative numbers on what that might look like. So these, and then also where everything says village still, so we've got to switch everything over to the city. And so those are items in there that we were able to use the local option tax for. So is the local option tax meeting the expectations of revenue that you had hoped when you set it up? Personally it's exceeding the expectation at this point in time. It's something that four years personally had advocated for, whether we were working together with the town of Essex or now separately. It's one of those things where we know we have many people in our community who come and enjoy the things that we have to offer, whether that be some of our local restaurants and shops, or even going to the Champlain Valley Exposition for concerts and the fairgrounds, or the annual fair. All of those items will now have one percent of that sale being taxed and help to then pay for our capital improvement needs that we have. And in particular, things like the Champlain Valley Exposition's annual fair to really help to recoup some of those costs as the impact on our infrastructure is significant. Yeah, sure it is. Well okay, well let's go to the ballot. Well we are in the ballot questions. That was number one, that was the budget. So article number two. Yeah. So these, I imagine, are about updating your governance documents related to becoming a city. Yes, they are. This first one in particular around the conflict of interest is something that we learned the hard way where we are adding in this phrase or proposing to add in the phrase that a city counselor cannot be a city employee unless allowed by state statute. So what had happened is in January the city of S. Exjunction did not have a town health officer in state statute. The chair of the municipal board is then the town health officer, but our charter said we couldn't have that happen. So we were in direct conflict and this would fix that. What this is not saying is that a city counselor can be an employee broadly only if it is allowed by state statute. So that's article two. Article three being that for a former city counselor they would have to wait one year before they could be employed by the city of S. Exjunction. Regardless of whether they stepped down early they had to wait until one year after their term actually ended. And we're removing that statement so that that way if for instance we're in this budget we're proposing an administrative assistant. If a former city counselor wants to become the city administrative assistant is well qualified then we want to be able to take advantage of the entire applicant pool instead of just sort of removing some people from that possibility. Do you see any cons to that question? There's always the narrative around could somebody have put in a position within a budget that then they were hoping for themselves. It's a narrative that is easy to play off of and there's no way to really add a safeguard there to prevent that from happening outside of just generally believing that people are generally good and that we would only hire people who are the most qualified. Got it. Okay so that's article two and article three. Alright. Article four. Article four is updating the moderator portion where historically we did free COVID we had an annual meeting that was in person similar to what town meeting used to be within our city's charter we don't have that and so our annual meeting is now done through the ballot. So having a moderator moderate a meeting that is just done on a ballot really didn't seem to make sense and so we are proposing to have the moderator be an appointed individual for our informational meeting that would happen before our annual meeting instead of asking that person to go through the process of getting the signatures and going through an election and then. And they're appointed by the city council? Yes. Okay got it. And so then article five would be instead of asking the community a year in advance when to come out and vote and have that annual meeting having the city council determine that by January 1st of each year. So it's not fixed that it's in April? You decide every year when it is. Correct. Oh no. I didn't know that. I didn't know you decided that but now you're doing it by January. Right and we came in. It's more practical. I think so and we ran into an issue where just this year we had our informational meeting that was scheduled during Passover and so had it not been for the legislature allowing us to change that without going back to the community we would have had to have a special vote to have the community say yes please do change the date to a different day. This will allow us to be more agile more nimble in that as well as have the question of do we want to maintain voting during April or do we want to change that to potentially town meeting day along with the majority of other municipalities in the state. And if you change if in the towns where they have it in March do all cities and towns have this clause? I mean is this a decision that gets made every year or is it fixed in other places? Many have it listed within their charter that it will happen on the second to on the on the defined town meeting day date and they do not have it as a as a thing that is either voted upon or done by their municipal board. Okay all right let's keep going article six this is approving your annual meeting on Tuesday the 9th 2024. Right so this is that question that we have to because of our current rules we have to ask the community now when they want to vote next year. I see. Okay so you wouldn't see this next year if the other item passes. Correct and as we learn through the through the separation process just once it votes here or once the vote for the charter change happens in the community then needing to go into the legislature and deal with that legislative process hopefully it would happen quickly but if not this is that fallback. Very good. Article seven drinking water state revolving fund. So we have a requirement through a new federal requirement to inventory water service lines and essentially the inventory is intended to look for lead and this is a requirement for water systems by October 2024. The state has taken some of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and put it through the revolving loan fund to the drinking water revolving loan fund to help municipalities do this inventory but it is debt. It's a zero interest loan it's a five years but once the five years happen you pay it back in five years annual five annual payments so essentially