I'll call the Brattleboro Select Board meeting of Tuesday, December 16th, 2025 to order.

We had an executive session at 5 15, and here we are at our regular meeting at 6 20.

So this is a regular meeting.

John, was it properly warned?

Yes, Liz, it was.

Great.

Are there adjustments to the agenda?

I have one adjustment to the agenda.

Great.

I would like to move to rescind um the bag decision that we made, I believe it was on December 2nd, unless it was the meeting beforehand.

To bring up at a warr as a warned item for January 6th.

All right.

Amanda has made a motion to rescind to seek to rescind the uh bag motion from December 2nd.

All those in favor of uh revisiting the clarification.

Yeah.

What are we rescinding?

Um Amanda I can go into more detail if you want.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

So you know it's come to light that our tiered pricing system that we voted in on the December second meeting could in fact cost staff time and order.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm not sure you can discuss something.

Uh you make a motion like this because this is something that was done.

Uh it's done by the affirmative, and so this is strictly, isn't it a yes, up and down vote without discussion?

Except Dick, that Peter doesn't know what Amanda's talking about.

So in order for Peter to be able to vote, Amanda has to tell him what she's talking about.

But but that's a good point.

So do you have enough clarity on what I'm talking about now?

If it's possible for me to have less clarity, I do now.

And and um uh Amanda, you use the word rescind.

It's really a motion to reconsider.

And that has to be made by somebody who voted in the on the winning side of the prior uh vote.

And so long as Amanda was on the one of the people who voted for it, so she is eligible to raise this issue.

And then if the board votes to reconsider, then it would be reconsidered at your next meeting.

Historically that's what we've done, so that anybody who may have been at the last meeting who showed up for that topic who might not be here tonight that would be there for the next meeting when it's reconsidered, if indeed the board votes to reconsider.

So from a procedural standpoint, I hope that helps from a so this is a motion to reconsider.

And then on the January sixth, is it six?

Yes.

Meeting, then we will in fact reconsider.

And is there a discussion of a motion to reconsider or no?

I don't have my Roberts Rules with me right now, but I think generally it's not.

It's it's up or down on that.

And it's only reconsidered on the sixth if you have a majority vote tonight to reconsider.

Thanks, Paul.

I'm about four words away from a nosebleed.

I don't know what's going on right now.

So I'm I Amanda wishes to reconsider.

Okay.

The the adding the extra 15 and 10 cents to the bag pricing.

Oh.

Okay.

That's all you had to say.

Okay.

Amanda has a motion to reconsider the um what she called the two-tier bag system, and Peter calls the extra quarter.

So all select board members in favor of that reconsidering.

Please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay.

So we will reconsider that was the vote.

For zero for zero with an I'm assuming Oscar uh Isaac is negative.

I may vote nay.

Very good.

All right, very good.

And so we will have that discussion on January 6th.

Thank you, and thank you, Bob, for clarification.

And now John has an agenda adjustment as well.

Yes, I have one for this evening.

In your under your regular business, you have an item C Human Resources FY27 General Fund Budget and Item D finance FY twenty seven general fund budget.

I'm asking if the board would uh allow us to combine those two into one uh topic because uh the presentation that we put together combined both of those uh both of those items.

Sure.

That sounds like a wonderful idea.

Do we need to vote on that, John?

I don't think so.

Okay.

No.

Very good.

All right.

So now here we are.

Adjustment okay.

Let's let's approve the minutes of November 20th, 2025.

Someone like to make a motion?

Yes.

Isaac.

I move that we approve the select board meeting minutes from November 20th, 2025.

Great.

Isaac has moved to accept the meeting minutes from November 20th, 2025.

All select board members in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

That's 5-0.

And Isaac, I'll sign on your behalf.

Thank you.

Let's see.

Chair's remarks.

Um couple of things.

Just from the pedestrian point of view, I know I say this often, but there's people walking dogs.

There's people delivering Christmas packages at five o'clock at night, and they cannot be seen.

So please be very careful.

The other thing I wanted to bring up is that I got a letter from a middle middle school student who's been investigating uh civil war monuments and wanted to discuss the prospect Hill Cemetery.

And so I have reached out to historian and a couple of historians, and we're putting a group together to address that situation, and I just wanted the public to know, and I will keep back in touch as I have more information.

Uh and as you may recall, we had a very nice um addition to the Civil War monument at the Common regarding um soldiers that had not been properly honored.

So we'll see where that brings us.

Uh managers' comments.

Uh so I'll start with some really great news tonight.

The town has received a 1.7 million dollar disaster recovery block grant for the replacement of the Detman Road Bridge.

And I really want to thank Brian Bannon, the assistant planning director, for his work on identifying that funding and applying for that grant and getting it.

So that is just fantastic news.

Um secondly, the library is hosting a community conversation with Brattleboro state legislators to learn about and contribute to the representatives' priorities for the upcoming year.

And this will be held tomorrow night, Wednesday, December 17th, from 6:30 to 8 30 p.m.

at the library.

Petitions for Brattleboro Town Officers, Wyndham Southeast School District, board members, and town meeting members are available at the town clerk's office during their open business hours from Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.

to 12 p.m.

and 1 p.m.

to 5 p.m.

Completed petitions are due back to the town clerk's office by 5 p.m.

on Monday, January 26th for town officers and representative town meeting members.

Incumbents for representative town meeting members who have terms expiring will be mailed a notice of intent form in early January and must return their signed notice of intent form by 5 p.m.

on Monday, January 26th, the same day.

Town elections will be held on Tuesday, March 3rd at the American Legion, located at 32 Linden Street.

An annual representative town meeting is scheduled for Saturday, May 21st, 2026 at 8:30 a.m.

in the BUHS Gymnasium.

And the final announcement tonight is uh that Carol Cologne is retiring from parking enforcement this Friday after 33 years of service for the town, and we really appreciate all of Carol's efforts for the town and wish her all the best moving forward.

So that's it.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Select board members have comments.

Oscar?

Sure, thank you.

I wanted to uh let everyone know that the Brattleboro mini fiction competition has ended.

The submissions are in, and the judges have done their first round of judging.

And the panel has selected highlighted sort of standout submissions from all three categories and are making them available at the library.

They will also go up online probably as soon as I do it.

And they will be up and publicly available for the rest of December, and a winner in each category will be announced January 1st, New Year's Day.

I'm not a judge because I was administering and I saw too many names that matched up with stories and so on, so I couldn't judge, but I did see out of the corner of my eye some pretty good writing.

So I'm looking forward to reading all of this.

Thank you.

Sure, I'd love to say something.

And kind of just appreciate you.

And also to say that from 2 to 6 p.m.

at the Boys and Girls Club, the Spirit Houses, which are a collaboration between the Festival of Miniatures and our local elementary schools, they will be presented in a reception is going to be open there.

So if you've never been to the Boys and Girls Club, come on Saturday from 2 to 6 and uh check out the work of our local students.

I would be remiss if I didn't add that my daughter Mary made those houses.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Peter, do you have anything else?

Yeah, just um just a quick acknowledgement and uh wishing all those who are celebrating Hanukkah a very happy Hanukkah.

I think we are three days in.

Four days?

Yeah, three or four days in.

So happy Hanukkah.

Isaac, you have a comment?

I do.

First of all, I regret that I'm not able to be there in person with all of you this evening.

I um I also regret that at the November 18th meeting, I may have given the impression that the town manager had been unresponsive to concerns that I had raised when in fact he did address my concerns in a timely manner.

Um that's all for me for now.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Isaac.

Okay.

Public participation.

Are there members of the public?

Ivan.

Ivan Hennessy District 8.

Um the November 18th meeting.

We all witnessed something pretty remarkable in its uh unusualness, it's it's irregularity.

Um before a select board that has consistently tried out various ways of restricting public participation.

For instance, I'm down to a minute 30 now.

Uh used to be a three-minute participation, uh, sign-up sheets, all sorts of uh interesting little obstacles.

Um a member of the police force who showed up as a member of the police force to address an issue that was you know warned on the agenda and presented uh a slideshow that um carried the you know insignia of the police force.

Umnounced that he was speaking as a member of the public with no time limit.

Um is this a public attack?

Yes.

It's addressing an irregularity of procedure where a police officer yelled through an irrelevant presentation and was not reined in by the select board.

He yelled.

Oh yes.

Well, that's an interesting interpretation.

I was sitting right here listening, and I didn't hear that.

I'm sure that you were fully endorsing it, yes.

Uh you're saying yelling.

All right.

What's next?

Uh Ken Fay.

Uh thank you, Ken Faye, District 8.

Um, I was trying the time that the library was giving their budget presentation.

I was online and uh wasn't able to really uh say what I wanted to say.

So I want to uh endorse anything and everything that the library uh wants because they are uh uh uh very big part of this community.

was trying the time that the library was giving their budget presentation I was online and uh wasn't able to really uh say what I wanted to say so I want to uh endorse anything and everything that the library uh wants because they are uh uh uh uh a very big part of this community and also in terms of democracy uh there's a they're they're really important for democracy as it turns out there's a uh website called protect democracy dot org that has 29 concrete actions to protect democracy and coming in at number seven is invest in your local library so I just would like the select board to remember that when we go through the budget and invariably uh cuts will be possibly tried to be made to the library minor you know that amount to minor m monies anyway uh and also I'd like to say that human services the human services budget and the human services uh entities help those who need assistance and to me that sounds like a really good thing thanks point of order yes have we are we at two minutes today or three minutes uh we're at two because I'd like to get out of here before eleven and uh it's been quite difficult.

Okay.

Let's maybe revisit next meeting.

Maybe I'll see how we end up tonight.

Mr.

De Gray Thank you uh maybe an early Christmas present uh John I was hoping you're gonna tell me that we have the easement for the sidewalk down on 142 I'm hoping you're nodding your head yes we have that and uh if not what are you doing to try to help that situation along uh after you give me that answer if you can tell me where we stand with getting an auditor uh and if we don't have an auditor do you have any idea of what state we are in financially at the end of the 2025 budget uh and lastly I'd like to uh commend the fire department uh I think their building has been devoid of lights the last few years at uh some people call it holiday I call it Christmas and so I noticed that there was nice beautiful Christmas lights on the fire station and up on the poll again this year maybe they were last year but I didn't notice them so it was nice to see them there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

John I addresses I have not been updated on that easement but perhaps Bob Fisher knows where we're at on the easement for that sidewalk.

I don't believe we have that yet we have been in communication with the folks at the railroad who need to approve that it took a very long time to get through to the right person we did that and we have sent the proposed easement and it's under review by that uh particular person at that uh railroad company but the good news is at least we we have the right person the bad news is I think this is not high on their priority list uh among other things so but thank you for the reminder and I can follow up with that uh with an email tomorrow.

Thanks Bob and um on the auditor I know that we had uh we had to go out for a second RFP on that because we had uh no uh no no responsive proposals uh in the first round that was due I think early this month and I'm not sure I have not been updated on um the responses that we got from that but if Sally if you know anything um on that do you want to care to share anything further on it or yeah sure yeah I was just referring to Kim Ellison our account when she's here tonight.

Um the RFP yes you're correct it was due by November 30th to Bonnie Bachelder um our financial consultant uh to point we have not heard that we received but I know Bonnie has uh phase two to this process.

I mean she's back this week so we'll be checking in with her on that process.

Okay great thank you John um haven't we said in the past that what Bonnie's going to do is kind of do uh uh like a pre-audit that can just be confirmed by the auditor.

That was one uh I think she mentioned at one of your meetings that um if that that might help us get somebody if they're all busy and they're all doing all the other towns um she can do a lot of the work and then have them go through it and and knowing her work and her reputation will help attract an auditor who will know that there's the road has been plowed.

Yeah, that's our hope.

Yep.

Great, thank you.

All right, is there anyone on on Zoom?

All right.

Uh very good.

Then we will begin with uh the consent agenda.

Is there anyone who wants to pull an item from the Would you like an explanation on uh what is on that?

I would, and then we'll ask that question.

Okay.

Great.

So we have five items on the consent agenda tonight.

If you approve this agenda, you'll be authorizing the town to be a coalition partner with Wyndham Regional Commission on an EPA Brownfield's assessment grant application that is consistent with the town plan.

You'll be approving a first and third class liquor license application for India Masala House located at 7 High Street.

You'll be approving a tobacco license and tobacco substitute endorsement permit for Max Convenience store, also known as Circle K at 564 Canal Street.

You'll be authorizing a contract renewal agreement with Waste Zero for pay as you throw program services, and you'll be authorizing the town to participate in phase one of the municipal investment fund program as a sub-recipient in partnership with the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation.

Okay.

Is there a select board member who would like to pull an item from the consent agenda?

Great.

Then let us proceed with someone.

Liz, I have a question.

Yes.

And one of the um item D, uh waste zero and approving that contract.

In light of the motion to reconsider the um decision around the tiered around uh waste, the the cost of the trash bags.

Um doesn't that put into question that contract?

No, let's ask John uh that question and he'll clear that up.

Um good question, Isaac.

The uh that contract is just for the services themselves and the cost of the bags to the town.

So um depending on what you do with the cost of the bags to the customer, that's completely separate or you know, it's it's a separate question, not um relevant to this contract.

Thanks for the clarification.

Great.

Um Isaac, would you like to make a motion about the um do you have this in front of about the consent agenda?

I move that we approve the consent agenda.

But the select board approves the consent agenda.

Thank you.

Um Isaac has made a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented.

All the select board members in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

That's five five zero.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now, regular business.

The first order of business is the final public hearing for Z V C D P scattered site grant for William W H T, which is Bruce Whitney of the Windham Windsor Housing Trust.

Please join us, Mr.

Whitney.

Good evening, everybody.

I'm Bruce Whitney.

I'm the director of homeownership with Windham and Windsor Housing Trust.

