[0:00] hello and welcome to Williston's annual budget presentation and we have a few

[0:04] things to talk about today I'm Terry McKay chair of the lawson select board

[0:10] next to me is Deb Beckett who is the town clerk and treasurer and next to her

[0:15] is Rick McGuire Town Manager and then Eric Wells our assistant to the town

[0:21] manager we thank you very much channel 17 for hosting the show and our town

[0:27] meeting is starts on Monday March for us at the Williston Central School at 7

[0:32] o'clock in the evening voting on the budget and special articles and for the

[0:38] end also for the town offices is the following day on March 5th voting it

[0:43] will be held at the Vermont National Guard Armory in the middle of the

[0:47] village of Williston the polls are open from 7:00 in the

[0:51] morning till 7:00 in the evening we have a lot to cover today the town budget a

[0:57] bond resolution and six articles relating to the proposed charter changes

[1:02] so let's start out with Rickon to tell us about the budget this year well thank

[1:07] you Terry any conversation about the budget really has to focus first on

[1:11] services because really that's what's the most important part of why we even

[1:16] have a budget I took the opportunity to actually count the number of services we

[1:21] had Terry and you'll be may be surprised to learn that we have about a hundred

[1:26] and eighty different services that we provide so it's more than just what you

[1:30] would normally think of and I actually have a slide here that shows some of the

[1:36] major ones that people are most familiar with you know police protection fire

[1:40] protection library services but there's far more than what those services would

[1:46] imply I think we're going to have Eric talk a little bit about the budget

[1:52] detail so I'm gonna turn over to Eric thanks Rick so first we're gonna look at

[1:56] the cost of services in the budget this year is about eleven and a half million

[2:00] dollars this is an increase of just about three hundred and eighty four

[2:03] thousand dollars and that's a three point four percent increase we've got a

[2:09] slide here that looks at and expenditure comparison it shows graphically where

[2:12] tax dollars are being spent throughout the town so

[2:16] well over 55% goes sort of public safety related services as you can see and then

[2:20] the rest of the breakdown is showed here so to balance those expenses we have to

[2:27] look at our revenue sources throughout the year almost half the revenue support

[2:30] the town services is in the form of property taxes 25% is generated through

[2:35] our local options tax reminder this is a volatile tax source which means it can

[2:40] fluctuate up and down as the economy goes up and down so then the difference

[2:44] can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars our remaining 25% is from a

[2:49] variety of other sources so the question is what will this cost me our current

[2:57] taxes are based on a hundred thousand dollars in based on a hundred thousand

[3:01] dollars of value is $266 taxes for the next year based on the proposed budget

[3:06] are estimated at $270 per 100,000 dollars of value that's an increase of

[3:11] $4 so Eric you mentioned of course there's only a $4 increase but I think

[3:19] there's a another piece to this story that I kind of wanted to tell I did an

[3:25] analysis of the various increases the town has had over the past three years

[3:30] and found out that based on a home that's valued at $400,000 the taxes in

[3:39] 2017 were was a thousand dollars and a thousand $60 and the following year it

[3:46] remained the same the year after that there was a slight increase and there's

[3:50] an increase also proposed for next fiscal year but all together the total

[3:55] increase over that four year period was only $20 again based on a four and a

[4:00] thousand dollar value home I think the other piece of good news is when you

[4:06] look at our tax rate and this again municipal taxes compared to the various

[4:11] municipalities throughout Chittenden County Williston is near the bottom

[4:16] we're just above the town of Charlotte and all the other communities have tax

[4:21] rates that are much higher than Williston and Charlotte has lower tax

[4:27] rate they also offer a fewer far fewer number

[4:30] of services that we provide here in Williston so Eric that's a quick summary

[4:36] of the budget that involves article six but if people want to dig deeper into

[4:42] the numbers where would they turn to ya thanks Rick

[4:46] if someone's to go in our town website we have a number of resources to look at

[4:50] the budget and everything related the Town Meeting the easiest path to find

[4:53] that is going our home page you'll see our news briefs a link for Town Meeting

[4:56] 2019 follow that link and you'll find a number of resources videos and a number

