[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