And um as mentioned by Elizabeth, this is the final hearing for the scattered site grant um that comes through Vermont Community Development Block Program, which is funded by community development block grant money, federal money.

And the town is our um our host community, the municipality that that hosts the grant and then the town subgrants the grant to Wyndham and Windsor Housing Trust.

And um I was here a few months ago um with the um public hearing to do the grant for the to continue the program from um January 1st, 2026 on.

And this is the final hearing to close the grant, which started on January 1st, 2023.

So we go through three year cycles.

Um I just want to um mention that the loan fund is 25 years old this year.

Um Brattleboro has been the host community since um 2014.

Thank you very much for that ongoing support.

Um let me just stop you for one second while I formally open a public hearing.

Oh, we need a procedural thing.

All right.

I now declare this public hearing open.

And now you may continue.

Okay.

And you just start from the top.

All right.

All right.

So we've we're we've been around for 25 years, um, and thank you very much to the town for supporting us since 2014.

We also are still celebrating another um anniversary with um Jerry Freeman was was hired shortly after the formation of the program.

So he's celebrating 25 years of employment with the program, um, which is very exciting.

And um he is a member of the Brattleboro Area Affordable Housing Program, um, which I hope you know about and is a hard working volunteer board doing grassroots things that are just not in Wyndham and Windsor's Bailiwicks.

So the support continues.

Um you've been provided with um the the very brief um report.

Um the accomplishments include um housing repair loans to income eligible homeowners and landlords, and um we also provide housing counseling advocacy, helping people learn about um home buying and how to buy a home, etc.

So the results over the three years um are a total of 93 projects loans across the two county area at about $821,000.

And in Brattleboro, that included 24 Brattleboro residents and about 163, 164,000 of loan funds put out.

The number is um so Brattleboro represents 26% of that 93, and I will point out that Brattleboro um represents 12 percent of the Wyndham and Windsor County population.

So we are a member of you know our offices are here in Brattleboro, so um we we're well known in the community and serving Bratterboro.

Um Housing Counseling, um it's 248 participants, of which 64 are Vermont residents.

So I will um end there and um make myself available for questions.

Thank you.

I don't have a question, I do have a comment.

I just want to thank you and the Wyndham Windsor Housing Trust for this good work that you do, and it helps people get into homes and stay in their homes.

And that housing stability is so important, and I thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Anyone else have any comments that they'd like to make?

Isaac.

No?

They don't.

Thank you.

Great.

Um is there are there members of the public who would like to speak on this topic?

I think that silence indicates support.

Thank you.

We will go with that.

Um let's see.

I'll make the motion.

Pardon me, I'll make the motion, Madam Chair.

So you close the hearing.

I move two.

I have to close the hearing.

I move to close the hearing, and then uh oh, so that's it.

There's no motion to everybody.

And thank you for your good work.

Okay.

All right.

Um next item, town-owned land inventory.

Sue here or I sure.

Look at that.

And we welcome Sue Phillian to the table, our town planner.

And um this this uh board asked to check in on town-owned land and the potential for revenue generation.

Sue has been looking closely at town land, primarily for housing opportunities, but it I think it will land itself to a conversation about the broader issue of um of whether whether and what we should own.

And and I think that um I uh Amanda reminded me that this is an issue that was discussed in our in our retreat, our select board retreat.

And so it's nice to see items that were discussed at the retreat coming to the fourth.

I'm trying to stop the feedback, I'm sorry.

Yeah, that's fine.

We'll we'll talk among ourselves until you're ready.

Or don't talk.

Um you want to introduce the the the matter any more?

Um I can.

So uh we're not really not looking at it.

It's still echoing.

Yeah, we can talk at all.

Okay.

I'm gonna I was gonna show no, for some reason it's not muting in a weird way, it's not doing what it normally does when I need to mute it.

Oh BCTV said it was the laptop audio.

Yeah, I it's not working for me to turn down the volume, which I don't understand why that's not happening right now.

That's never happened to me before.

Do you need the computer?

Um I was going to share um the map.

What's up?

I think the echo stopped.

Well, I got out of the zoom to stop.

Oh, but I was going to share the interactive map at the same time.

I can send it to you.

Can you send it to Seth and then I can find the link and let me we made a couple of updates, so let me just forward it to you real quick.

Okay.

Sorry about this board.

We'll get the technical difficulties fixed.

We we weren't really looking for a motion tonight, but any feedback you have or direction you can start to give us would be very useful.

Yeah.

That's great because there's a lot of information here, and I'm hoping that as once Sue presents it, the select board will not only value it and consider it, but also you know, we want to give guidance to the staff as to the next steps.

Yeah.

Look at that.

Here's the map.

Excellent.

Thank you, Seth.

Sorry.

Sorry for the technical difficulties.

Um as as John had mentioned during the select board retreat, there was question about town-owned lands.

Um our department had done some work in the past about looking at housing feasibility on several of the lands.

Um, but what has been prepared now in it's actually up on the town website so the public has access to it, is an interactive map that Steve Hayes, our planning technician, um, put together of all the town-owned properties.

Um when you look at the it's an interactive map.

So if you click on one of the colored parcels, there's a pop-up box that um has a bunch of information, kind of desktop information.

So what's the zoning district, what's the acreage, what is um the lot size, uh the assessed value, um, physical address, parcel ID, also you know what it's kind of if there's any buildings, what what building is there?

So if you click on the museum, um, you know, it'll say that it's in use as a museum.

Um and then from there, what we did is we kind of categorized these parcels um based on our knowledge of it.

Um into kind of three categories.

So parcels that are in use, um, and these are parcels where there is um you know a fair amount of programming already happening on the site, and if that's programmed, you know, that there's not a lot of land left over.

So in-use parcels include our parks that are programmed, like the Commons, the Crow lot, um it includes cemeteries, it includes uh municipal facilities like the transportation center, the library, the DPW facility, all of those kind of lots don't have a lot of extra land on it that could be developed and that could be redeveloped, but in their state, there's you know, not a lot, and and they're in use and you know unlikely to be sold off.

Um the partial category is it includes um our parking lots, right?

So they're in use, but there could be a higher use to them, maybe, or maybe parking is is appropriate.

Um it includes some of our town properties that you know are kind of overseen by parks and rec or recreation and parks department.

You know, they might have a bench.

I think there's a property at the corner of Washington Street and Canal Street that falls into that.

It's kind of a small triangular piece, there is a bench, um, but you know, it's it's not like some of our like Living Memorial Park.

Um and then vacant.

So these are properties that you know, from our desktop research and from our knowledge are are really just vacant land.

Um what I would say is this map does not include the environmental constraints.

So actually a lot of the red kind of vacant lands might be heavily constrained.

So actually a lot of the red kind of vacant lands might be heavily constrained, steep slopes, floodplain, floodway, um, wetlands, anything like that.

Um, but for the purpose of what we did desktop wise, it's like it was kind of like well, do you just are you looking to see what could be sold off, or are you looking to see what would be developed?

I think that's something that we need to talk about tonight.

Um so I want to be clear that being you know, this is our judgment on it being categorized as in any of these categories doesn't necessarily imply that it's buildable.

So if it's vacant or partial, doesn't mean that it can be buildable for the reasons I had just said.

Um for example, like I'll just show a couple, like there's um properties on Prospect Street that show that they're vacant.

This is Steve Hayes who made the map.

We remove it quick tonight.

Apologize.

Welcome, Steve, and thank you.

Um so properties like like that, you know, again, not buildable, they're steep cliff, um, but they're showing is vacant.

But maybe somebody would have another use for it.

Maybe along Prospect Street.

There could be a little parking on that.

There's a flat plateau atop up top, or maybe there's a little buildable area there.

Um let's see.

I think you know, our opinion is that most of the properties are kind of left over slivers, little triangles, slivers that Steve found a gore somewhere in the tree series neighborhoods that's not accessible, so they're not, you know, we wouldn't view those as necessarily buildable.

Might somebody be interested in it, sure.

Is there a lot of value if you sold them?

Are we going to get a lot of money?

Unlikely.

Um from you know, but there are opportunities that I think we could be discussing.

You know, there are parcels that could be valuable for housing development.

Um for example, the kettle pond there off of Wilson's Woods.

There's um Seth, I don't know if you can get over there.

So by the high school, um, the town owns right in there, those red uh is that yeah, yeah.

Three red.

Yeah, the three red parcels there.

Um that was uh they were leftover parcels from the Wilson's Woods uh subdivision development.

Those might be buildable.

They're near the kettle pond, um, they're also near the town's salt shed, and some of our stockpiling, which is the blue parcel there that's next to it.

Um, but that might be something that could be developed with housing, and those are vacant at this point.

There could be some permitting, you know, there is an Act 250 permit on that development, but we'd have to dig into that a little bit more.

Um then another, you know, the park the downtown parking lots.

I want to go back to that, um, particularly because in 2022, under a previous town manager, the town had put out an RFQ for developers or or firms that might be interested in obtaining a real estate development option on the Harris lot.

So that's the parcel uh off of Hare Street, uh kind of near the Gibson Aiken Center, um, currently used as a town parking lot.

Um and we had a couple of proposals that came in, and in the end we had selected um MS to do some pre-development work.

It basically, you know, the request for qualifications was asking for firms to propose a development and a financial plan for the property.

Um that kind of that project fell apart when they there was some administrative changes.

Um that is something that could potentially be resurrected.

Maybe it's something we can see if that original request for qualifications is still good.

That could be something easy to move forward with forward with if that was something you were interested in.

Um so we're happy to kind of you know go around the map, answer questions.

Um there, you know, there's you'll see there's parcels out in the western part of town, there's some up near Sunset Lake Reservoir.

Um so the red one, so the the the yellowish one, that is the reservoir itself.

The two red ones were additional parcels that have been purchased, you know, they're part of the watershed, so maybe there's the value there, but you know, that we could look into those some more.

What I would say is the one Steve likes to call it the Pennsylvania-shaped red one there, you know, that's pretty far from any roads, so selling that off and having the potential for development, you know, could have its drawbacks, right?

It could be uh more on municipal services, more roadway plowing, whatever school bus transportation, any of that.

So there's some trade-offs to think about there.

Um I think what we would you know, this is high level.

Um, we'd like to know what your goals are so that the next our next work can deliver you something that maybe can be a bit more actionable.

But we're happy to answer questions on the properties.

Thank you.

Um before we begin, and I thank you for this work, it's really great and it's really interesting.

I want to ask um John andor Bob.

What I I don't want the board to do anything that would jeopardize the real estate of a potential future real estate transaction or deal for the town.

And can you explain um how whatever next steps we have do they need to be protected to speech in any way?

I can answer that if you'd like.

From the standpoint of procedure, should the board identify certain parcels that it wishes to convey or sell, there are various mechanisms by which to do that.

One, you could hire a realtor and put it out through a realtor.

Two, you could do what would be like a sealed bid.

So if you identified a particular parcel, town wants to sell this, put a notice out, say we'll accept sealed bids no later than such and such a date when those come in.

Uh you can, of course, accept one or reject all, etc.

And then if you accepted one, then you would do that notice of put like you did recently of putting it in the paper for 30 days, and if nobody objects, then the town can do the conveyance for what would be the contract or the bid high bid price.

So those are the two ways typically that towns follow.

Sometimes the town will end up with property that nobody took after, or the town ended up with a tax sale, and it could be all over the place.

And after a certain number of years, you just want to uh get rid of it.

So those that would be the process, unless you can think of other ideas on that.

So that we're clear to give guidance to the town staff to go forward, and it's not going to jeopardize any right.

You're not negotiating a contract for which you would need to go into executive session on a real estate option at this point.

You're you're Sue said you were looking at this from the higher level.

Great.

So let's begin.

Do you want to make some comments?

I had a question for Bob related to a parcel that could be deemed for like a conservation easement.

And is that the same sealed bid process if you wanted the conservation organization to purchase said property?

It could be.

I mean, whatever you would put out there, you would disclose what the constraints are or what your conditions would be.

Uh, but yes, you could you could do that.

Well, since I have the mic, I want to say this is amazing.

Thank you.

I love the math.

I love the chart.

The report is fantastic, and it's like it's just um, you know, it's there's a lot of depth to it.

So I'm excited to not I I was excited to read through it, and then I will look at it again and again.

I encourage the general public to go into the um backup materials for today's meeting and really explore this report.

It's really it's really exciting.

So thank you.

Um it's nice to have your work valued, isn't it?

I mean, as we move forward, I mean, this is such a big conversation that um I think we're just kind of taking it in at this point.

That's what my opinion is as elect board member.

And then there'll be future, there'll be future meetings, and it'll it would be interesting talking about structure in terms of how to how to go about so many parcels.

I like the hierarchy that you use, the feasibility, that's very helpful.

And um, and just I'd love to have a conversation at a future time.

Thank you.

So if we move beyond or go back to the original idea of possible development, what are the models look like if we identify a parcel and we'd like to encourage development there?

What kind of what would we be talking about?

So a lot of towns now are doing the RFQ route.

Um I recently attended a VLCT workshop on you know what are the actions that towns are taking to kind of spur housing and the RFQ route is pretty popular.

So I think that you know, housing costs are high, and land cost is you know, one of the biggest costs for in the pre-development.

So developers are definitely looking for some sort of partnership or surety from the town.

Um so the RFQ route can be nice because they can do all that pre-development and then figure out if they can make a project work and then proceed.

Um there's some new tools coming out at the state.

You've probably heard of the CHIP grant would or grant uh program that we're eager to learn more about.

There's some training going on in January that we're signed up for to understand how that'll work, but that's basically tax increment financing on a you know project by project basis.

Um so I think that you know the RFQ is one route for sure.

Um that seems to be what a lot of towns are doing, and then we're also gonna I think want to be prepared to talk about the tools that can help them make a development work.

