BRATTLEBORO-Voters will decide in March whether to approve a proposed $27,018,335 fiscal year 2027 town budget after Selectboard members voted 3–2 to approve the plan.
Board members Isaac Evans-Frantz and Amanda Ellis-Thurber voted against it, while Vice Chair Oscar Heller, Chair Elizabeth McLoughlin, and member Peter Case voted in favor.
The meeting date will depend on what format voters choose in an upcoming vote: retaining Representative Town Meeting or moving to a “regular” annual meeting format.
The board started the discussion Jan. 22 by looking at a plan that would be a 4.7% ($923,000) increase in the property tax, but ended voting to recommend one that would raise taxes by 6.2% over this year.
“I realized the other day that we’ve been talking about this for about a thousand hours,” said Heller at the top of the meeting. “If we retread the same ground over and over again for another six hours and another six hours, we may not be making forward progress.”
“I think context is important, and I want to get back to the beginning of this Selectboard year,” said McLoughlin, noting a “rapid review” last spring after RTM voted the budget down.
Calling that “not the normal order,” McLoughlin went on to say the board recognized the need to talk about the budget “early and often,” and started to do so in September. That was followed by hearing from department heads who didn’t receive “a lot of feedback.”
“I would just hope that we could get back to a place where we could discuss the budget without a lot of brinkmanship and really discuss it in a reasonable way,” she said, noting the week prior the budget went from a 4.4% increase on [Tuesday], and to an 8% increase on Thursday, and then the suggestion for “across-the-board cuts.”
“That was really dramatic,” she said.
Key budget adjustments in the initial scenario had included reducing EMS reimbursement revenue, adding money for capital projects and a finance director, and accounting for a significant and unexpected 46% ($178,000) increase in workers’ compensation and liability insurance.
Proposed cuts included eliminating a full-time Parks and Recreation Department position, reducing library hours, cutting the Fire Department’s overtime budget, leaving a police captain position unfunded, and eliminating curbside compost and recycling.
Since Capt. Adam Petlock will be appointed assistant police chief when Assistant Chief Jeremy Evans becomes chief following Chief Norma Hardy’s retirement [story, A1], a captain position will be left open in the police department budget.
Overtime in the fire department was reduced by $45,000 to $280,000. After discussion, a motion to add a part-time finance clerk position back into the budget failed in a 2–3 vote.
A motion to add a 20-hour per week part-time Parks and Recreation position failed by the same margin. Part-time hours for a library position also were eliminated.
The approved budget includes reinstatement of recycling and compost, removal of the part-time finance clerk position, and removal of the human service budget allocation.
Concern was raised about the absence of an article for the annual audit. Town Manager John Potter explained the numbers may be unaudited in the initial report due to difficulties finding an auditing firm.
Those in attendance raised lots of questions about the budget process, discrepancies in financial figures, the cost of staff positions, and the impacts of cutting the expenses.
Trash talk
A major proposed change had been to eliminate compost and curbside recycling collection programs to save $577,682.
In that scenario, the town would subsidize half the cost ($30) of the annual sticker for residents to use at the Windham Solid Waste Management District (WSWMD) facility on Old Ferry Road.
Public feedback was strongly against eliminating curbside services, with many citing the negative impact on residents who don’t drive, the elderly, and lower-income individuals.
“I think solid waste has to come back in,” said Heller.
Case noted numerous public messages he’d received “face to face and over the phone” that advocated for municipal services, notably waste removal, over funding the human services budget.
“Absolutely none of it was in support of getting rid of curbside and trash pickup,” Case said.
Board members expressed conflicting views: Some prioritized affordability and finding cuts to avoid a high tax increase (proposed at 7.7% at one point), while others emphasized the importance of maintaining services like the pay-as-you-throw solid waste program.
Data provided for Brattleboro’s waste streams showed a monthly average of 59 tons for trash (35.3%), 60 tons for recycling (36%), and 46 tons for compost (28.7%).
