VERNON-Vernon voters at Annual Town Meeting on March 2 approved an almost-level-funded school budget and added funds to the municipal budget for fire department recruitment.
Voters approved a final amended town budget of $2,539,970. In its proposed budget, the Selectboard also decided to use $100,000 from the general fund to offset taxes.
Town Meeting also approved the Selectboard's proposal to appoint the town treasurer - a move that town officials have described as a precaution due to "liability issues" - but rejected a call to do so for the collector of delinquent taxes.
School budget passes
The School Board started the meeting with a quick presentation on the school budget that was on the ballot.
The Vernon Town School District asked voters to approve the school board's expenditure of $7,933,289 in the upcoming fiscal year. This budget reflects per-pupil education spending of $15,762, a 0.1% increase over FY2025.
School Board Member Daniel Amidon said the board worked hard to keep budget increases to a minimum. Health insurance increased by more than 8%, he said.
He added that the board still managed to keep the FY2027 budget's overall increase to 1.8% and achieved these savings by cutting five positions at the school.
Moderator Kerry Amidon warned voters that despite the board's efforts to keep the budget - and therefore education taxes - low, they may still see tax increases depending on how everything shakes out at the state level.
'Important and foundational'
The only budget item to change considerably was the Vernon Fire Department's.
Voters amended the General Fund budget upwards by more than $60,000 to include extra funding for the Vernon Fire Department (VFD) to recruit and pay more firefighters.
Russ Rosinski, who moved the amendment, called the department's work "important and foundational" and praised firefighters as examples of the people who show up for all sorts of incidents - no matter what.
He added that the department lacked the volunteers it needed, and if the town doesn't support its firefighters, then it will lose them.
"Do the right thing here," he said.
Town Meeting also approved setting up a fund to dredge and clean out the town's fire ponds and seeding it with $10,000.
Voters also rejected a proposal to establish a town event fund to pay for community events such as the town picnic and harvest festival after some raised the point that the town already has a reserve fund for the town picnic.
Getting down to municipal business
The evening started with a flurry of confusion. According to the Selectboard, staffing changes in the treasurer's office, including the resignation of the elected treasurer, had led to delays in the Annual Town Report. As a result, audience members needed to sort through several pages of updated budget information.
This early bout of confusion highlighted frustrations some voters expressed through the rest of the evening: that the board was not managing the town in a transparent way. For example, several times during the night Munson Hicks and Katherine Baldwin raised concerns that voters were ceding too much power to the board.
Under this umbrella of frustration, voters passed a motion to divide the municipal budget so that each department's line items could be considered individually. The original budget question, Article 4, had asked the audience to vote on the General Fund as a whole.
As they worked through the department budgets, several in the audience zeroed in on Town Administrator Shelly Walker's salary.
Walker's current contract with the town stipulates a salary of $108,116. Voters who proposed lowering the amount to $75,000 were dismayed to learn that they couldn't do so without breaking an employment contract.
Selectboard Vice-Chair Brandon Bucossi told audience members they have more power to influence the budget when the board builds it in the fall rather than attempting changes at Annual Town Meeting.
Elected vs. appointed positions
Voters approved changing the treasurer's position, currently an elected office, to an appointed one, but they rejected an article, initiated by citizen petition, to appoint the collector of delinquent taxes as well.
"An Elected Treasurer can have full access and control over the Town's finances without any experience or training," town officials wrote in an annotated version of the Town Meeting warning. "An Appointed Treasurer would be required to have experience and training."
Going forward, the treasurer will have the professional qualifications to serve as a finance director to handle the majority of the town's finances.
Voters expressed frustration and confusion about the question, given that the Selectboard has already hired a finance director, despite the treasurer position still decided by Australian ballot.
Voters also defeated a proposal to authorize the Selectboard "to appoint a collector of delinquent taxes who may be the Town Treasurer appointed by the Selectboard."
This item was placed on the ballot as a result of a petition organized by Melissa Allen, who shared concerns that the current elected delinquent tax collector lacked the independence and ethics required for the job.
She said after the vote that she wrestled with transitioning the position from an elected office to an appointed one. However, she said the town attorney had provided the necessary wording to make the petition proper.
Other audience members argued that making the delinquent tax collector an appointed position would take another piece of power from voters and handed it to the Selectboard.
A marathon session
This year's Annual Town Meeting began at 6:30 p.m. and ran until after midnight.
Amidon opened the meeting, paraphrasing her predecessor, former Town Moderator Tim Arsenault.
"We all enter as neighbors, let's all leave that way," she said.
This News item by Olga Peters was written for The Commons.