Okay.

Great, thank you.

Peter?

Oh god.

Yeah, I got a few.

Um so so with the understanding like some of these plots of land, like I I'm not interested in in like doing anything with things where we're already parking cars.

Um I think that's a revenue source uh for the town already.

Um I'm like I'll just use the Sunset Lake Road property.

Did I read that map right?

That's 32 acres of land.

Is that believe so?

Um what so one of the ideas I I I had when I had mentioned this and and thinking like as far as um creating revenue was to like sell off desirable um plots of land, um whatever we get for that land, return it to the rainy day fund um to to bolster that back up, but moreover sort of returning this the all this acreage back to our tax base and our grand list uh for additional uh additional tax revenue, um kind of serving two masters uh there.

I just and and this is not a question, I'm just gonna put it out there, and maybe um somebody can just get me like a like a napkin sketch of what it would look like if all these parcels of land that are actually saleable, usable.

I know that we have some things that are you know, like Brownsfield and and some some some problematic plots of land like that.

But any of the usable lands, like these uh if if what's the acreage on the other one?

Oh, you have it up there.

It is 32 acres.

So that one's 32 and the other one.

Oh, there's two okay.

43?

All right.

Okay.

Um so you know, it would be nice with cut housing costs being so high.

I know it's I mean, I I also understand this is in the middle of nowhere.

Um if there was a developer who was interested in that, would that be something like we could let them develop for additional housing with within the town?

Is that or is that not suitable land for that?

That's kind of the level we'd need to go to next if that's the kind of like if you're willing to do that.

So I think that the 42-acre parcel, I think it does have some wetland on it, but not the entire 42 acres.

So we'd want to delve a little bit deeper.

Um, you know, the 32-acre parcel, like I mentioned earlier, that's really far from any road.

So that is going to somebody trying to build a road to get to that parcel is gonna be really expensive.

So is it is it worth it?

I don't know.

You know, yeah, I guess that's in the in the eye in the eye of the purchaser on that one.

But um, yeah, I mean the the trade-off, like so it was purchased because it's part of the weight watershed.

So it's like kind of weighing right.

Does it serve you know watershed protection purposes and therefore we want to keep it, or yeah, do we want to see if somebody's interested?

Yeah, I so you know that's it.

But I I'm just curious on the what would be deemed as somebody who could extend their already existing property and and with the idea of returning that property back to the tax base.

Do we have like a number?

And again, I'm not looking for anything right now, um, but I'll just ask this question publicly.

Like, what would returning these plots of land to the grand list mean in tax revenue?

That I don't know.

No, I said no, that's the same thing.

I mean that's that is a question.

I think that is the goal.

Yeah, I mean that the so with with I mean for me that that's the goal, of course, if we can get something close to you know, decent amount for it uh to sell it, return putting that money back into sort of our rainy day fund and uh bolstering that back up.

And I just I I see this as an easy transition of the most difficult sort.

I understand that as well.

It's it's funny we had talked before the meeting, Steve was like, well, I could add up the assessed values on all these properties, and then you know, we could you know figure out a re you know, in this case we'd probably make less uh than that for a lot of the properties.

But this is where some guidance like do you just want all the vacant ones that are that we think are potentially buildable to do that work?

Like that we could do that.

I'd love to pipe in, if I may, though.

So for uh like for a watershed area that's a sensitive area, those properties can be sought after uh by conservation organizations to buy them at market rate.

That would not necessarily be development and adding to the grand list, but would mean real dollars to the town and keep land in conservation if it's not ideal for for building.

So those are things to consider, especially considerable.

But still a win, right?

Still a win because a sale to that.

A sale would yes, exactly.

And so those are other avenues to pursue that aren't necessarily populating the landscape with more domiciles if um because we have a lot of options, and my understanding is high density building is the most environmentally friendly way of building.

Yeah.

And that um we have a lot of options, which is pretty great.

All right, so let's are are you finished with your comments?

No, I'm not even close, but I'll stop for now.

All right.

Isaac, do you have a comment?

Yeah, if we can take action to that builds a restores our reserves, the rainy day fund that Peter mentioned, and also protects our environment and also increases our housing stock that's affordable for people at Brattleboro, that is uh that would be ideal.

And I think would address two major needs that we have in our town, one for financial health and the other for expanded housing, which are goals that our select board set this past summer.

Thanks.

Right.

So um I just want to uh recognize that um Stephen and Sue have brought out process and next steps.

And um, you know, it's all laid out here, and I'm sure that, for example, these environmental characteristics will help them with their work.

And and I think um we all want to see um not only more housing, um, but I I also want to push back a little bit on um Peter's discussion of parking lot because that Harris site um was the subject of an of an RFQ number of years ago.

It's eminently buildable, it has a nice view of the river.

It's it's a winner.

Yeah.

And um and so the parking, I'm sure that um Stephen and Sue have ideas for where to relocate parking or where to provide parking or where to borrow from Peter and pay Paul for parking, so forth.

I mean, it can be done.

So in general, I think um while we we're not taking a vote, um, you know, we we do want these next next steps to be taken.

And I can surmise and get some head nods that we just want you to use your best judgment as to what can most easily safely environmentally be realized.

Um I correct?

Oh, I'm sorry, were you done?

Well, I just one wondered if you agreed with what I just said.

I yeah, I think anything that sort of steps us towards like um you know, building our coffers back up and you know, possibly returning stuff to the tax base.

One question, and um uh Dick and I had had a conversation, Dick DeGray and I had a conversation a while back.

Do point of clarification, do we actually need like uh a town meeting to okay sales of parcels of land?

Short answer is no.

If you did that 30-day notice through the statutory uh process, so long as there's no objection within the 30 days after you publish it, then you don't need a town meeting.

You can always elect if the board wants to to take the sales to a town meeting.

So for instance, if you're talking like the parking lot, that might be a bigger issue.

You may want to take that to town meeting as compared to just do the publication route.

But that'll depend on the magnitude of of the uh decision to be made.

Thank you.

So do we need any more guidance to give to the planning department other than full steam ahead?

Yeah, and we'll I think we'll look to you for recommendations and to triage the stuff and let us know what makes sense.

Um let's hear from the public.

Rick.

Hi, first Bright District 9 rep.

Um I'd like to echo what Amanda said in terms of uh focusing on uh high density building as the efficient way.

Um I'm assuming that those parts were purchased in the first place to protect the watershed.

Um so it's near the reservoir you maybe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um certainly, you know, there's wildlife advantages to leaving them alone in one way or another.

Um so uh I would encourage when it comes to big chunks like that in the middle of nowhere to wet our uh four-legged and uh winged and various other residents of the town uh enjoy those.

Thank you very much.

Are there other members of the public who would like to talk on this topic?

Mr.

De Gray.

Thank you.

Um I would hope a couple of things.

I would actually hope we would put this building when they're looking at the municipal lot.

Uh I don't know if anybody knows it, but I've been a strong advocate of getting out of this sunken chest wound that we're in since the 90s.

Uh and I actually I wanted the town to pursue buying the Holstein building back when it first went for sale, and there was resistance because somebody said we don't want to take that building off the tax rolls.

Well uh I think they made a poor decision there, and we would have been much better off down there.

But having said that, uh I really would advocate for not having the harmony parking lot on this list at all.

I th I think that parking lot is actually the heartbeat of downtown, even though it doesn't have a whole lot of seating down there, there's a couple of benches.

But it is essential to the vitality of downtown.

And if you took that away a portion of that and whatever you did with it to make it a park, I think you would be definitely sending a bad message to uh the businesses downtown.

So I actually would ask you to remove that at least that parking lot.

And any properties that we go for sale that would be for usable for housing.

I would ask that the purchase and sale agreement would have language in there that it needs to be developed within a short period of time, not six months, but at least a year or two years to get that developed, not to have somebody just sit on it and certainly they're paying taxes, but not developing the property.

I think that should be one of the goals of the board is to make sure these properties that are developable have language to say, yeah, we we support that and we want you to do that.

The other ones to get rid of them, get rid of them.

Thank you.

I I I agree with your comments.

Uh the Harmony lot is is a very complicated piece of land and it'll it is right at the heart of the downtown.

I think people have made uh we make good use of that parking lot on first Fridays and so forth.

So just want to kind of chime in and and agree with Dick wholeheartedly about the Harmony lot uh and and also I think it's a good suggestion to you know time restrict anything that that we have so that projects don't drag on and we're seeing some value out of it.

And we are actually negotiating in a very odd way uh about this building as well.

Wouldn't long-term strategy would it be helpful Sue for us to actually identify things we're opposed to right at the beginning at this meeting, or is that for another?

Because I have a uh uh lumping into what Dick sort of said.

Do you want that kind of advice, Matt?

Um why don't we you know you gather your thoughts and and you could give them initially, but but maybe give the board the rest of the time um to add to that as well.

And so we'll have another meeting in like January, if that's possible.

Um if I could suggest uh yeah, if you have thoughts on any parcels, like maybe talk with me about it, and we'll uh we'll put that together and what uh into the thinking for whatever we bring back to you with next steps.

Great great plan.

And and all select board members can do likewise.

Yes.

And uh Rick wants to speak again.

And uh I I have yet to hear a well-articulated reason for going to the extraordinary expense of changing town halls again.

Um I mean not right now, but at some point I'd like somebody to explain that one to me.

I we have a host of government buildings in a row here that are serving us well with shared parking, which is serving us well.

Umsteen building has uh fraction of the parking and is less accessible as as an example.

Um I don't someday could somebody get in touch with me and explain that one to me.

I'm sure they can.

Okay, so um that's how we proceed, right?

Are we good on that?

Nodding, and nodding.

Yep, yeah.

Yep, good.

Thank you.

All right, then thank you both very much.

Um what's next?

Oh, yes, resource.

The combined human resource and finance uh department budget.

Here comes Sally next.

Yep, Sally Kruznick's uh who is the human resources director and also covering us on finance and um this is a continuation of the board's department by department look at the budget, and uh Sally has a presentation put together for these two departments.

Sally, before you begin, is it possible for you to articulate what your role is in the finance department?

Oh, yeah, because I think the public is a little fuzzy on that.

Okay, no, I appreciate that.

Um, and thank you for having me here tonight to go over the two budgets.

Uh sure.

Um I did have that a little bit in the opener that I had, uh, but this would just go off that a little bit.

Um when we were um transitioning between um the resignation of our finance director and assistant town manager.

Um there was responsibilities that were shifted among various staff members, and um, as part of that transition, HR and finance departments kind of combined.

So I manage the team, the finance staff, I manage that budget, and um and that's how my role in that purpose.

Great, thank you.

And I I will mention that um uh one of the cost-saving measures that the city of Burlington enacted last year in their budget was a combination of those some two very same departments.

Yeah, town manager and I have spoken about that previously too.

Um so again, uh please go ahead.

Yeah, no, thank you.

And I'll just skip over that paragraph because I read it already.

Uh so thank you for having me here tonight.

Um, and again, I appreciate um Seth for reminding me that the budget uh the uh HR and finance were two separate agendas, so thank you for merging that for me as well.

Um again, and so as part of that uh continued um transition between HR and finance, the HR department is actually also moving downstairs uh to the finance suite to better integrate our services together.

So and also in combining these two departments, uh we've updated our team team acronym.

Uh we are referring to our uh our values at hearts by bringing together our shared values of honesty, empathy, accountability, respect, teamwork, and service.

This best describes who we are today as the HR finance team.

Um these are some of the services uh provided to our employees uh through human services.

Um this year we also held our first annual benefits fair, which was what very well attended, and we look forward to holding the fair annually.

Uh together with the Richards group, uh we organized a worldwind open enrollment this past month, and then we're processing uh the transfer of our employees to our new Cigna medical plan.

Our town's wellness committee is also planning a HEP B vaccine clinic in 26 for all town employees.

We held our third annual Juneteenth art event, uh and pretty soon in the beginning of uh next month we should start promoting for our four fourth annual event.

We're also implementing uh the new CCI complete care package.

That's our um internet and network of services and hardware.

Seth and I will start meeting weekly with the CCI, and then we'll be transitioning to monthly meetings as we dive further into that process.

The town the finance department is the team behind the numbers.

To highlight a few of their duties, tax sales, grants, tracking revenue, expenses, and all town budgets.

And I'd also like to applaud our finance team.

They have had a lot of transitions over the past six years, and they hold it all together.

Their dedication to our public and town departments is commendable.

So between the HR and the finance team, we consist of six full-time and one part-time staff and a professional services with our contracted financial consultant.

So again, these are some of the bullet points of my responsibilities.

We're completing open enrollment again for our calendar year 26 with continuous recruitment, payroll taxes, employee relations, which also includes now the management of the finance department.

This is our HR team.

This is Melissa and Seth, and these bullet points again represent, I believe, is really more of a small portion of their tasks, which they process, I feel these in a work day.

Melissa assists in all HR functions, and she helps in the finance department.

She's always willing to help in any way.

She also facilitates since the beginning of this year.

She started to facilitate three of our committees: our wellness committee, our welcoming welcoming workplace committee, and the administration advisory committee.

And to point out that was something our town manager had suggested, and I brought it forward as an idea to Melissa, and she just ran with it.

And she meets quarterly with our office managers and helping to build more universal processes and efficiencies within the in the organization.

We all know Seth.

He's a solid, he's um he's we I can ask Seth something crazy.

I'll say, hey Seth, can you create a podcast?

And he finds the connections in his collaborations, uh, and we have a town manager podcast.

Um he's asked if he can help with IT, and since then there's just been we have current lists of hardware and uh major IT project in the way, and he's here at every select board meeting.

Um he also has the lead on our employee and public newsletter website, and he assists Jessica, our executive assistant with the publication of our annual town report.

