BRATTLEBORO-Property taxes are expected to increase by 12.1% over this year if voters approve the Selectboard's recommended $25,184,081 million fiscal 2026 town budget at the Saturday, March 22 Annual Representative Town Meeting (ARTM).
Total expenses are actually up 9.2%.
"This budget is not about process," Town Manager John Potter told the Selectboard Jan. 21. "It's about policies and priorities that the Selectboard has chosen this year."
He said the budget's objective is "maintaining quality of life in the face of a small number of people causing chaos and disorder in our community, and doing this while not losing the town services that families, working people, and everyday folks appreciate in Brattleboro. So it's trying to optimize two things at once: dealing with the chaos better while not sacrificing all the other town services people value."
Selectboard Chair Daniel Quipp said at the board's late December meeting that the initial draft budget had been reduced from an earlier proposal that called for a 22% increase.
"This budget balances the town's financial responsibilities, addresses key needs, and continues providing essential services that enhance the quality of life in Brattleboro," reads Potter's budget memo. "This budget is designed to keep the town financially stable while managing rising costs and growing needs.
"It prioritizes spending on key areas such as trash collection, public safety, and human services. However, some services will see reductions, including leaf collection, arts funding, traffic safety, climate projects, library book purchases, and snow removal. These cuts could be permanent or could be returned in future budgets."
If the budget is passed as currently written, the tax rate is expected to be $1.68 per $100,000 of valuation. Thus, a property tax bill based on a value of $183,100 would be $2,981.
Policing with 'a more consistent presence'
Potter called the $600,000 Downtown Safety Action Plan a "key" component of the budget, saying in his memo that the increased funding for police services will support Police Chief Norma Hardy's effort to "reduce disorder downtown."
That plan includes creating the Brattleboro Resource Assistance Team (BRAT), and hiring three additional police officers. Potter said five more would not have been too much to ask.
"The downtown area requires constant police presence," Potter said, adding the overall request comes after discussion with Police Chief Norma Hardy.
"A more consistent presence from skilled officers" and will extend far beyond Main Street to "all areas that frequently require police responses," he said.
According to Potter, Hardy believes this will reduce calls and allow patrols on the street day and evening seven days a week and "help combat serious issues like drug and human trafficking, which cause significant harm in our community."
Potter said Hardy pointed out to him that public intoxication, assaults, and health hazards "are becoming worse due to limited accountability and challenges within the court system."
If the resources are not approved, "the department would have to let promising Police Academy recruits go, which would delay progress by almost two years due to recruitment and training timelines."
Hardy emphasized that the Selectboard "asked the P.D. to address these problems, and this plan was carefully designed to do so," Potter said.
While the proposed plan is anticipated to cost $600,000, costs for the state's emergency motel housing program are projected to be slightly more than that, he said.
He noted that state program, which brings folks to town to be housed, costs taxpayers "directly and indirectly" without offering any state money to help ease the financial burden.
Solid waste: the biggest change
Potter called inclusion of the new solid waste disposal contract "the biggest change in this budget."
While trash, recycling, and compost hauling will cost an added $520,000 annually, it's less, Potter said, than the estimated $1.4 million it would cost "without the leverage of a town-wide contract."
Under the new contract, the annual cost is $126 per household; otherwise, folks would pay $320.
Staffing costs rise
An 8.1% increase in staffing is primarily a result of negotiated salary contracts that started to bring "our town salaries in line with competitive wages in our state and region," said Potter, adding professionalism and morale in town government posts are "key to delivering the Brattleboro that people want."
"Municipal employees are facing increasingly complex and emotionally taxing challenges as they carry out their duties," Potter said, adding they often face high-pressure situations and deal with individuals who "escalate minor issues into major conflicts."
Overall, said Potter, town employees face myriad challenges and significant stress and strain, yet "prioritize public safety and service" in their work.
