Selectboard in No Mood for Budget Increases
Following news on Monday that property taxes will rise nearly 12 percent to pay for schools next year, selectboard members expressed early opposition to hikes in town clerk, fire and police budgets
The Record Staff
It was a grueling Selectboard meeting: two and a half hours of presentations, questions and debate over the proposed budgets of town clerk, fire and police budgets.
As The Record has explored in its special report last month, the police department is asking for funding for six officers (including the chief), a level it has had at various times over the last five years. Interim Police Chief Frank Bryan pointed out that arrests are rising each year, even this year when, with only three officers and no chief, they only cover the town 60 hours a week.
Bryan also said that with smaller staffs – even five officers – there will be too many “solo” shifts. Most officers are given training on the assumption that they will have backup, particularly in domestic situations where two officers are often essential.
“It’s a lot easier to hire new officers if you can kind of say you’re always working with somebody,” Bryan added. You can say, “You’re not alone, you’re not going to get overworked, you’re not getting scheduled for more than 40 hours.
“The need for police has risen, not declined. And given the spike in crimes and the need for law enforcement that’s why we’re requesting for the budget to be six officers or at least 5 … including the chief.”
Prescott Nadeau says he is kept awake at night with the knowledge that his department is unable to respond to 100 calls this year or about 18 percent of the calls for service because his department only staffs the station from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week. Nadeau says that because available on-call staff have to come to the station for equipment before going to a call, response time is averaging 20 minutes. By adding two staffers, he said, the station can be staffed 24/7, seven days a week which will reduce response time by nearly 15 minutes, allow for better retention of staff and provide the town with improved public safety.
Nadeau made a point of asking the board to let the voters decide, saying he agreed with Bryan’s suggestion that the fire and police department budgets be put to a separate vote in March. “Let the voters decide.”
Nadeau has already been reaching out to the public with appeals, including this video recently posted on Facebook:
To both proposals, selectboard members pushed back.
“I love the idea of 24/7 coverage,” Maggie Gordon said to Nadeau, “but $187,000 in one year is a big ask, especially as we look at what else is going on in the budget.”
“Believe me when I say there’s no way I can vote for these extra two people,” Place said to Nadeau. “I am not against the fire department one single bit. But we are getting pushed out of this community. Taxes are going double digit. Again. It’s just not sustainable. Something else has to be cut if we are going to do that.”
Countering the selectboard were a number of residents both in the meeting and on Zoom who expressed support for both the fire and police departments and said that they needed to be adequately staffed.
Town Clerk/Treasurer Heather Roberts was the first to present her budget and she began by outlining all the duties she and her assistant must fulfill. It took her two full minutes to list them all. The responsibilities range from tax collection to land records, water and sewer billing and allocations to employee benefits administration, handling all town purchases to administration of town accounts, land records to elections and voter lists.
“We also anticipate a significant increase in workload related to the planned development at Haystack Crossing, Riggs Meadow at Windy Ridge, Hinesburg Center, Earnest Way and Tractor Road.”
Roberts is asking for one additional full-time assistant, half of which would be paid for by the Water and Sewer Department.
She added that additional staffer is not only needed to keep up with all the work – and selectboard chair Merrily Lovell acknowledged that she often sees Roberts working after hours – but also to make needed changes in record keeping systems and other improvements.
Roberts did acknowledge that a solution might be to reduce the hours her office is open to the public to allow for uninterrupted time to do their work and make the improvements to the office’s record keeping systems that are so necessary.
Selectboard member Paul Lamberson jumped on that. “I’m sorry you are the first ones to go, but you’re just gonna hear me say this over and over: Double digit percentage (increases) in this time, whew. We just heard preliminary and awful news about the state education tax, an increase that will hit us all.
“At this very moment I would let you know that I’m more intrigued by service hours reduction and that I think is an acceptable burden that we all have to bear now.”
Also presenting budgets were the Carpenter-Carse Library and Hinesburg Resource Center.