Let me just interrupt to say from that photograph that Seth is truly outstanding in this field.

Yes.

There you go.

So this is Leslie.

Um she stepped right up to the plate again with the transition of um the finance director uh vacancy.

Um she stepped right up and I and um she just said I can do this.

Um she's our newly appointed treasurer, she's dedicated to the town service.

She's learning about the abatement process, tax sales, um, she's continuing to grow and learn and share in her role.

And just as a reminder, quarter three taxes and water and sewer payments are due on or before February 17th of 26.

And your utility bills will be mailed in January.

This is Kim.

She's our accountant.

She is able to work in a fast functioning environment.

She won't stop until she reconciles 100%.

She's a valuable part of our team, and she supports all of us, and by that I mean all department heads with all of our random budget questions and grant questions at any time of the day.

She's fantastic.

This is our other finance team.

This is uh Corey, he's our finance clerk.

He just joined our team in June of 25.

He's our main point of contract contact at the counter and phone, and he quickly uh demonstrated his compassion and eagerness to assist the team.

And then we have Leela, she was promoted to our APAR specialist in June as well.

Um she is our keeper of institutional knowledge.

Um she's a 14.6 month employee.

She remembers almost anything finance related and more.

She's honest, and she's been developing relationships with our vendors and is always searching to find ways for us to save wherever possible.

Um, this is the revenue side of the finance department.

If there's any questions here, um over what these are again uh interest on receivables, my understanding is um that's the interest earned on any late invoices that the finance department bills out.

And then just on note on the actuals of 25, that was revenue that was from the library trust when they made a contribution towards the public safety consulting of New England contract for us back then.

So the revenue of the taxes again.

If you have any questions here, again, my understanding is the interest and penalties.

This is for late taxes, collection charges.

This is the processing fee related to the tax sale, miscellaneous revenue, sales tax, meals, and rooms.

This is the one percent option tax projections.

I think we're on expenses and human resources.

Again, as you've seen and seen by other department budgets with the um combining the employee benefits, taxes, salary wages, um, that's now all reflected in our budget lines here.

Um a new line in the HR expense here would be an overtime line.

Uh previously, this was allocated to staff salaries, and it's been recommended we have a proper overtime line for transparency.

You can see that we're kind of trying to combine some of the lines in our budget.

Uh, we eliminated our equipment expense and allocated those funds to the office office supply line.

And so this slide shows the increase in the office supply line again, uh moving those around.

Um there's also an increase in the software license line, which accounts for the annual contract increases.

Uh again, there's a slight increase in our copy or expense, but there is a decrease in our advertising as Melissa has found savings on how we advertise for our job vacancies.

So our consulting services with New England, they offered us a decrease in their rate for the next fiscal year, but not in the valuable services they offer our town employees.

They provide trauma mitigation and they do one-on-one consultation with our staff as needed, and they're available for them 24-7.

Um, the stipend line is new.

Um, we've been allocating again this expense to the staff and department headlines.

This is to offset the additional responsibilities of department staff.

HR also manages the occupational health line.

It's decreased for the next fiscal year as this line also used to um reallocated funds from this for the fire department annual physicals, and it was also recommended that this be moved that portion of the budget be moved to the finance department budget.

I mean, I'm sorry, the fire department budget.

Um, and it's also important to note on the occupational health.

We use that fund to sponsor the events that we offer our employees, but we stick within a budget with Blue Cross Blue Shield.

They used to offer us what we refer to as our blue dollars, and annually they would provide us $50, $400 that we would then get reimbursed, and that would be deposited back into the town as a miscellaneous revenue.

And but now moving forward, we found out that now that we're moving with Cigna Medical that we'll be receiving $7,500 this next calendar year that we can use towards our employee employee campaigns, which again would will be reimbursable.

These are the expenses in the finance department.

Um there is an increase in the staff salary line.

We've made a request uh for a second part-time position while acknowledging the current budget constraints, the addition of a new position within one uh the small department will provide a solution to our department's workload.

It will we believe will boost productivity, fill some gaps, and enable our staff to attend training for their professional development and growth.

The absence of an employee in the small department can also reduce some of the qualities.

Um, as you've noticed, we've had to start closing for the hour of lunch just because of the staff shortage, and we're hoping that um that will uh we'll be able to bring that service back, but um we're also looking to increase another part-time employee in that in that department.

So, again, um just trying to move the funds around from one line where we tend to that some they feel like they're duplicated.

So we eliminated our equipment expense by merging the expense with our computer and office supplies, budget lines.

Um, there is an increase in the software licenses as we're going to be transitioning to Nimric on the cloud version, um, which we believe will also help with other transitioning if we can move more of our platforms to the cloud.

Um, eventually we believe we won't no longer have to host a server here, which they also have a lifespan, which is part of our hardware capital.

And um, as we go through the butt uh the expenses and finance, um, I do believe that we'll be also making some recommendations to our town manager for further savings on our expenses.

Uh we recently are um we're gonna start a partnership with a local uh printing vendor, and we're gonna start our outsourcing our tax and utility printing of invoices and mailings, and we're expected to save up to what we believe could be twelve thousand dollars, um maybe actually a little more.

Uh the service uh the uh by the way they buy the supplies for us.

The savings will be higher in the the utility budget with an expected save it to up to about four thousand in the general fund um with the highest savings being in the postage.

And so we're starting the outsourcing starting in January, uh which should provide us savings in this current fiscal year.

And um it will also be able to provide our staff uh more time um assisting the public versus printing out those uh invoices and going through the mailing.

There also is a new stipend line in here.

Again, we've been allocating the this expense to the staff and department headlines, and this is to offset the additional responsibilities of the department staff.

Um I think the last one again is just the finance total.

And um that was my presentation.

So thank you for your time and I'd be happy to discuss any questions.

Thank you very much.

Um has questions?

Isaac, would you like to begin?

Sure, thank you.

Thanks for that presentation.

It really helpful to be able to see those numbers all together.

Um I was interested to hear more about the $15,000 additional stipend.

Could you speak to how those would be used and what the need is?

Sure, in each department or the the finance or the HR department.

I saw $15,000.

Is that for the two departments combined?

No, they were separate.

Um looking at the finance, I think the stipend was $39.

I think you said it's the HR.

HR is $14,500.

Oh, so you can forget but also for it's for taking on new responsibilities and shifting.

So how would that actually be uh distributed?

Sure.

I think it's Isaac's question.

Am I correct?

Yeah.

Yeah, just trying to understand like why isn't it just being why aren't people's salaries being adjusted?

Why is there a stipend instead?

So stipends can end.

They're basically the uh they're they're budgeted for temporary assignments um depending on so for I'll use my myself for an example.

I receive a stipend for managing the finance department.

I didn't receive a step increase.

Um so if that were to, you know, if the town were to bring forward a finance director, I would the site the stipend would end, and that would you know put a savings in that line as it is.

So we've budgeted for that.

Um the services Seth provides you here today.

Um he's paid to be here at night.

This is off his regular hours, and that's part of the stipend.

If you were to hire a new assistantile manager and they were to take on that responsibility, that Seth, his stipend would then end.

And the same in the finance department, we're providing a stipend to our accountant because she has taken on some responsibilities of the finance director.

Thank you.

And does that avoid Yeah?

Does that avoid um overtime costs?

Um we're exempt employees, we don't receive overtime.

Thanks.

Peter, do you have any comments?

No, I'm good.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Oscar.

Sure, thank you.

I would like to talk uh, I think we're all very happy to have Bonnie on board doing the work she's doing.

I'd like to talk a little bit about the mechanics of what it would look like to find a full-time finance director if you have any thoughts on that, the kind of salary ranges we'd be looking at.

Can you pass me that folder?

I do.

Actually, I did a study.

I'm sorry I didn't bring it with me to the table just one moment.

Uh the town manager did ask me to um we've been going back and forth on that.

So, do you mean um an estimate on like their ex their cost or recruitment or well both, but you know, what kind of salary range do we think we would be looking at now?

What we'd have to pay to actually attract somebody, stuff like that.

Yeah, that that sal um that wage line starts at an about 100,000 and it goes up to 109,000 at this at this current fiscal year.

Um so then um putting in for the total compensation, depending on a way we go on that range, you could be looking to spend with again benefits, taxes, Vee MRS up between 130 to 145,000.

And do we think but well, John, maybe you do we think we'd be able to find someone for 109?

Or um so well, what I'm hearing from other town managers who are looking for finance directors is that some of them are struggling to find somebody even at 130.

Um so it it it that's part of that is just the the luck of the draw, like uh is somebody available or not.

Part of it is do they want to move, relocate, uh what's that gonna cost them living in the vicinity?

Um those are all things that we'd have to test the waters if you wanted to go back to the idea of putting that in the budget.

Okay.

Well, go ahead.

Oh, I just want to comment on that that we seem to be doing pretty well with people who want to move near their aging parents.

I I think so.

I think it's something we should certainly explore for this budget.

Um there's a couple uh there are there are duties that people are being stipended for that could go towards the cost of the finance director if we brought someone on.

There's the um money that we're spending on Bonnie and uh there's also um so that there might be room in the budget, and I think it could be a really helpful addition to the team.

So something I I'd like us to think about.

I did do some uh I got an estimate.

Awesome, great yeah.

So if if we did like you know, for like recruitment, I'm looking at between four to eight thousand dollars in that range.

Again, the compensation we could go again, including all their benefits, total compensation up to about 148, 1045, 48.

Um, we usually do a search committee, so that's usually with department heads, and that that's you know, including their time.

I did between a three thousand to five thousand dollar estimate there.

And then because of our new um using our platform open gov, we would have to integrate this person to learn um that that platform and I believe right now open gov costs are about it could range up to about twenty thousand dollars, depending on because of that the that's a very complicated program, and I know Bonnie's going through some, and we've been very fortunate that the OpenGov has been um providing us with some discounted cost for that, but that would be another part of bringing on new finance directors to bring them up to the speed on that platform.

Um so I estimate about about 178,000 in a recruitment uh for that position, and then um continue to pay on our financial consultant could also increase that number because that's uh a monthly fee that we pay.

Right, certainly.

Okay.

And so just to pull one thing out there, the up to 20,000 for open gov, that would be for paid trainings to bring the finance director sort of uh know the ropes on the software.

Yeah.

I mean the the uh open gov does offer like a university, so you could do some training, but um again, depending on how a person learns, offering them a one-on-one or some virtual trainings would be useful too.

Okay, cool.

Thank you, Sally.

Amanda, did you have a comment?

Sure.

I want to tag on what thank you for the presentation, what Oscar just asked.

Um is it possible to find a finance director that already knows OpenGov?

Oh, it's I know that that that would be a criteria for um for hiring.

Yeah, I think it would be one that we would put in there, like the you know, central job responsibilities and and you know, looking for uh we could put out there that we use this platform that would be part of our recruitment and what could we save money if the person was already trained in it from a previous position?

Yeah, they would just learn the broader borough way.

Yes, yes.

Got it.

Okay, a couple of questions.

So um I'm noticing that there's like sick leave bonus in both um finance and um human resources, and I'm not seeing it in some of our other um departments.

Sure.

Um budget.

So I'm wondering how that works in those departments.

Yeah, um, so that varies.

So um because we offer either the payment or personal day hours or personal hours, it just depends on the history of that department.

So if if it's a smaller department and they typically take the days, you wouldn't see that in the budget because they take the days uh hours, I should say, versus the payment.

And and um, and some people may not qualify for it, you know, because it's there's qualifiers to get that bonus.

So that could be why you may not see it in one department versus others.

Um and then for professional services and finance, the 92,700.

Is that Bonnie?

Yes, it is.

That's Bonnie.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um that's been allocated.

Um Bonnie did a preation through the general fund utilities and parking for her services.

Okay.

And then just one more question.

What is personnel management expense in the human resources?

Oh, that's a fun one.

Everything.

Uh that'll be um well, we used when we when we uh when we do human resources orientation, um I'll we'll budget out of that one.

And um this oh, this uh that's a mix.

I got a list in my office.

It depends on what goes in there.

Depends on what kind of event may be going on.

I mean again, if it's what something that's put through our promotion, we could get reimbursed through there.

Um there are some attorney fees when we go outside of the town attorney, and we may have to pay through there.

Some of the uh professional services are paid through that account too.

Great.

Because I noticed in previous years, like in 2025, if it it's it was over what you budgeted for this year.

Which is the which well this is higher than 2026.

But 2025 was a blip year.

Yeah.

So we also through there, when we do recruitment, if when yeah, when we bring in um when we're doing our fire chief search, you know, we pay uh for a lot of the the expenses, and so again it varied depending on how many larger searches we were doing in the year.

So recruitment will also go into personal management.

Okay.

Thank you.

So Sally, I I just uh have some comments.

It it seems from your presentation that um you're really using the staff efficiently and and I commend them all on their flexibility and ability and desire to learn new things and uh that keeps the efficiency going.

And um I just want to thank you all for your hard work.

Appreciate that.

Uh are there members of the public who would like to speak on this topic?

I see Kate and then Mr.

DeGray.

Thank you.

I'm Kate O'Connor Brattleboro.

And my first thing is sort of a request.

Because these presentations are so pretty.

I'm wondering if the ones that are not in the select board packet can be put somewhere so the public can see them, because I have absolutely no idea what it looked like except it looked really pretty.

So I think that would be really helpful.

Yes, we're working with Jessica on that.

Okay, good.

And then my second my question is how much are we paying for open gov?

Because it still does not work from the public facing and if you go on right now and look at the FY26 budget 0000.

So I'm just wondering as a is it we do we have like how much are we paying for it?

It's my basic question.

And is there any hope that the public is ever gonna see anything but zero zero zero zero zeros on the town website?

Sean, you want to answer?