[5:01] of documents or you feel free to stop by the Town Hall since some of the

[5:05] manager's office an email or just give us a call we're happy to discuss this

[5:09] with you so thanks Eric and Rick for that there

[5:15] are several other important articles for consideration by the voters in this

[5:20] kamar CH and one of those is the bond vote for two new fire trucks and the

[5:26] select board has talked at length about this proposal and recommends a proposal

[5:31] to you well this has been somewhat controversial already the board did

[5:39] spend a lot of time talking about the various issues here and so I've prepared

[5:44] a couple slides here that I think will hopefully explain this issue a little

[5:48] bit better for people currently we have a number of pieces of large equipment we

[5:55] have one ladder truck three pumpers and a brush truck and from the chart that is

[6:01] on your screen you can see that over the years the amount of a number of major

[6:07] pieces of equipment has decreased for example in 2010 we had a total of seven

[6:14] large pieces of equipment that was reduced a couple years later or a few

[6:19] years later to six and for the current year we have only five the proposal that

[6:27] is before the voters is actually to reduce that once again to four major

[6:31] pieces of equipment so that is the proposal now each truck that we have

[6:39] generally lasts 15 to twenty years so it's a significant life

[6:43] that this equipment has the equipment's also very expensive it's not just the

[6:48] truck that you're buying it's tons and tons of equipment that goes with each

[6:52] truck and each truck I would also say performs multiple functions it's not

[6:57] just a single function that each truck does and finally the process for

[7:03] replacing these trucks is a long one it can take two to three years to actually

[7:09] complete the process from start to finish in the purchase of one of these

[7:14] trucks so I think that's important to consider when you're looking at the

[7:19] whole process and the whole issue behind whether or not we should buy new trucks

[7:25] we currently have the trucks that are we're hoping to replace one is out of

[7:31] service now and so that will continue to be on a service and we'll get rid of it

[7:36] the other two trucks are currently in service one is a ladder truck and the

[7:41] other is a what's referred to as a pumper these trucks are nearing there

[7:47] and the useful life one is currently eighteen years old the other is 16 years

[7:51] old and if you add two to three years on to

[7:54] that one will be twenty-one years old you're hiring three years and the other

[7:58] be 19 years so both of them will be near the end of their useful life at the time

[8:03] we actually got to replace it but you have to plan these replacements far in

[8:08] advance because of the long delay or a long process and actually replacing

[8:13] these trucks so you do need to think ahead so the three trucks that we're

[8:20] replacing if you were to take the replacement value of those three trucks

[8:24] it would be about 2.2 million and of course by reducing it and buying less

[8:30] expensive trucks which is what the plan is we are asking for only 1.4 million

[8:35] and that amount will likely be reduced by the replacement if we go to sell

[8:44] those trucks after we buy the new ones then we'll be able to get some value

[8:49] from that and reduce them out that we're going to have to borrow so that can't be

[8:53] factored into what we have to as for because we don't know what that

[8:56] amounts going to be but we do anticipate receiving some money back when we sell

[9:01] the old piece of equipment the newer trucks have a number of advantages and

[9:06] there's a couple pictures on the one slide here that shows what the tricks

[9:11] the new trucks might look like the first is a Quint truck which by its name

[9:17] implies of performs five different functions but the important piece of

[9:21] that is that both of these trucks actually these trucks are lighter trucks

[9:26] than the current trucks we have there are shorter in length they have a

[9:30] shorter wheelbase which allows them a shorter turning radius and of course

[9:36] lighter also means less wear and tear on the the town roads and the proper truck

[9:43] which is significantly smaller than our the proper truck it's replacing also as

[9:48] a four-wheel drive truck and that allows for even more bility during the winter

[9:53] months like we're having now where the trucks might be challenged on a steep

[9:59] slope the four-wheel drive allows it to maneuver more readily in bad weather so

[10:07] I think that's a quick overview of the reasons behind or there's the

[10:14] replacement the trucks are the current trucks are in dire need of being

[10:19] replaced and the new trucks will perform a wider range of functions and so we're

[10:26] asking voters to support this important replacement of equipment oh the other

[10:33] piece that I wanted to share is our current debt because when you borrow

[10:38] money it does affect your total debt load and this chart shows the current