we would have ten years to pay it back. So we have to do this inventory no matter what we either have to come up with the money to do this inventory in this year's budget or we will have ten years to pay it back which would be very helpful. It is also an inventory but also if we find any lead pipes you also have to have a replacement plan done for each of those situations so that's why we are asking the voters for to approve that debt. And is that one-tenth that forty-three that forty-four thousand in this year's budget? It is not yeah so you would put it in the next year's budget yeah as a way of I mean I imagine you would figure out a way to pay back four thirty-three interest free over ten years. Yes. Exactly. And a part of this being the federal requirement that this inventory has to be done by October of 20 of 2024. So either we ask the community now to do this and take out this loan or we figure out how to pay for it without without taking the loan. And is this is Champlain Water District work with you on this or is this a purely city enterprise? They are doing their own systems too and they I think they've already started their inventory if I understand correctly. But once it gets into our system these are actually individual it's not even public infrastructure it's the it's the individual service lines to each residential home that needs to be looked at so yeah. And Champlain Water District is in effect a wholesaler. They're bringing water to you and then you you have the infrastructure to distribute in the city. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Alright city officers moderator. This is that election portion of our now moderator who had to go out and get the signatures for their ballot to run and then our two city council seats where we have two long-term city counselors who are not running for re-election so three people are running for those two seats and then a library trustee for five years. Alright and then who's not running? So George Tyler and Dan Karen are running after 15 and 6 17 years in total. Brain trust right there. Absolutely. Oh my goodness. So that sums it up. We've done it. Yeah. Of the eight articles including this the city budget. Correct. Yeah. But there's more. Wait wait general fund highlights so we've done these pretty much if people want to know about them they can ask but why don't you tell me if there are highlights you want people to know about the general fund in addition to what you've said. I think the only highlight that I would just like to mention is going back to one of the original portions about there being a 0.4 percent tax increase. When we were going through the process of separation early on two years ago the mock budget did show that we would be looking at a seven percent tax decrease and at that point in time based on all the information we had we were confident that we would be able to come back to the community today and say you would have a tax decrease unfortunately as we've talked about the amount of inflation that we've had is a significant driver in that as well as we finally are at this point in time in sx junction where we can stop telling the community we don't we can't deal with that right now because we have to figure out governance we have now figured out governance and we can actually say to the community yes for eight years you've been asking for more ordinance enforcement yes let's put that in the budget and figure out how best to do that so when we see a 0.4 percent tax increase a part of it is of course inflation another part of it is us saying you've waited long enough it's time to put it's time to put some money towards these problems that you've been asking us to fix but but that percentage that you're talking about is really it's not reflected in people's actual property tax they're paying less than a percent increase in their property taxes right right so I mean I think that's what people care about the most I mean we create these concepts to be able to understand the impact of separation and but the reality is when I have to write a check how much more am I paying a year and what you're saying is if my house is valued at 280 per the city I'm paying $11 more year right so that's that's pretty amazing that's actually remarkable amount of work given all the concern there was about the costs and in separation and in a portion of that is also due to the local option tax in that with our rental registry for instance one of the things that we're proposing to do this upcoming year there are some one-time startup fundings that's going to be needed to hire the person to oversee that and so through our local option tax we're going to use some of that money to then pay for those one-time costs that then the revenue from the rental registry would pick up so it's another reason why when you asked earlier about how it's how it's meeting expectations and for me it's exceeding so Regina this is what's it like being the city manager of a new city it's kind of a different kind of job it is it's very exciting and it's very interesting there's just a lot of work still done because I think I'm not sure how much folks know because we came became a city on July 1 of 2022 we're still very much connected with the town in this particular year and we're doing a lot of work to separate for July 1 essentially for the most part so it's definitely been really interesting it's a really great community and at such a strong team of department heads and staff so it's been it's been really fun yeah and are you feeling some pride of pride in this process I mean that might not be the word but are you yeah how you feeling about this process that you really worked hard through this is it's a great place to be at to think that the question of governance in our community was happening the same year my father was born is something that is just a significant accomplishment I would say for our community as a whole and it's great to be at this place where we have our first city manager and we have an amazing city manager helping to lead our our municipality forward well I want to thank you both Regina Mahoney and Andrew Brown for presenting the city budget and ballot items for the city of Essex Junction the vote is on the 11th of April there is an informational meeting online on the 10th you can find all that information on the website but you can also get in touch with Regina and Andrew and I imagine we will have that contact information up on the screen for you thanks so much for watching thank you thank you great to see you and thanks don't forget to vote