Um did you want to say something first on the I did I um I know Seth has been uploading our packets to uh a particular um page on our on our website.

So I'm sure these will be up there.

Yep.

Um tomorrow I'm gonna upload all of these to uh Bertleborough.gov forward slash FY27 budget.

And um I would ask if uh Kim, do you know what line is the open gov line by any chance?

If not the record show that Kim Ellison is in the room.

Yeah, she may she may not know, but I think it's um uh well I have to do it.

Is it in software licenses?

The 48,000?

It's um somewhat I think split a few different departments.

I'm not sure I uh it's not directly in just HR or finance, it's more in the general services, I believe.

Okay, professional services line.

And that again, Bonnie has um also um done a formula to split that between general fund parking and utilities.

And and so John, if I may, regarding the uh portal um access.

So I know um Kate was looking to see more on the the financial side of it, um what the public can see, and I know that has to do with how it's published out there, and Bonnie has been working with OpenGov on that.

It has been improving.

Um but with OpenGov with all that other um services they offer, there are the utilities portal is brand as new there, and again the licensing um permits and licensing is up on there too.

So we do receive other services that are more available to the public right at this moment.

Yeah, and I I have that total somewhere.

I'm I'm not finding it right off the top, but I can get that information, bring that information back to the board if you want.

Great.

Okay.

And maybe um before January 6, you could let the questioner know.

Dick, did you have a comment?

Uh yeah, uh follow up what Kate said.

I had to fish around actually to find the the budget proposal for this year.

Uh having said that uh Amanda talked about the stipends and the sick leave bonus.

Those are all new to the budget process this year.

They're uh when I go back and look at years prior, we didn't have stipends and we didn't have uh sick leave bonuses.

And just wondering what the thinking was.

I'd also like to agree with what uh Oscar said.

I I definitely think that uh we need a full-time finance director.

I I think we will be, and this is nothing against Bonnie, but I think that uh we should be making any effort that we can to hire one, and money shouldn't be the impediment to hiring a finance director.

Uh something else that I would like you to consider uh that uh Miss Cologne is retiring from the fire department.

I've always believed that they should be that person that does that job should be part of the finance department and in the finance department.

They deal with money.

And I think that is a great place for that person to uh that can still be paid, certainly out of the the parking fund, but I think that they should be in the finance director's office.

Uh and I hope that you would strongly consider that.

And actually, if you're gonna go and pay a ticket, it's easier to get a parking place up here than it is to try to get to the transportation center, even though there's a garage up overhead.

Uh so I I would hope that you would think about that.

Maybe you have thought about it, but I I would like you to reconsider it again.

And if you could answer that question that I asked at the beginning, thank you.

The stipends and the sick leave bonus, John, is that you or Sally?

Oh, I think Sally can't.

Yeah, so those used to be uh allocated like when they were earned, we report them to either the department headline or to the staff line.

So now with being more transparent with our budget, that's why we started that's why they're new, you're seeing new lines.

Um so that you know at the end of the year, it may have looked like someone was earning more than they were budgeted for, but that may have been a stipend or bonus that they received.

So now by putting them out separate, it should better align with the budget.

So it's not a new payment, it's a new accounting.

Yes.

Thank you, Liz.

Thank you.

I'd love to ask a question of town manager.

But why are we seeing that in these two departments but not other departments like the assessor's office and the town clerk's office?

Well, if there's no need for a stipend, if there's no extra work that's happening, then there would be no need for a stipend in those departments.

And this is based upon the changes that have occurred in HR and finance with the lack of a finance director and the movement between the two departments.

I see.

Okay, specific to those two.

That's the one.

That's the reason why the the assistant town manager requiring a stipend for Seth's fine services.

Understood.

All right.

Um I ask one of all the questions.

Exactly pertaining to these two.

But I was interested in some of the departments with like the holiday buyback went away and it got shifted.

And if you could just explain all of that, because that kind of moved to another line, but if you could explain that to me, happened in several departments.

Right.

Again, another recommendation um from Bonnie through um looking at our budget.

That used to be again in a department line, it was uh you could do a vacation buyback.

And um, and then when someone retires and um or they resign, and all of that used to be either um allocated to if you had the vacation buyback line, or then again it would go to staff salaries or department headlines.

So again, now that's why um she's recommended to move it to a separate fund and it's a budget, and when someone leaves or they do a buyback, it comes out of that fund and not of the department budget.

Seth, is there anyone online who has a question?

All right.

Well, if no one has any further comments, I'm gonna thank you, Sally, for your presentation.

Sally thank you.

Thank you.

All right, it's five minutes to eight.

Let's take a five-minute break and come back at eight.

Great.

Let's call the meeting back to order.

And before I welcome Hillary Francis, our town clerk.

Uh John has an answer to Kate's earlier question.

Whenever you're yes, and uh thank you.

And so the cost for open gov finance and budgeting software is 71,163.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, so Hillary Francis, first let me welcome you and your your newly fixed ankle to the table.

Thank you.

And um please present the the town clerk's office budget.

Absolutely.

Well, I'd like to start by thanking you for inviting me here this evening.

And I also want to give a major shout out shout out to Seth, who we all know and love, but I sent him my outline and my thoughts, and he created this presentation for me.

Um, like he does when you send him anything.

He's a wonder.

He he's a wonder.

Thank you, Seth.

Um I'm Hilary Francis, I'm the town clerk here in Brattleboro.

Um if you want to go to the next slide.

Um a few years ago we sat down like like many other departments have presented, and we pulled together our values and our goals, and we really tried to think about this both internally, how we interact with each other, um, how we interact with other folks in the organization in other departments, as well as how we interact with the public, right?

Because the public is we're one of the um front-facing departments in the town.

Um, and so above everything else is stellar customer service.

Everything we do, um, we think about that.

Um, we want to make sure that we're competent and confident um in serving the public as well as interacting with the other departments.

Um we're certainly the custodian of of records going back to the very beginning, um, and so we need to make sure that we're doing that with integrity and that they're well preserved.

Um we work in a community um that you know we don't always know the answer.

Sometimes we're wrong.

Um, sometimes there are different ways of thinking about something and different perspectives, and so making sure that we're respecting ourselves and our teammates and the public, um, serving everybody with trust and humility, um, compassion, right?

There are times um when somebody needs a birth certificate, and they're they've fallen on a hard time, and we need to be compassionate to figure out how we can keep the town whole and and collect the fees that are owed to us, but work with them so that they can get the documents they need to move forward with their lives.

Um and then making sure that we're adaptable, curious, right?

We want to learn OpenGov came about, and how do we utilize that?

Um, how can we be curious about things that are are at our fingertips?

Um those are sort of the values that we work under.

We are a very small office.

Um we have myself um I'm full-time.

We have Jane who is full-time, um, like Sally was saying before, with um that wealth of institutional knowledge.

Jane has been with the organization for almost 25 years next month, um, so she definitely has a lot of that institutional knowledge.

And then Alina who has been with us for about a year and a half and she works 30 hours a week.

Um and then we have um members of the board of civil authority um and our election workers who oftentimes volunteer and help us out on the in the office as it relates to things specific to those boards.

Um but with our tiny office, we do provide a lot of services for the town.

Um so vital records, um, which are things like birth certificates, um, death certificates, burial permits, marriage licenses.

We record and issue certified copies of those and then we restore and preserve those records back to the 1750s.

Um we issue marriage licenses, um, we record those marriage licenses, we we provide copies of those, um, we issue dog licenses.

Renewals are coming up in January, um, and that's been a big thing for us trying to figure out how to best utilize open gov for that.

Um it's definitely been a learning curve, but I think I think with the trainings we've been through and and the university that Sally was talking about, um, I think it should be easier um for people to renew their dog licenses this year.

That's our hope.

Um we run all elections.

Um, we deal with all of the logistics for representative town meeting, potentially an open town meeting if that's what the voters decide this year.

Um, so just sort of balancing all of those logistics.

Um land records, we record preserve, we issue copies of those land records.

We um in the past year just finished a very long project with Avenue, um, which is our land records company um to dig digitize our records back to the early 1800s.

Um they were only digitized back to 1945.

Um, so that was a big project.

We issue liquor licenses, entertainment licenses, tobacco licenses, we sell cemetery plots, we issue Green Mountain passports.

So those are a lot of the services in addition to just being available to the public, right?

Answering questions.

We help other departments with oaths for newly sworn in officers, things like that.

Okay.

Seth, if you want to go to the next, thank you.

And then we also staff different committees.

So I staff the Board of Civil Authority, which you all on the select board are part of.

And that board not only oversees elections and makes policy decisions as it relates to elections.

We also deal with property tax assessment appeal hearings.

And every 10 years we work with the state on reapportionment or redistricting of town lines.

And then we also staff the board for the abatement of taxes, which y'all are also part of.

Okay, Seth, if you want to go to the next slide, please.

So these are our revenues.

So town clerk fees.

Sorry, just um include things like land records, right?

Anytime transfers their property or or um you know does anything with their property like that, they have to record land records with us.

Um that fee has recently gone up in the past few years this through statute from $10 per page to $15 per page.

Um State statute.

State statute, yes.

Um actually before I get into that, I'll I'll just highlight that on our revenue lines the two places that you'll see adjustments.

Um we decreased the uh dog license fees and the town clerk fees to better reflect what we have brought in over the last few years, so it just better reflect our actuals.

Um then the town clerk fee line includes the land records, copies of vital records, Green Mountain passports, copies of documents, um, and land postings.

So that's what that line includes.

Um Seth, if you want to go to the next slide, please.

So actually, one more.

Thanks.

Um, so most of the fees that we charge in the town clerk's office are set by statute.

Um we don't really have control over them to increase them.

Um, and many of those have been increased over the past few years.

Um marriage licenses increased from $60 to $80 per marriage license.

Um previously we the the municipalities were able to keep $10 of the 60, now we're able to keep 15 of the 80, and the rest goes to the state.

Um dog licenses increased in the past year by $2 per dog license.

That all goes to the state.

We don't see any of that increase.

Um we keep we keep some of the dog license fees, but the increase goes to the state.

Um land records increased from $10 per page to $15 per page.

Um we keep all of that, but it used to be that we were allowed to require anybody who is recording land records to provide a self-addressed stamped envelope, we're no longer allowed to require that.

Sometimes sending back these documents can cost $10 in postage.

Um we also I know that revenue has been a hot topic for you all, and so we've given a lot of thought to potential revenue streams.

Umfortunately, I don't believe are worth it.

There's one at the end that I think is.

Um a couple of services that we are allowed to provide that we don't.

Um DMV registrations.

Um, if anybody goes to renew their their uh vehicle registration, you'll see on there that it says some town clerks may offer this service.

Brattlebrough does not.

Um if we offered it, we would keep $3 per registration.

Um I reached out to some other town clerks to find out how much time they spend per registration.

They said anywhere from five to fifteen minutes per registration.

So if that's all we did for an hour, we could make anywhere from 12 to 36 dollars an hour.

But on average, if you take all of our salaries and average it, we'd be spending $42.37 an hour to provide that service.

So we would actually be losing money, and I don't think that we'd get enough of it to bring in substantial revenue.

And if we did, it would mean we're that much busier, which would mean we need more staff time to provide more services.

We could also provide notary service for the public, but we're not allowed to charge for it.

And that would take quite a bit of time, I think.

And then the last one that I don't think is worth it, but I just wanted to put it out there to demonstrate that we researched it.

Um we could issue hunting and fishing licenses.

Um we would keep $1.50 of those sold, and it also per other town clerks takes five to ten, five to fifteen minutes.

So again, if that's all we did, we'd bring in six to eighteen dollars an hour at the 47 42 dollars and 37 cents that it would cost us to provide the service.

So unfortunately, I don't think that any of those are worth it, but we we wanted to dig and find out what can we do that we're not.

Um area that I think if we can move the legislature towards this.

So a few years back, um, Liz, you may have been on the board when when this came up.

It used to be that there was no local approval for third class liquor licenses.

That happened at the state level.

A few years ago, they transitioned that to be something that we approve.

Um they wanted more local control, that's fine.

Um, but when you look at a first class liquor license, the state takes 115 dollars and we take 115.

A second class liquor license, the state takes $70, we take $70.

A third class liquor license, the state takes $1,095 and we take nothing.

Um it's something that the Vermont Mun Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association's legislative committee, which I'm a part of, um, has been trying to get them to do.

Um, and John has added it to the legislative agenda as well to talk about because we are losing money with the amount it costs, not just our department, but all of the other departments that look into liquor and tobacco licenses, it's it's costing the town money to approve these.

Um, and so if we could either increase the fee or not increase the fee but have a portion of it reallocated to the towns, that could make us more whole, and that's a potential revenue source.

Let me just interrupt to ask would the town be assuming any risk or liability if we did that?

I don't believe so because we already approve it's already it's already on our plates to do that.

It's just we're not receiving any of the fee portion.

Okay.

Um, Seth, if you want to go to expenses.

So there are two pages of expenses.

Um the first page is salaries, and then um, like other departments that you've heard from staff costs have been reallocated to show them in the department budgets from the general services budget.

So that's really the first page.

If you want to go to the next page, Seth.

Um the main increases that warning in progress.

Okay.

Um these are some of our other um expenses, so keep going.

Okay.

So the major expense changes that we have are, like I just said, with the with the staff costs being reallocated.

Um, postage and supply increases are minimal, and that's due to inflation.

Um, so you'll see that.

Um, and then some of you probably know if you go to the next slide, Seth.

So elections are a big thing in our office.

And every other year we have to budget for one major election, which is town meeting day as well as representative town meeting.

Um, and then in the other every other year, um, we have to budget for three elections in addition to representative town meeting.

So it's town meeting day, the August state primaries, and the November general elections.

Um you'll see our election salaries increasing and our election expenses increasing this year compared to last year.