[10:43] and proposed debt service levels and if you look at the year or 2019 you'll see

[10:48] that the current debt load is about the same as it will be in 2023 which is when

[10:55] the first payments for these two new trucks would be most likely to hit the

[11:01] books so it's not a significant impact between now and 2020 three we do see the

[11:07] debt going down somewhat and the after that they would also go down

[11:10] because as you pay off the debt the HAR the amount that you know will also go

[11:15] down so that's kind of a quick look at the impact on our debt service so I

[11:25] think Terry might be a good time now to start talking about the Charter changes

[11:31] that are being proposed because there's there's a number of them and these are

[11:35] kind of important issues especially a couple of them and so I think I'm gonna

[11:43] start the discussion and we're gonna ask that Becca to weigh in because she has

[11:47] some unique knowledge about issues there are six articles that are being

[11:53] considered and the the town's Charter was actually first adopted in 2003 and

[12:00] it's been amended twice or once in 2007 and the other in 2009 the town charter

[12:07] is a way for the town to institute procedures and processes that are

[12:13] somewhat different than state law allows for in Vermont to the state of Vermont

[12:18] the state is actually ruled by something called Dillon's rule and this is

[12:23] actually a judicial interpretation of the law and it says basically that

[12:28] municipality can only exercise those specific powers that are expressly

[12:33] conferred to it by the state law and so if the state law doesn't say you can do

[12:38] it then you rather if the state law says you can't do it then you can't do it

[12:43] chowder the town charter allows you to specify what the rules are the

[12:49] individual town can do and so we're constricted by state law for the most

[12:55] part so I guess the oh I wanted to talk a little bit about the adoption process

[13:02] currently the process involves an adoption that

[13:08] requires two public hearings which have been held it also requires that the

[13:14] Select board approve it and then eventually it goes to the voters which

[13:18] is why we're talking about it now because the Select board did approve it

[13:21] in January and it goes to town voters for their consideration and then once

[13:26] the voters approve it then it has to go to the state legislature for a final

[13:30] approval now usually the state legislature approves the changes that

[13:34] are adopted by the towns but I think there have been several state situation

[13:39] where the state legislature has not made those changes or it made approve

[13:43] something different than the voter has changed I know what's in the minority

[13:47] but it can happen and of course it also adds some time to the whole process and

[13:53] that can be a concern under certain circumstances for sure so let's talk

[14:00] about the first article which is article 8 and Deb as the Wilsons town clerk and

[14:09] treasurer for the past 20 years why is the proposed change that's described in

[14:15] article 8 important I think it's very important at this point the well first

[14:22] off I do want to say that the possibility or the proposal to eliminate

[14:26] any elected position is one that had cannot be taken lightly and I don't

[14:33] think you know we are doing that in any way shape or form has been a lot of

[14:37] thought into this the position of the town treasurer has changed drastically I

[14:46] think over the last 20 years we're not in the days anymore of maybe one or two

[14:52] bank accounts and cash receipts coming in over the counter and being put into

[14:59] little envelopes and it's gotten much more complex than that

[15:03] currently we the town treasurer we manage 29 separate money market accounts

[15:10] 7cd and investment accounts totaling about twelve point six million dollars

[15:15] plus a general operating and pay accounts our primary goal for these

[15:22] funds are really to maximize the interest realized so these accounts

[15:26] while still maintaining liquidity and I think between that and regulations that

[15:33] have come down the pike over the last number of years banking regulations in

[15:37] particular it it really is important that whomever is in this position has

[15:43] some background in finance in business and accounting as an elected treasurer

[15:51] there there are no requirements somebody could just put their name on the ballot

[15:56] say I want to be treasurer come in and have no background whatsoever in in

[16:02] finance or business and I think that would be a you know detriment to the

[16:06] town especially with dealing with so much in the fundings I would say that

[16:13] over the years we've been very fortunate to having your expertise in guiding that

[16:19] piece of the town's finances and our audits have always been very good and

[16:24] obviously that's something we want to retain it's an important piece of our

[16:29] town finances there's another piece though the proposals here is to change

[16:38] the treasurer's position from elected to appointed but it's also in the budget