Ultimately, the board voted 4-1 to add the two streams of solid waste (recycling and compost) back into the budget.
After much discussion, board members agreed to continue discussion about changes to the solid waste program and to form a committee to study it and report back to the board with recommendations for FY28. The committee will have six months to analyze the impact of moving to a trash-only curbside service.
And WSWMD has agreed to discuss extending its hours to accommodate Brattleboro residents, if the proposed changes are approved.
Human services
During discussion of cutting the human services budget — which had been previously reduced from $500,000 to $250,000 — public comment highlighted the small savings for taxpayers versus the large impact on community services.
Data was shared showing that from FY17 to FY26, town budget expenditures increased by 59.1% while human service expenditures increased by 227.7%.
“We want to help, but we want to help within our means,” said Ellis-Thurber, adding that perhaps the half-million-dollar request could be less.
Noting the Finance Committee’s “extensive analysis” of Brattleboro being “far and away the most generous of communities with regard to human service funding,” McLoughlin noted “what’s been happening in Brattleboro in recent years” and the state’s allocation to the motel program.
“We are strapped because of that,” said McLoughlin, who noted that “a tremendous amount of our budget is already expended to providing support to people in need.”
Evans-Frantz noted the board’s responsibility “to come up with a budget that’s affordable,” notably in view of the town meeting direction to fund the human services request.
“What I would ask is that we do so in a responsible way,” he said, saying he’d like to know the impact of cuts to the human services fund.
“These are the things we’re juggling, and there’s no movement left,” McLoughlin said, noting trash service versus human services, and keeping the budget increase about 6%.
“I just think we should be — let’s say it one more time —charity beginning at home,” she said, noting her advocacy for the trash service and that one person told her, “it’s tearing our town apart.”
A motion to reduce the human services allocation from $250,000 to $0 for the FY27 budget was made and passed 3-2.
The board approved the final amended FY27 budget, with some members voting to conclude the process with the expectation that human services funding could be debated again at Town Meeting.
A lengthy debate occurred about including human services funding as a separate article on the Town Meeting warning. Proponents argued it would allow for direct democratic participation, while opponents felt the Selectboard should retain control over the final budget number.
The broader issue of reforming the Human Services Committee process is to be addressed by the Charter Review Committee.
The board decided to add a new article (Article 7) to the warning for voters to decide on the amount of money to raise for human services, with the proposed amount in the article being $0.
A final answer
After a nearly five-hour meeting on Jan. 22 and abundant discussion, the new projected budget increase was about 6.2%.
“This is a year where we’re really struggling to make these things connect up … at some point there have to be things we have to say no to,” said Heller, adding he also feels “terrible” about those things not being funded.
He added that while the process and outcome were not perfect, the budget includes a lot of good decisions and took a lot of work.
Concern was raised about the absence of an article for the annual audit and Potter explained the numbers may be unaudited in the initial report due to difficulties finding an auditing firm.
When asked after the meeting, McLoughlin said the budgeting process and outcome this year included “several very long meetings together with wild swings in the budget.”
“I had planned for in-depth budget discussions to take place in November and December in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, but my colleagues chose the last possible moment for their budget ideas,” she said of numerous 11th-hour amendments proposed in the past week alone.
“Throughout this process I have been focused on the appropriate provision of town services. We now have a very bare-bones municipal budget — so bare-bones, in fact, that my colleagues would not fund a needed part-time finance clerk for $29,000 a year to help with internal controls and the human service grants were completely halted.”
McLoughlin said she’s “pleased that all the public safety work our town does in collaboration with nonprofit services was maintained” and “that a majority of my colleagues chose to join me” in restoring all three streams of the pay-as-you-throw program.
“Trash, recycling, and compost are back in the budget, saving our town’s decade-long sustainability project, a needed service and a public good,” she said.
Summing up, McLoughlin said that “my colleagues challenged us to a cap of 6% rate of increase on the municipal tax rate.”
Thanking Potter and his staff, “we came as close as possible,” she said.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.