Um you will notice that election salaries increase by more than three times.

And a part of that is because one of the requirements for running an election is you have to have a minimum of two people in the office at any given time when we're offering in-person early voting.

And so previously we had for the 20 or 45 days of in-person early voting, we took we increased our part-time assistant town clerk by a certain number of hours to sort of balance that out just during the in-person early voting times.

We move that from the salary line to election salaries.

So that's why it increases by more than just three times that.

And then election expenses are increased by just about three times.

Computer land records are anticipated to increase our contract is ending in 26, and so we're anticipating an increase with that.

And then you'll see our records restoration line when we have three elections in a year, we zero out that line.

So every other year we work on restoring one or two of the books in our vault that we're required to maintain and keep forever in good quality.

And when we're in an election year, we we don't do that.

We zero that line out.

And then I would just the last thing I would say is down the road, um, something that we're looking at is trying to fit trying to get some software to digitize our cemetery records to make that process a lot more efficient and transparent so people can research on their own.

Um it's something that we've started doing research.

We didn't move forward with it this year because I know that there's lots of budget constraints and it didn't feel like a priority to put forward.

Um so it's something that will probably come in the future, but we we decided we can make do without it for this year.

Um and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Great.

Thank you, Hilly.

Um while I'm thinking of it, I just wondered with these expense changes.

Is there any help or any fees or grants from the Secretary of State's office for this work?

Not that I am aware of.

I know that during presidential election years, we always um go for a grant with the Center for Tech and Civic Life, um, which we got last year.

Um, but that's the only time that they really offer those grants.

Um I haven't come across any any grants or help.

I mean, that the Secretary of State's office helps, they'll come and do training for the town clerk's offices.

Um they you know, provide our tabulators, so there are things like that, but in terms of paying, and like they'll provide I voted stickers and things like that.

So they they are definitely a partner um with us, but in terms of reducing our budget beyond what it is, no.

Great.

All right.

Well, I just want to commend you for all the wonderful and varied things that your office does.

And it seems to be very efficient, and I'll open it up for comments.

Isaac, would you like to begin?

Do you have any comments for Hillary?

He might not be hearing us.

So I'll go to Peter and uh do you have any comments?

Um, you know, no, I always tell you how much I respect what you do.

So I would just like to continue that sentiment.

I know what especially around election time.

And it can it can be tough.

I've watched it.

Tough.

And uh so I appreciate you soldiering on with that endeavor.

And that's you do an amazing job.

Thank you.

Um Isaac, do you have any questions for Hillary?

There's technical technical technical difficulties.

All right, let's go to you, Oscar.

Do you have any questions?

Oh, just a minor one, but also just very happy that you're back, Hillary.

Um zeroed out records restoration last year as part of the just budget cutting stuff.

Just thought I'd check in on that and make sure we're okay the way we thought we would be, and we can just pick up next year and be good.

Yeah, thank you for asking that.

Yeah, the intent last year was to zero it out for one year, knowing that we would not be doing it this year.

Right.

Um, and so we went in feeling like we were in good shape and we were okay to do that, and I still feel like we are as long as we resume it next year.

Great.

Okay, thank you.

Amanda?

I have two questions, and they're totally different.

One question on my toes.

One question is could you give an estimate of the cost difference between orchestrating a town meeting and orchestrating an Australian ballot for our um March elections?

Orchestrating Australian ballot.

Yeah, so if if if we went to Australian ballot, for example, versus open town meeting or combo, would it would there be any cost savings with running an Australian ballot election for town?

I'd have to give that some thought off the top of my head, I can say, you know, if we weren't holding an open town meeting or a representative town meeting.

So we're no longer y'all made the decision to no longer use interpreters, right?

We're using BCTV's open captioning.

Um so there's not uh and when we hold the informational session in the caucus's academy school gives us that space for free.

Um so there's not a ton of cost other than staff time.

Um right, I'm I'm non-exempt, I'm salaried, so my staff time is what it is.

Um I would say my staff is there at representative town meeting for a full day on top of so there is some overtime that goes into them being there on a Saturday because that time of year it's hard to flex hours for us.

Um in terms of moving to Australian ballot, number one, it would mean we're spending less time issuing petitions for all those town meeting reps.

So that would probably save us a little bit of time and and be able to reallocate that time doing other things.

Um the ballots we would probably print the same number.

Um they would probably be the same length.

Um so because you'd be sort of trading some things for the town meeting reps.

Um I I don't know that there's a huge I I'd say the biggest and and it's so unknown, right?

Depending on the outcome of a representative town meeting or an open town meeting or an Australian ballot, if a budget gets voted down for any of those and we have to hold another one, that's where the bigger costs come in, whether it's holding another representative town meeting.

I mean, they all they all cost money and they all c cost staff time, no matter what you're doing.

Um I don't know that there's a major dollar difference.

Amanda and I'm saying that as a gut reaction, not so it sounds nominal.

It sounds like really not like fra but no major difference.

Without having to the time to think about that and really like crunch numbers, that's my gut reaction.

I just wanted to add Amanda that there would be informational sessions with a ballot.

Of course, yeah, yeah.

Just it was a curious question.

And the second question, which is totally different, is um regarding tax abatements and um because like we were who budgets the amount for that we anticipate for tax abatements?

Is it is it um town clerk's office or is it okay?

No, we actually have recently had this conversation.

We're going to continue having this conversation um over the next month or so.

Um and so it's it's on our radar that it is significantly higher than what it was budgeted at.

I'm not quite sure where how that number came about when's the the last time it was adjusted, I don't entirely know.

Um, but we are aware that um you know it's tough because there's statute involved with a board of people that are elected and and not hired, but we have a budget that we are responsible for um maintaining, and so how do we balance that?

And so we'll have continued discussions.

So that's under just general services, which is um town manager's office decides that line, or uh yeah, I mean yeah, I'll cover it in my presentation.

Got it.

Okay, okay.

One thing I wanted to bring up, which I know from years of tax abatement cases, is the Homestead Rebate Act, and that affects your work and Jennifer's work and Seth's work because Seth made a handy little video.

And I I just can't stress enough how important it is for the town to understand that this is the state paying your taxes.

And the more we can get the state to pay your taxes, the less likely you are to be in arrears.

And so let everybody have a concerted effort to educate the public as to who might be authorized to seek this state funding.

Isaac, can you hear us?

What do you think, Seth?

Oh, you can.

Okay.

Do you have all Hillary?

No, just thank you so much for the informative presentation.

Absolutely.

All right.

Are there members of the public who have comments for our town clerk?

You've wowed them into silence here.

Thank you, Hillary.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right.

Let's next.

Planning.

Planning department.

Let's welcome back Sue Fillian to the table.

I'm gonna sit at this chair because I pumped it up before, and I'm sure.

All right.

Seth, when you get a chance, could you have the presentation?

Thank you.

So again, I'm Sue Fillion.

I'm the planning director.

And this is my budget presentation for fiscal year 27.

And I just open it up with this happy cartoon picture that was drawn by students from the Vermont Cartoon College.

I I think I butchered the name.

But anyway, they did this as part of a project that we had a couple years ago, and I just like the artistic interpretation of things that people places and things that people love about Brattleboro.

So next slide.

So first up, staffing.

We there are four of us in the department.

There are three full-time uh members paid out of the planning department budget.

And then the sustainability coordinator is in in FY27 is budgeted at halftime.

Um that might be something we need to check into because he's currently, I think, at point seven with the planning department and point three with the utilities, but um for the budget that before you tonight it we figured out somewhere along the way it's in as halftime each.

Um but it so it's myself, it's Brian Bannon who's the assistant planning director and the zoning administrator, Steve Hayes, who is here tonight, um, who's the planning technician and the E911 coordinator, and then Stephen Dotson, who is the sustainability coordinator.

Um next slide.

So as Hilary talked about the values of her department um a couple of years ago, we also got together, and our values are collaboration.

Um this is both internally in government working with the different departments and also collaborating with different um organizations and and you know people in the community as a planning department.

We are future-oriented in our outlook.

Um, particular particularly for our long-term plans.

Um inclusion is one of our values.

Uh, we want to make sure when we're doing public outreach that we are listening to different voices and and bringing people into the process.

And then we do a lot of permitting, so we also want to be responsive.

Um around time is important.

Um the different services that we offer is land development consultation and development review.

We do zoning permit information and processing, long-range planning and special area planning in in areas like transportation planning, uh, corridor studies, um, we just finished the cultural plan, which was a special area planning, housing action plan.

Um we provide sustainability and resilience support for the miss for municipal operations, um, zoning health and rental enforcement, project management associated with grants that we've been awarded, um E911 addressing.

Uh we are a member of the National Flood Insurance Program here in Brattleboro, so we administer uh special flood hazard area regulations.

We provide policy and regulatory support.

Um we support several boards and committees in town, and uh several of us serve as town representatives to different regional organizations, such as uh Southeastern Vermont Transit, Wyndham Regional Commission, Downtown Brattleboro Alliance, Brian's currently on a working group at the state level on um stormwater utilities.

So we our staff serves that role.

Next slide.

These were some of the highlights from our this past 2025, the calendar year.

Obviously, housing, so we have issued units for 70 new housing units, 75 new housing units.

Housing continues to be a focus at the state and the local level.

And we're pleased to see the results of a lot of the regulatory changes that we made in the years leading up to this finally pay off.

The cumulative, the 75 new housing units, that's cumulative, so that takes into account that we lost some units due to fire and and so but with these 75 new units that exceeds what we issued in 2024, which was 69.

And both of those years were the highest years we've had since 1989.

So that's really great.

Again, permitting doesn't necessarily mean it's online yet, but we're hoping it's in the process.

These are our boards and committees, they're special public outreach that we've done for projects.

We do a lot of grant work.

We've had we completed five grant-funded projects.

This includes Kakita Aki, which is the 250 Bird Street project, the Williams Street retaining wall completed this year.

We have five grant projects that are underway, including work on constructing new sidewalks, roadway, bridge, all are kind of under prior under way.

So I think we do a pretty good job with grants.

This is from the community development block grant disaster recovery put a fund.

There was no match to this grant.

That's 1.7 million dollars to construct to replace the Detman Drive Bridge.

We're really pleased with this grant.

It kind of caps off a lot of work that we've been doing for Tri-Park and with Tri-Park Cooperative.

And this grant, I think, highlights nicely the you know the different areas that our work touches.

So it's a transportation improvement, it's hazard mitigation and flood resiliency, it's public safety, so that our safety services can access the park and that people can get out of the park.

And it's also a social equity project.

This is a you know community that didn't have the resources to maintain the infrastructure that they had.

It's nearly, you know, 10% of the town's population.

So this is a big project, and we're really happy to see everything coming together to make this a safer neighborhood.

So that's what we've been doing.

Um I will turn to our proposed budget.

So our total proposed budget for FY27 is 411,885.

I'm not going to go through it line by line.

I think you you have that.

Um what it does is it maintains our staffing level at 3.5 full-time equivalent staffing.

Um it is an increase of 117,620, a 40% increase over fiscal year 20 uh 26.

But as you've heard from most of the departments, this is coming from moving of certain benefits into our department.

And in fact, for our department, it actually is the entirety plus of our budget increase.

Because the sustainability coordinator in this budget is listed at 0.5 going from the point seven.

And we actually got rid of a couple of line items and because we we just weren't touching them.

They were like a couple of maintenance lines for stuff thing items we didn't have.

And then at the same time, we're planning on increasing the revenues by $10,000.

So next slide, please.

This actually shows our revenues where we've been.

So in 24 and 25, we were our revenues were anywhere between 26 and 35,000.

Last March in FY26, the select board voted on an increase for our fees where we pretty much doubled most of our permit fees.

And so to date, well, actually, as of earlier in December, we had taken in about 20 almost 21,000.

I would say after last week, we're probably up around $34,000.

So we're, you know, halfway to our 50,000 for FY26.

Um so FY27, it's an increase of $10,000.

So we're we're hopeful.

I mean, it is it is always it's dependent on projects that are going on.

Um, but we're hopeful that we can bring in 60,000 next year.

And just some of our plans for FY27 is uh we will need to update our hazard mitigation plan.

Um at the state level, there's a couple opportunities for the state uh for the town to get delegation of certain state permits.

So we would be pursuing Act 250 delegate delegation.

Um that could be huge in areas of town that are eligible for that.

Um it would reduce, you know, it would hopefully provide assurances to developers and it would reduce the timeline and cost.

So but that you know, we'll have to look at that when that comes.

We might have to increase our fees as well.

Um we will want to update the land use and development regulations.

Um we are working on the town plan, and I'll present that to you uh probably in the coming months.

Um but we will, in order to be eligible for Act 250 delegation, we're gonna have to update some parts of the regulations.

We also are expecting changes to the flood regulations to come into compliance with the state model that will be coming out.

Um we're gonna continue to collaborate with the community and developers to uh on new housing opportunities.

Uh we're gonna continue to focus on resiliency and renewable generation for town operations.

And um the sustainability coordinator is working on the compost um collection rollout, which will be happening in later this year in FY27 as well.

Um so that is my presentation for you tonight.

I'm happy to take questions.

That's wonderful, Sue.

Thank you.

Um let's let my colleagues begin and then I'll say something.

I have no questions other than really an admirable job keeping the budget exactly where I was at last year, which is really hard to do.

So it's it's not unnoticed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Amanda?

Yes, Sue, thank you for managing your budget so incredibly well.

I mean, that's what was this is inspiring.

Um also thank you for what you do to make Brattleboro a great place to live currently and as we move um into the future years.

I mean, it's all the planning department.

So thank you.

And also I should shout out the fact that you and Stephen, this was in our consent agenda, but um the participant in the um municipal investment fund.

The municipal investment fund, and that's um real cool dollars going into sustainability efforts and solar, and so that even makes it a more cool place to live.