"It is shortsighted and unsustainable to mistreat employees, to undervalue their contributions, take them for granted, or burden them with overwhelming workloads and difficult public demands, while perpetually threatening their job security," Potter said.
The vote
Board member Franz Reichsman called the presentation "convincing and troubling" and said he's been thinking about the budget for weeks. He also said he wished he'd heard the information sooner.
"It's been very hard for me to come to a conclusion on a very simple 'yes' or 'no' vote," Reichsman said, adding "most troubling" to him are the "future implications of this budget."
He said he would defer his concern over what the budget will mean in future by not raising taxes as much as initially thought due to folks' disapproval and putting off projects.
He said the board really hadn't talked about what would define an "acceptable" amount for the town reserve fund. In trying to lower the tax rate, Reichsman said, municipal staff used one-time sources that will be less available in the future "and depleted a bunch of town funds."
"I don't think we've done the work we needed to do to really look at all the alternatives […] and look at the implications in the future," Reichsman said, noting "too many unknowns, too many question marks."
Asked if he had alternatives for the board to consider, Reichsman said he did not.
In the end, Reichsman supported the budget as proposed after he requested and was granted a 10-minute recess to ponder.
"I've come to the conclusion that it's better that this budget passes than if it doesn't," he said.
Board member Elizabeth MacLoughlin also spoke to the budget.
"The call volume for our police department has gone up 23% since 2019," said MacLoughlin, adding the town had 13 officers then. "We need to pay for that. And we need trash removal. We had a sweetheart deal with the previous vendor that we no longer have access to. These items require an increase of the average assessed property of approximately $300."
She also said it would be "imperative that we have a robust discussion, between now and RTM, and at RTM, about the level of charitable giving in this community."
Charitable contributions under the human services funding total about $461,000 in this year's proposal. In 2024, voters sent $367,810 to 38 organizations.
"It's outside the norm of other municipalities, and we need to understand what is a municipal responsibility and what is not a municipal responsibility," McLoughlin said.
Former Selectboard member Kate O'Connor called the budget "unfair to everybody in our community" and "totally irresponsible."
"The way you put this budget together is unacceptable," O'Connor said. "You folks have done things that are going to hurt us in the immediate and in the future. You need to think about what's happening in the future […] you don't understand what you're doing now, which means you're going to repeat it for FY27."
"The sky is falling, the sky is falling," said former Selectboard member Dick DeGray, of the budget presentation. "I'm glad so many people got here this evening because of all the crime that's going on outside. You probably put your lives in jeopardy coming to this meeting."
DeGray said he can remember when the town had 27 officers covering three shifts.
"So when I hear that we need 30 officers to now provide the third shift, I scratch my head," he said.
Numerous other residents weighed in about the budget, both in the meeting room and via Zoom.
"There is a lot of discussion ahead of us at Town Meeting. I would ask that folks continue to be as engaged as they are at Town Meeting," said Quipp, noting that "for a full room" he felt the discussion was "really great."
On Town Meeting Day, Tuesday, March 4, all voters in town will also consider a number of non-binding advisory warrant articles on the Australian ballot, including:
• Whether to advise the state Legislature that any establishment and/or operation of any safe injection site in the town should be subject to a town-wide vote.
• Whether the Selectboard should again enact an ordinance that establishes clear boundaries for acceptable behavior and conduct in the downtown area. Representative Town Meeting overrode such an ordinance after the board enacted it in 2024.
• Whether the Selectboard should enact an ordinance to recoup compensation from property owners whose property requires a high level of enforcement response, excluding domestic violence response.
• Whether to advise Representative Town Meeting to reduce Human Services funding for FY26 by eliminating the funding outright or choosing how much to increase it over the previous year's allocation (less than 1%, 2%, between 1% and 2%, or more than 2%).
• Included on the ballot by citizen petition is a non-binding question calling on voters to adopt a pledge to "join others in working to end all support to Israel's apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation."
To see the warning, visit bit.ly/801-bratt-ballot.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.