BRATTLEBORO-Representative Town Meeting members met in a special session on May 27 and approved a fiscal year 2026 budget of $24,971,305.
Approval came on a roll call vote of 110–4 near the end of a two-hour meeting in the Brattleboro Union High School gymnasium, the site of the annual Representative Town Meeting on March 22 which rejected the first version of the FY26 budget, 76–57, and sent it back to the Selectboard.
The newly reconstituted board, with three new members, created the revised budget.
Its passage is expected to add $286 per year, or $24 per month, to the tax rate for a median income home.
Selectboard Chair Elizabeth McLoughlin characterized the budget as providing "basic municipal services." The accelerated process of revisiting the budget took place with the help of Town Manager John Potter and a new team he organized that she characterized as "valuable."
Vice Chair Oscar Heller, elected to the board in March, called the budget a "compromise," saying every board member has probably been "on the losing end of a vote about a [proposed expenditure] they cared about, and that's the nature of compromise."
He added he believes the approved budget "can move us forward" and said he wanted to honor his part of the compromise and thus would abstain from any amendments to the budget from the floor.
"I fought my fights at the Selectboard [level], and now it's up to you guys," Heller said to the representatives, adding that "Town Meeting is not just a rubber stamp on decisions made by the Selectboard."
Bid to save full-time sustainability coordinator post fails
The vote to approve the budget came after a failed amendment by Marta Gossage of District 9 to add $43,045 - clearly intended to restore the Sustainability Coordinator's post to full time and notably with concern that the community outreach portion of the post would be lost.
The post, currently held by Stephen Dotson, has been reduced to half-time, but Potter said the cut hours may well be restored and the position restored to full-time by working on getting sustainability grants for the water and sewer system and therefore paying out of the utility fund for part of the hours.
Many who spoke praised Dotson in particular and surmised that he wouldn't stay if his hours were cut. Others noted that the position brings in money and allows for greater community collaboration.
Kate O'Connor, also of District 9, urged the meeting not to increase the budget.
"We can't afford it," she said, acknowledging that to get the budget to an increase of approximately 10% versus the previous 12% increase had already necessitated many "tough decisions."
Still, O'Connor was not fully in support of the budget, although she said she'd vote for it.
"As a public, I don't think we've been given a full accounting of our finances," she said. "We're deficit spending now, and we deficit spent in 2024 […] so we have to be really careful."
Warning that "we have to start making these tough decisions now," O'Connor said that she would "like it if we cut the budget, but I know that's probably not going to happen."
Another District 9 representative, Timothy Belknap, called the budget "a bipartisan effort."
"I think we need to approve it. We need to move ahead," he said. "Pass this budget and move on."
Former board member Dick DeGray de-personalized the issue.
"If this person chooses to leave […] we're gonna have a cake, we're gonna wish him well when they go to their new job," he said.
"Someone will take that position, and we will move along as we have with every other position that's been vacated over the past 25 years," DeGray added, urging the town not to "plan around one person."
"The taxpayers are screaming and they want you to listen," he said. "This isn't about favoritism."
Police Chief Norma Hardy and the Selectboard were asked to respond to a query about whether there's a metric to figure out when an emergency would cease to be one, suggested by the use of rainy-day-fund money during the past year to address town spending in response to public safety and other issues.
Hardy said her department judges a situation by the number and type of calls it receives.
"What we experienced in this past year was a preponderance of the public demanding additional safety measures matched by police department statistics for calls and police data regarding targeted locations where emergency calls were made," McLoughlin added.
She noted that the department's BRAT (Brattleboro Resource Assistance Team) unit was formed and provides "a progressive and responsive force without guns" that includes social workers - "and everyone has said it's made a tremendous difference."
She called a second initiative, the Situation Table, "interesting and effective." One Brattleboro, which coordinates social work with emergency services/police, is the result of a year of planning.
"It is really the long-term solution for addressing people with complex needs who are an issue with public safety and getting those needs met and decreasing the number of emergency calls," she said.
She said this dual approach is working - and "that's how we'll know our community is safe and that there could be a reduction in these personnel."
Tom Franks of District 9 advocated for passage of the proposed budget, saying amending it "would be like a flashback" to the March meeting.
"I think this is a budget of compromise," he said. "I don't think anyone is thrilled with it. I think we need to pass it and move on. The job we're here to do today is pass a budget so we can move on."
A roll call vote to amend the budget to increase it by $43,045 at 7:40 p.m. failed 53–71, but a non-binding resolution calling for the Selectboard to do all it can to restore the post to full-time, proposed by District 7's Michael Bosworth, passed.
[Disclosure: Bosworth also serves as the treasurer of the board of directors of Vermont Independent Media, publisher of this newspaper.]
Members nix bigger budget slash
Also failed was an amendment proposed by Robert Oeser of District 9 to reduce the budget to a 4% increase over this year's budget.
Oeser's amendment would have necessitated cutting another $985,000.
"I think there really needs to be some brakes on the system right now," Oeser said.
Cristina Shayonye of District 8 asked Potter the effect on his job, given cuts that include not hiring a new assistant town manager, finance director, IT position, and others.
"These are the [workers whose] work we don't really see, and we will notice when it's gone," she said. "Who's going to fill all of those really important support positions?"
"That would be really tough," Potter said of another $985,000 cut, which would affect "more significant positions, taking bigger and bigger bites out of what the town is able to deliver to you all."
"If you do things like, say, cut it at 4%, that forces us into finding those savings wherever we can, but it will have significant impacts on services," he warned.
"We didn't get into the situation overnight, and aren't going to solve it overnight," said Lindsey Worden of District 7. "I think we need to acknowledge the hard work that's been done and recognize the hard work yet to be done."
The vote to amend to a 4% increase failed, with about a handful in favor.
Members also approved a non-binding resolution asking the Selectboard to provide a full and complete accounting of actual emergency medical services (EMS) expenses and revenue over the current fiscal year that ends on June 30 so taxpayers can understand exactly how much it's costing.
The town implemented a municipal EMS system nearly two years ago, ending a long-term relationship with Rescue Inc.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.