Peter.

No, thank you for the presentation.

You know, you continue to do an amazing job, so thank you for that.

Thanks.

Isaac.

Ditto.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

I just I want to thank you as well.

And I just want to stress um the unique features of good town planning that you exhibit is future rateables.

And we've talked about that tonight.

But it's, you know, it's a long game that you play.

And you know, it it deals with all the rezoning initiatives that you had to encourage more housing or encourage more dense housing, proper use of the land, highest and best use, all those great things.

But also your advocacy to the community in terms of understanding what state funding is out there and what they can use and just planners write plans and then they wait for investment and it's hard.

And I appreciate your work very much.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Are there members of the public who would like to speak?

I see Frick's hand.

I have one question and one statement.

The question is I was wondering to what degree Stephen Dodson's efforts were instrumental in the grants that we saw present mentioned here.

Yes, so there were three grants, two, so the fire department control, uh that was um a project that he worked on, money that he secured.

Um and then there was uh the well I didn't even include the municipal investment fund that is bringing money in, and that is um a project that he's working on, so bump up our grant total by 30,000.

Um and then there was another one, and it's escaping me at this point.

So I I just like to highlight the fact that uh our sustainability coordinator is a net positive to our town's cash flow, which is fantastic.

Um is the rest of the department, I might add.

Yeah, yeah.

Um anyway, uh have found the department fantastic to work with, and appreciated their accessibility and their uh helpfulness.

Um I again uh would like to uh point out the fact that not only do we need housing, but we need jobs and uh businesses, and so let's not forget about that in the mix and keep that uh yeah, thank you.

Great, thank you.

Anyone else from the public would like to speak about the planning department and its budget?

Is there anyone online, Seth?

All right.

Once again, I thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

All right, what's next?

Office of assessment.

I welcome Jennifer Burrell to the table.

Burnell.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me tonight.

I am Jennifer Burnell, town assessor.

Um I'm here to give you my presentation.

Next slide.

So thank you.

So our staff um, this was our previous staff had put together values.

Um a while ago, and we identified about 10 of them.

I've um have picked out three that um I thought were at the top.

Our main goal is fair and equitable assessments, so fairness.

All properties are treated the same as we strive for consistency.

We guide our work by the uniform standards of professional appraisal practices, use PAP is also known as, and stay up to date with industry and legislative changes.

Respect.

We strive to create an environment with respect for all who come to us for help as uh well as each of the employees.

Accuracy.

Our record cards need to be up to date with information as we learn of changes, be that through permits, information from uh property owners, or uh simply by um seeing changes as we um may drive by uh services.

So uh we have we do have a list of services, um, business licenses.

I'm not gonna be able to read the slide uh fully, I don't think, and I don't have them in front of me.

Thank you, Seth.

Real and personal property, we manage exemptions.

Oops.

A good third of our work is maintaining state programs that affect the tax bills.

The town's business license program that runs year round with most of the work happening between January and May.

We update the grand list information with boundary line adjustments, name changes, address changes, values changes, and next slide, yeah.

A lot of our work is following up with permits that are filed with the planning department.

And we also defend values at the BCA level, Board of Civil Authority level, court or state hearing appeals.

And we also assist with other departments and organize reappraisals as we are going through right now.

Next slide, please.

And our staff.

He has extensive background in real estate.

And one full-time assessor technician, Melissa, who is doing a fabulous job of a lot of the admin work and learning something new every day.

She has taken on the business license program, which is run through the new OpenGov software, and is picking up the invoicing through OpenGov as well.

And again, she's she really does learn something new every day and sits with her headphones on with OpenGov University whenever there's any downtime.

She does not like to stay idle.

She likes to stay very busy.

Revenues.

So we have business license and personal property fines.

The personal property fines are for those who do not file their business personal property form that is due April 20th every year.

And if they do not file statutorily, we are allowed to fine for that.

And next slide.

And that if that means putting a new house in at 50% complete, because that's where it was at as of April 1st, that's what we do.

So I just want to sort of it is revenue, but it's we're not out there raising values just to capture revenue, but we are out there making sure that property information is as accurate and up to date as possible.

Business license, as we mentioned before, as I mentioned before program, it's a town program.

And it just recently increased effective July 1st of this year.

We anticipate revenue of 100,000 for FY27.

This is not part of the general fund, but it's I think it's important to talk about the reappraisal fund.

This fund is based on a per parcel count for only our active and exempt parcels.

We have inactive parcels, which are separately deeded parcels that are contiguous with the budding parcels in the same ownership.

These are not added in the per parcel count for this fund.

The same as for the state sales study assistance fund of one dollar per parcel.

As a member of the regional assessment stakeholder group, I've voiced a need for the legislatures to the changes that are happening in at the let the legislative level.

I've expressed a need for this additional parcels to be added in the formula.

These are parcels that are being reappraised along with all of our other parcels.

And with legislative changes to the assessor's office, it's important for all of us to stay focused on this revenue for it to continue to come to towns.

Next slide, please, Seth.

Thank you.

And expenses.

We have salaries and benefits.

The benefits are new to the department as has been expressed by other staff, other department heads.

And this is a majority of my increase.

Next slide, please.

Training.

Conferences and memberships.

I'd like to continue being a member of the Vermont Assessors and Listers Association.

As they are the only active group advocating for our field.

They keep us informed and ask for our input.

This line also covers the updated annotated publications for the statute book Title 32.

Postage is just going up.

We are also required to send out all of our change notices by certificate of mailing, which is an extra cost.

So I've increased that line item.

Transportation.

This is I don't particularly like the we put it under this title, but it's the lease for the copier printer.

I too am going to have a new contract, as Hilary mentioned, she she is.

So I anticipate it will go up.

However, the assessor technician is working with other departments on potentially combining contracts with companies willing to do a discount.

So we are working on that.

And hopefully we'll be successful.

Professional services.

This is for the prime MLS service.

We've been lacking in getting that, and we really do need it in our office.

It tracks sales.

And it has a lot of information that our office needs.

Next slide.

Thank you.

So deciding factors for budget creation.

Recognizing the importance of retaining highly skilled staff.

I have focused on their education.

Training is not only mandatory by the state, but it's also a requirement of their job descriptions.

So there's a small increase in this light item to reflect this.

And then I chose to keep the equipment budget at zero for one more year.

However, in order to keep my staff healthy and safe, I've utilized the passive grant for needed chairs, computer mouse, and keyboards.

Our office space has been made safe and comfortable without needed upgrades to furnishings.

And that's my presentation for tonight.

I welcome any questions.

You're quite welcome.

I did have occasion to go to your office because I I got a scary orange letter in the mail.

It's not scary.

And um first I first I went to the finance department and then they directed me to your office.

And year two employees couldn't have been more helpful.

Thank you.

That's it was really nice to meet them and to see them at work.

Thank you.

That's good to hear.

Thank you.

Um want to start?

Oscar, do you have questions?

I have no questions, just thank you.

That was great.

Amanda?

I wanted to check in.

How is the organizing the reappraisals going?

It started December 1.

I have heard back from Ryan that his um staff have been welcomed by the town of Bratleboro, that it's going very well.

And Melissa is on top of the scheduling.

She makes sure that the calls are coming in, that people are getting appointments made.

It's very smooth.

They have their own little room, they come in, they greet us, and Ryan checked in with me yesterday, I think it was.

Yeah.

Great.

Um one other question.

If could you make it clear because we're out in the public record, just um how would it be how would someone do an appeal?

Where do they go?

Do they go to your office first?

Do they go to town clerk?

How do they do that?

Great question.

Um so they would come to our office.

They can also go online at Radderborough.gov to the assessors page.

And um on the left-hand side, you may have to click a drop down.

Um there is um grievance appeals.

We're updating some of that information right now, um, but you will find a form.

We require you to fill out the form, um, and it gives basic and it asks questions and it's basic information.

Um we uh suggest that you submit as much uh backup material uh for your appeal as much as you want.

You can have an appraisal sent, you can uh just have a a simple letter sent, but it does come to our office.

Uh we hold all of these grievance forms until um around May when we start to call.

No, sorry, June.

When we start to call um all of these folks back and s and have a uh calendar set up.

Um I am going to apologize to the listers because they needed to be mentioned in my staff.

We have three elected listers.

Um our office is also responsible for grievance hearings, setting them up, um, setting up meetings uh for the listers.

And yes, the appeals happen in front of them, and we are there only as um we advise the listers.

They ask us to come back with any values, um, but we are not the ones that make the decision.

The listers are from that point, if they're uh the decision of the listers wishes to be appealed.

Um at that point they contact the town clerk's office, and um they can see the board of civil authority.

And all of that inform the grievance um information uh if you have a change of assessment or a change of allocation notice that comes to you, that information of grievance is on that notice.

You do not have to have a change to grieve.

You can grieve any time, and you can grieve year after year if you want, but we hope that you're satisfied with the first grievance.

And thank you for clarifying that.

I've had people reach out to me with questions about that.

And so it's nice that that's on the public record for everyone to understand more fully.

And it's the assessor's office is a wonderful place to ring the bell and see Melissa and Jennifer.

So, you know.

Please send them our way if they have any questions.

The assessor's office is a wonderful place.

Yeah.

Oscar, did you have the corner of my eye?

I thought I saw you.

Yes, Amanda, you reminded me that a former select board member reached out to me, said they had their assessment done and had had a great experience.

So it's nothing sounds like it's nothing to be afraid of.

And I think it's going well.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Great.

Peter, do you have any comments?

Thank you for your presentation.

And just so you know, you're welcome for the $100 fine that was assessed for me for not filing my paperwork properly.

That's on me.

Isaac, do you have any comments for Jennifer?

Thank you for your and your department's role in in collecting information that's critical for funding our town government and our services.

And it was really helpful to be able to see that total in your on that last slide that have the I think you said 3,000 and change and increase apart from salaries and benefits.

So thank you for the presentation.

Okay.

Um let's open it up to the public.

Is there anyone who has uh questions or comments?

Mr.

De Gray.

I meant to ask this question earlier, maybe with the finance department.

But did we have a tax sale this year or when is the last time that we have actually had a tax sale?

John, do you want to talk about that?

We did not yes, sure.

Um we did not have a tax sale this year.

Uh everyone uh paid through or got in a payment plan.

Um there were I think five properties that were close, but they uh ended up resolving that.

So it worked out very well.

But and wasn't there also a problem that the state changed the law and the public should be aware of that.

Yeah.

Um the the state extended the period before we could bring a property to a tax sale for by a year.

So essentially what that means is that this process that ended up getting those five properties back in line had to wait a year.

And so potential the potential challenge with that is the amount of arrears that builds up, and so it becomes a lot harder to um become whole.

So that's the same.

And we've talked to the legislatures about that.

And hopefully uh they'll see uh the error of their ways.

Um I want to thank you, Jennifer.

And before you all get up and leave, I just want to say uh to John to thank you for your excellent staff department heads, and you must be very proud of them and their work.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

John, you're up.

Yes, we do have uh one final uh presentation here for to end up covering all of the items in the budget, either through a department or uh what I'll do is sort of bat cleanup on this.

And so as Seth is bringing up this presentation, I focus mainly on the town manager's office, but also I will go, I will touch on five categories of revenues, and and actually I'll do four because Sally already covered the taxes, which are uh expected to go up about 4.2 percent, including across the sales tax and uh other and REMS and meals and property taxes.

Um revenues in the town manager's office are projected to go up uh by sixteen thousand five hundred dollars.

Um the municipal center revenues are expected to go up uh by seven hundred and fifty dollars.

Regional uh revenues are uh down, but that is just because we are shifting some lines around, which I'll talk about in a minute, and then transfers are uh transfer revenues are stable.

Uh in it I'll also uh touch on 13 categories of expenditures, including the town manager's office, the town attorney, general services, bonds and notes, intergovernmental benefits, human services, municipal center, solid waste, regional risk management, auxiliary services and transfers.

But first I'll start with the town manager's office, and in this office we uh in fiscal 25 we had four full-time equivalents, but as you know, last year we uh did not fund the assistant town manager position or the IT coordinator position.

So in this fiscal year we only have two full-time equivalents, the town manager and the executive assistant, and uh that is what we're proposing to continue with in FY27, continue the cost savings uh for those positions.

The IT core the IT responsibilities we have replaced with a service contract with CCI.

Um, and that is uh just starting up this month, so or next month, I guess.

Uh in the town manager's office are some of our key services are developing town budgets, implementing a whole range of special and strategic projects for the town, we issue special event permits, we manage uh town liabilities and lawsuits coordinating with the town attorney.

We negotiate and implement uh collective bargaining agreements, we provide community and economic development, we implement implement a state legislative agenda, represent the town in many uh venues, we respond to public concerns, we support and staff the select board, and we support the management team.

In 2025, we uh I think this might be a record, I'm not sure, but we had 45 select board meetings that we supported with uh reduced staffing.

Uh it's a significant number of meetings of you all and appreciate all of your time doing those.

We negotiated four separate union contracts, uh all of which are at one stage or another, getting close to uh being finaled, finalized.

Uh we worked on numerous special projects, including one Brattleboro situation table, uh the resolution of bridge 54, uh solid waste solutions, we worked on um vacant buildings, uh increasing the local option tax split.

Uh we worked on the New Hampshire DOT bridge uh situation, we worked on the parking system, police substation, housing coalition, and the homelessness team.

Also this year we've started the in this office we've started an economic development initiative, which uh appears promising so far.

We developed two FY26 general fund budgets, a utility, an FY26 utility and parking budget, and also this proposed FY27 budget.

In the town manager's office, the total proposed FY27 budget is 370,240.

That's maintaining the staffing at two full-time equivalents.

This is a budget increase of uh 3.1% or 11,252 over FY26.