[16:43] there's money for another change that affects this position moving that from

[16:49] much a part-time this is to a full-time position

[16:53] currently the my position as the treasurer I'm elected treasurer and

[17:00] electric clerk we've had the combined position for I want to say about 50

[17:08] years certainly in degree my predecessor was clerk and treasurer for about she

[17:14] was that for about thirty of her 36 years the combined positions by

[17:21] separating this out it will give the new a new treasurer an appointed treasurer

[17:26] will have it is absolutely a full-time job between all the duties and

[17:34] we have it is a full-time operation right now I have myself and a senior

[17:40] assistant treasurer who does a lot of the work and combined it's well more

[17:46] than any one full-time position well thank you for that now the the next

[17:52] article that we wanted to talk about is article 9 and this one's a little bit

[17:57] different then you want to just briefly explain what that's about

[18:02] so article 9 would allow the town to vote at some future date to change the

[18:11] clerk position from elected to appointed that is different and what this is doing

[18:18] is it's simply allowing the town at a future date to make the decision that

[18:27] they want to go to an appointed clerk rather than having the legislature make

[18:32] that decision through the Charter changes and whatnot

[18:38] this I would say I would hope not to see come on the ballot here in the future in

[18:46] the future but it just it allows that to happen should we decide right so it's

[18:51] not really changing anything that we have in place now other than taking the

[18:56] state legislature out of the decision yes yeah and actually that a plain same

[19:02] issue applies to another article we'll get to in a minute here but I want to

[19:09] briefly talk about article 10 which is a proposal to eliminate the positions of

[19:16] pound keeper and town service officer both of these positions have essentially

[19:21] become obsolete over the years in fact I can't remember ever having a pound

[19:25] keeper but it is something that's in our Charter and I also think that by

[19:31] eliminating these it doesn't necessarily prevent the Select board from appointing

[19:36] someone to these positions for example town service officer Terry you can

[19:41] correct me if I'm wrong but I think the board did appoint someone to that even

[19:45] though under state law it is not acquired any longer we did that's

[19:48] correct yeah and and it's a position that does have some function so but the

[19:53] proposal here just takes it out of the Charter as being a required position and

[19:58] allows the Select board the flexibility as to whether or not they want to have

[20:02] someone fill that position and this next article board of Lister's is kind of

[20:08] similar than one on the town clerk because it's really the only intent of

[20:14] this article is to take the state legislature out of the process and I

[20:19] would agree with your sentiment that you said on the town clerk the same is true

[20:23] of our board of Lister's our board of Lister's performs a really good function

[20:27] in Williston it's not true in all other communities but in Williston it has been

[20:32] very true we have excellent board and they really do a great job so this

[20:37] proposal is not to eliminate that board it just takes the state legislature out

[20:41] of the process so it's some point in the future the town does want to eliminate

[20:45] this board then they can do so without having go to the state legislature and

[20:51] the town constable is another one that's article 12 this is a position that is

[20:56] for the most part become obsolete over the years it does perform a little bit

[21:00] of a function but that's function that it performs can be can and does is

[21:04] performed by others sheriff's for example can perform some of the

[21:09] functions that the constable provides the proposal here just takes it out of

[21:14] being a required position within the town charter again it allows the slight

[21:19] board in fact I think it provides the Select board to make the appointment

[21:23] rather than having it as elected and given the fact that most of the duties

[21:28] of this position have kind of gone away over the years I think it kind of makes

[21:31] sense to have it change the nature of the position and then finally there are

[21:38] some technical Corrections the the most obvious one is the start time for our

[21:43] annual Town Meeting the Charter currently states that the meeting must

[21:48] start at 7:30 p.m. and I think for years and years and years the meetings started

[21:54] at 7:00 so that's not consistent with our Charter and I think it might be good

[21:58] to modify our Charter to make consistent with what our current

[22:02] practice is so the Charter change provides some flexibility in setting

[22:06] that start time for Town Meeting there's some other minor changes in there I

[22:10] think there's an incorrect reference to a state statute in there and the thus

[22:16] technical change that's proposed will correct that as well so that's a quick

[22:21] rundown of the various charter changes Deb if someone wants to learn more about

