Vermont’s long-time exercise in local democracy occurs Tuesday as residents participate in annual Town Meetings and vote on local issues. WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley has a preview of the issues that will be discussed.
While most town meetings occur on Tuesday a few communities hold their meetings the evening before or on a weekend to encourage more participation.
Middlebury College Professor of Political Science Bert Johnson says the key item to watch across the state is school budget votes.
“Last year many of them failed and we’ll see if this year there’s a repeat performance of that or whether that has calmed down somewhat. Of course, many school districts have tried to cut their budgets. They’ve laid off people. They’ve not hired for certain positions. They’ve tried to tighten their belts and we’ll see if the voters accept all of that work,” Johnson said. “The other question that’s related is how voters are viewing the education reform in the Legislature and whether they’re adopting a wait-and-see attitude about that and letting their school budgets go forward.”
More than two dozen communities will ask voters to approve reserve funds. Vermont League of Cities and Towns Executive Director Ted Brady explains that Vermont law prevents communities from keeping such a fund unless residents approve it.
“Any kind of surplus that a municipality receives has to be given back to the taxpayer. And so Vermont law requires towns to ask taxpayers to allow them to set aside money instead of returning it to the taxpayer. And so that’s why you see this kind of thing on ballots. It’s not unusual,” explained Brady. “This year there are a few that seem unusual just because it’s maybe for a rainy-day fund, or more accurately, a disaster fund or something like that. But it’s a pretty common thing on the ballot every year. Usually, it’s for things like school buses, fire trucks, dump trucks. And this year I think we do see a few out there that are dedicated specifically to supporting a municipality’s ability to respond to the increasing number of floods and disasters.”
A number of capital bonds, particularly for water and wastewater projects, are on ballots across the state. Johnson says aging infrastructure and the impacts of severe storms have led to the requests.
“We see, for example, Chester trying to float a $2.8 million bond on wastewater. Similarly, Middlebury there’s a $49.5 million bond request for a wastewater treatment plant and that is replacing a treatment plant that has been outdated and just needs to be replaced. So I think a lot of it is aging infrastructure and some of it is response to the storms,” Johnson said.
Brady wonders if a message of affordability will be sent by voters again next week like in November.
“I think we’re all curious to see what the mood of the taxpayer is. I don’t get a sense yet to know if we’re going to have budgets voted down or budgets overwhelmingly supported. Historically municipal budgets pass in Vermont. School budgets pass in Vermont, even last year in an affordability crisis. So I don’t know that I anticipate huge swings the other way but, hey, you don’t know until Town Meeting Day,” Brady said. “On Town Meeting Day people can show up and adjust the budget. It’s not just a yes or no vote. They can show up and say we’d like to change how much money you’re spending. And they can do that from the floor in more than half of our towns. So who knows what’s going to happen.”
There is a mayoral race in Rutland. Incumbent Mark Doenges faces alderman Henry Heck. Johnson laments that there is little to no polling in local races in Vermont.
“Usually incumbents do quite well. So I would expect Doenges has the advantage and he’s gotten some key endorsements. And I would say that the city budget in Rutland has not gone up exorbitantly. I think what Heck’s argument is is that spending should be reined in even further but there’s not a glaring example of excess spending to point to,” Johnson noted.
In addition to bonds, voters in Burlington will decide three charter change questions and there are candidates for the four district city council seats. Burlington does not conduct centralized meetings and uses ranked choice voting to elect city officials.