When you factor out the 127,825 dollars of benefits that shifted from the central benefit lines into the department.

So in the other uh some few highlights on the uh five categories of um revenues.

So really the high the big change in the town manager revenues are uh an increase of 15,000 for pilots, and this is the sort of effort that we've undertaken to try to increase the folks who aren't paying regular taxes, the nonprofits and and other uh organizations uh for looking for increases there, which was an initiative of the select board in last spring.

Um taxes, so the projection is 5.6 percent sales tax increase, 4.4 percent, property tax increase, and uh 26.7 percent on interest, and uh as the board knows, we recently shifted where our funds are invested, and we think that is going to help us a bit on the interest, and that's why we're projecting that um a bit higher.

Uh $750 increase at the municipal center is for additional rental revenue.

I think we might actually do better than that, but right now that's what we're projecting uh conservatively there.

In the region regional revenues, that is uh funds that we get for uh state road construction.

For some reason it was always in this budget area, but in this effort to kind of consolidate things into the areas where they make the most sense.

Uh we've moved that 250,000 uh revenue that's expected into the public works revenue lines and no change on the transfers.

In terms of uh highlights for the 13 other uh expenditure categories, uh so the town attorney's office we're projecting a 6.2% increase or $7,795.

In uh general services, we're reducing computer equipment maintenance because we got a good contract with CCI and online permitting by uh $56,000.

Um some of this is covered by the new contract and also by some other software license lines.

In bonds and notes, uh we have a uh reduction in interest payments by $32,000 as our principal continues to get paid down and no new debt.

So we're looking uh good in bonds and notes.

For intergovernmental transfers, that is the $80,000 for the downtown Brattleboro Alliance that is generated through the downtown improvement district uh surcharge.

And that is still at 80,000.

Benefits, that's a big one, which we've talked about a number of times during the department presentations, but we've taken all of that uh central those central lines which were uh in this fiscal year.

Let's see.

Find the number.

This fiscal year four million seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and we have now allocated those out to all the departments so that we can start to see what the true cost is of services.

And uh we do we we still have uh $34,000 for the town, the town's life insurance policies.

That we may we're all looking at whether we should allocate that that out to departments or not.

Human services in this proposed budget, uh, it's reduced to about 1% of the fiscal 26 total for um around 250,000.

Um municipal center, there's no change, solid waste.

This is implementing the new solid waste plan, which saves 158,000 over this current fiscal year in the in the central lines, and no change in the regional risk management.

We're seeing a 17.4 percent increase projected in risk management, primarily in general liability and workers' comp.

Um this part of this increase is has to do with the new water plant, new fixed assets, vehicle coverage.

We're also projecting conservatively on workers' comp, uh although though we haven't received our actual quote yet from VLCT, so that may go down slightly, but we just don't know yet.

Auxiliary services, no ch no major changes and transfers.

This in this fiscal 27 budget proposal, we're separating out the capital improvement program fund transfer so that we can see exactly how much is going out to capital.

Um then there is also a $50,000 transfer in the 900 lines for this uh vacation payout fund that um Sally mentioned during her presentation.

And that is an overview of what we have in town managers budget and other lines that were not covered by the departments, and I'm happy to take any questions the board has.

Thank you.

Peter, you want to begin?

No, okay.

Isaac, do you have any comments?

Thanks so much for the clear presentation, John.

Um I just was curious to hear more about the economic development initiative, either now or if you prefer to talk about it another time, that's fine too.

Sure, yeah, I'd be happy to speak with you about that.

There's not really too much to say yet, but um we're just sort of testing the waters on um on doing some work in that area.

I'd like to bring it back to the select board uh in the meet upcoming meeting sometime.

Great, thank you.

Yep.

Uh Amanda, do you have any comments?

I do.

I'm a squeaky wheel about this.

Um and that is workers' compensation.

Um I just want to understand VLCT is our insurer.

Is that why we're gonna get a new rating from them?

Yep.

Okay, that's how it works.

Yes.

Okay.

Yep.

They that's how that's where our um workers' comp goes through the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.

And that's just for town managers department?

Are we talking about the complete all departments?

That's for the whole town.

Okay.

And um workers comp is based on an experience mod, right?

Every it's it's a three-year cumulative average?

Yeah, yeah.

Um so like what initiatives are we taking to try to keep our workers' comp to get to get it to get it lower?

Um so we have uh we have a health and wellness program, we have a safety committee, review every incident and make um recommendations back to operations to how to improve and avoid uh void issues.

Uh it's pretty robust.

Um there still are occasionally claims on workers' comp.

Okay.

What is the ratio like an increase of staff members?

Does that create more risk for higher workers' comp or it just comes out in the wash?

It's all about an injury.

Like, do you know what I mean?

It's not necessarily numbers of employees, it's more like what happens, whatever incident happened to happen.

I believe it's both.

So certainly if there are uh incidents that happen that increases our three-year average, and that is then also based on the number of FTEs that we have.

So are there any state funds that support municipalities in this in this realm?

Not that I'm aware of.

Um you mean in terms of uh subsidizing the workers' comp costs or subsidizing trainings to you know for prevention or any anything, or we're at the whim of the insurer based.

So I believe some of our departments do get um will occasionally get a grant for additional training, and it could be safety training.

Uh we also invest in each of the departments for quite a bit of training, particularly in the in the um positions that have the higher worker comp risk.

So there are no state programs or federal programs to that you couldn't, you know, lower your rating by doing specific trainings just because there's evidence that you've had trainings.

Do you know what I mean?

No, I don't know.

I did not that I'm aware of.

Okay.

Yep.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

Just a couple minor questions.

Maybe you said it and I blanked, but the total cost for the IT services we're getting?

Yes.

It is technical service.

And we are we are estimated at 143,500 for FY27.

And that's just for the IT sort of consulting services, or is there Yeah, that I think that's just for the that contract with CCI.

Just for that again looks like in the realm of a full-time position.

And I know we did this in the spring as a potential savings.

If the money's kind of a wash, I feel like the position might have be attractive.

Oh, yeah.

I don't know.

I'm curious your thoughts.

Yeah, I mean there's so there are more things in that contract than just what a an employee could do.

Um so that is uh uh you know it they're maintaining all a lot of our uh like the Microsoft software and other uh uh Sally probably knows this better than I do at this point.

Um but uh a lot of the different support services are kind of included in there that uh go beyond just what like an IT coordinator would be providing.

Okay.

But and so we're pretty content as is, and we feel like our sort of vulnerability bases are covered and we're uh yes, we talked with CCI quite a bit about that, and I was uh very happy with what I was hearing from them in terms of reducing our vulnerabilities.

Um I really think we should see what that um how how that is gonna be implemented.

It's gonna start being implemented in January.

Um so you know, I I think we should see how that goes, at least for fiscal 27.

Okay.

And then my only other note was I I'm completely willing to take uh Bonnie's or your uh advice on what you think should be done with the life insurance line item, and it's a pretty small one.

But I would encourage that whatever we do with it, we make that decision for this budget so that we can do pure apples to apples next year.

Okay.

So but that's it.

Otherwise, thank you.

So um, yes.

I uh just you know, looking at the list of services that your department provides is you know, it's just you and Jessica.

Yeah.

And it's an amazing list.

And I just want to reiterate, you know, that um you've developed the town budget that we are all um diligently checking and cross-checking um all these various things.

But in particular, these special projects, and these special projects are so important to our town.

One Brattleboro is a game changer, as is the situation table, um what you've been able to compile on the solid waste solutions, um all these great things, the vacant building ordinance, the police substation, the homelessness team, uh, you know, the everything is just uh really making our town better, and I appreciate your work very much.

Thank you.

I I can't uh all I can claim is to have worked which like helped on some of those, but I I didn't do all the work on those.

We had quite a few teams both in the town government and also in the community that really made those things happen.

Well, we call that leadership, and thank you.

Um is there anyone in the public who would like to discuss?

Oh, sorry.

Just one thing I forgot.

Yes.

Uh just John, that uh none of us have forgotten that you're doing this without an assistant town manager and a staff of this size needs an assistant town manager, and at some point, maybe not this year, but soon we're gonna have to figure out a way to get that back in there.

So thanks, Oscar.

Well, I was gonna just off that.

I was gonna ask the question like a year.

How do you feel?

Yeah.

I mean you're basically doing two and a half jobs.

So, you know, your job is pretty important.

Assistant town manager job, which is pretty important.

Maybe a little slice of that finance.

Are you uh are you still feeling good about your decision moving forward?

I mean, it it is I I won't um I I I won't say otherwise it's you know, it's a bit uh definitely a challenge.

Um but uh I know how important it is to keep the tax rate down and um and these are you know I'm I'm trying to do the best I can.

I I know I can I don't get everything done at the level I would like to see it done.

Um and that's the that's the sacrifice on this uh right now.

And as long as you all are happy with how this is going, I I'll continue I can continue to do it.

So I you know, I mean I I I think we're we're happy given the circumstances.

I mean, speaking for myself, I mean completely happy.

Um, but uh as somebody who understands what you're undertaking every day.

Um I I agree with Oscar.

I think at some point in time we have to figure out a way to get you a little help.

I mean, I maybe we need to have that conversation, at least have the conversation this year.

I mean, we'd have to find probably 200,000 to do it, but we know that long term we need that position filled, so maybe it's at least it's probably worth at least discussing.

Um don't disagree.

So I agree that it is long term, but I want to commend um John for uh being able to work with the staff he has and grateful to the staff that we have that have filled in uh in many ways, like Seth right here sitting at the table.

Um and I know there's been overlap, there's been um community members who've offered to assist.

There have been a our select board that we have stepped in um to ask how we can help in addition, and I know it's temporary, um, but it is it sh it's a testament to good management that people are stepping up and willing to help out and dedication to the town.

So that comes from the manager.

And I I think that we've seen to add to that, Amanda.

I think that we've seen the staff being flexible and stepping up and and you know borrowing, you know, Pete Lynch to do a number of things and all these things add up to um you know really effective town government.

And I think we all recognize the way that people stepping up to do that is putting strain on other parts.

Yeah.

So all that being said, are there members of the public who would like to speak about the town manager department?

And I see two hands.

Let's let's have Kate first, then Mr.

De Gray.

This may not be totally germane, but it's the end of the meeting, and I'm gonna go for it.

Um there are two meetings left in January that you folks are scheduled to talk about the budget.

And under my little estimation, there are a lot of things on the list that we either need information for to make a decision on the budget, just basic information to move forward, or there are all these other issues.

And I'm just kind of wondering if someone could give us a preview on how you're gonna manage to vote on a budget on January 20th when your only meetings are the 6th and the 20th of January.

I'm just asking this as a citizen.

Asking for a friend?

Yeah.

Asking for Dick.

Yeah, so we can plan our schedules for January.

Um one thing I do want to say, John, have we announced that additional listening session on January 13th?

No, in fact, I haven't I have not learned from the agenda committee that you want to do that.

So we did.

Did we, Oscar?

I don't remember.

I think that was in that little little list that you took a picture of.

It's entirely possible.

But my has been wiped pretty clean at this point in the evening, so I can't remember.

All right.

Well, stay tuned for that announcement when everyone uh is right-eyed and bushy tailed.

So I I think a big picture thing is that January 6th is gonna be our big I th the freewheeling discussion of the budget and what to do with it, and certainly if we feel like we need more meetings, we won't hesitate to add them.

If you've got a long list of stuff that you want uh clarification on, yeah, hit us with it.

You can always reach out and we will um endeavor to respond.

Sooner than later, please.

And also the finance committee, I know um I'd like to hear earlier than after we've drafted the budget um, you know, critiques or changes that are requested rather than us go through the whole process and then I think the plan is that we come ready to talk about substantive stuff on the sixth, and then people can react to that and um give feedback.

Is there anything you'd like to add, John?

No, whatever you guys need to get there.

So Dick, do you have a comment?

Or did Kate already ask it?

Uh no.

Uh a couple things.

One about uh the assistant town manager, you know, Deja Vu all over again.

Uh had Patrick not resigned, uh we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Uh that position would have never gotten cut last uh this past year.

And so, you know, I know specifically, I asked John.

Are are is this something you feel that you can take on all alone?

And John felt confident that uh that he could do this without a uh co-pilot.

And I and I believe listening to you uh this evening, if you could go back and change that, you would say no, I think we need uh uh an assistant town manager to be more functional, and I look at what other departments have given up in terms of helping you with the the big projects.

These are big projects that we've faced this year.

Uh so I I believe that you should really I think the town is uh a little bit detrimental without the assistant town manager, and I would encourage you to uh have more conversations about filling that position this year.

Uh and maybe other sacrifices in other areas, but I feel that's strongly about that position.

And I'm somebody who fought against it in the nineties for and you people are weren't around then.

My second uh comment would be uh I'm disappointed where you have the human service budget.

Uh I believe in realistic budgeting and it's been two percent, and I would probably vote to cut it to one percent, but RTM, if you if you level you should be level funding that and that's a realistic budget because that's where it's been, and then whatever happens with RTM, the shock of it going up, uh I would rather have the sh to say, oh, they cut it, and so my taxes are gonna go down versus we're going in at 4.4 and it's gonna go up another percent because RTM is gonna h raise that human service budget.

So I'd actually like to see you move that to where the history has been, and that's what I go by in light items history.

So I would prefer you to do that, fund it at 2%, then keep it in here at one.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um is there anyone online who would like to speak?

No.

No.

All right.

If there's no further comment, uh I will uh ask for one last motion.

I'll motion to adjourn.

Great.

Also let board members in favor of adjournment.

Please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye, aye.

All right.

There we go.

Five zero.

Good night, everyone.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Seth.

Thank you, BCTV.

Seth, also thank you for all those presentations.

That's basically like thank you.

You can eat dinner and