[22:28] these or some of the other things where can they look for some additional

[22:32] information thank you yeah anybody can go on to the town website as Eric

[22:37] mentioned earlier and that's a talent Williston VT us copies of the town

[22:44] report will also be available at the Town Hall

[22:48] anytime 8 to 4:30 at 7,900 Williston Road copies of the town report can also

[22:54] we picked up at Town Meeting oh they'll be plenty there for everyone you can

[22:59] call or email us eight seven eight five one two one or you can email me at dee

[23:05] Beckett at Williston VT org and we can send out a town report to you and pretty

[23:12] much all of the detail information for the budgets and all reports of all the

[23:18] departments are contained in that town report there's also a fire that's going

[23:23] out shortly that has some of this information as well absolutely there's a

[23:27] summary a flyer for the town as well as the school that'll be coming out in next

[23:33] week's issue of the Williston Observer so look for that

[23:37] insert great thank you so it's my turn two more let's wrap up this presentation

[23:45] so remember the important dates of March 4th for our Town Meeting and that starts

[23:51] at 7 o'clock at the Williston central school auditorium and the following day

[23:57] on March 5th voting at the National Guard Armory for select ward and other

[24:02] positions that for election the town budget and also on

[24:07] the the special articles that we've just been talking about following the town

[24:12] meeting on the the fourth there'll be an information meeting held at the same

[24:17] location at the Williston Central School to talk about the budget the bond vote

[24:24] and the Charter changes which you'll be able to ask questions and get more

[24:29] information so I encourage all of you to learn more about the budget in the

[24:38] various articles that we're proposing on the ballot and the select Court is

[24:45] asking you to support the changes that we have approved Rick so Terry there's a

[24:51] couple things I want to make a plug for sand so we have an audience here

[24:56] what is the an event that we've scheduled for April 10th there's been a

[25:02] lot of concern in the community about substance abuse particularly among our

[25:06] young people and the news recently is focused a lot on opiates but really

[25:12] Alcohol Tobacco and and more recently cannabis have been in the news and those

[25:22] are substances Ammar likely to be abused by our young people and this is

[25:26] concerning particularly mine's the young people are more susceptible to being

[25:33] changed by the abuse of substances and this can affect people later in life and

[25:40] so we want to have a community discussion about this and really talk

[25:44] about things that might have an impact to prevent the abuse of substances

[25:51] amongst our young people and there are examples around the country and around

[25:56] the world where programs have been successful so I think as a community it

[26:00] would be good to learn about those and see if there's a way we can actually

[26:03] implement some programs that would have that so I encourage everyone to attend

[26:07] this meeting the bigger the turnout I think the more impact it will have and

[26:12] the greater chance of succeeding in moving towards programs that will

[26:16] prevent abuse of substances by our young people

[26:20] the other thing I wanted to give it a little pitch is a program that Eric's

[26:24] been involved in it's called what's up Williston and it's a monthly program

[26:29] about a variety different community topics Eric why don't you mentioned what

[26:34] some of the shows have been about and particularly the one that's coming up

[26:37] yeah we've number of topics in town we've explored things we've looked

[26:41] Police Department we've sat down with the police chief Patrick Foley we've

[26:45] talked about fire rescue we had a wellness episode in January there's a

[26:50] number of topics we explore every month and it's um we've done the show for

[26:54] about since last summer and continuing to look at new topics Rick and I will be

[26:58] taping our next episode that will kind of delve deeper into the budget process

[27:02] we presented an overview today but there's a lot of pieces to arrive at

[27:06] these final numbers so we're gonna take a closer look at that process to inform

[27:10] everyone the community how exactly that works and what that looks like well

[27:14] thank you Eric and that pretty much wraps up our presentation and I'm hoping

[27:20] that people take the time to learn about our budget and the budget process a lot

[27:24] of time and effort goes into it it starts in September really and and

[27:28] doesn't end until the voters vote on it in in March and of course then we start

[27:34] the process all over again so we encourage everyone to get out and vote

[27:37] in support of the town budget and various articles including the bond vote

[27:43] and the various articles that are involved with our town charter change

Town Meeting Preview 2019

Transcript