By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—After last budget season’s conflicts and disappointments, the Brandon Budget Committee and the Brandon Selectboard are taking a different approach to their task this year.
The municipal budget that the Selectboard initially put forward last March failed when voters refused to accept a double-digit percentage-point increase. Much of that increase stemmed from a decision to include $300,000 for paving in the budget itself rather than as a separate appropriation. The budget finally passed on a third attempt, after the Selectboard removed most of the paving allocation, two police cruisers, and various smaller line items.
But resentments still lingered over the process by which the initial budget had been prepared, with several members of the Budget Committee, along with other civilian observers, sharply accusing members of the Selectboard of disrespect and insensitivity to residents’ finances. It didn’t help matters to have school taxes spike simultaneously. Brandon residents felt the weight of their increased tax burden and were vocal both online and at subsequent Selectboard meetings.
This year, however, Board chair Doug Bailey, who was a member of the civilian Budget Committee last year, made a conscious choice to handle the budget process differently, hoping to avoid last year’s outcome.
One change that Mr. Bailey implemented was to begin the process earlier in the fall. Last year, the first budget workshop wasn’t until November. This year, however, the Committee and Board began meeting in September, hoping to give themselves more time to develop an overview of the town’s needs before allocating any specific dollar amounts for any particular expenses.
This new approach gave the Committee and Board time to speak with town department heads, which in turn allowed them to evaluate the proposed departmental budgets with a more informed eye.
A particularly pointed criticism of last year’s process was that the Board did not go through the budget line by line to question every proposed expense and strip out as much as possible.
And so, on Monday evening the Board and Budget Committee convened to examine the budget line by line for several town departments, having already taken a bird’s-eye view of the budget for the previous few sessions.
It didn’t take long for this new process to become a point of contention, with some members saying that the detailed approach would allow them to assure the public that they had indeed examined the budget as closely as possible and other replying that the method was unnecessary.
Board member Tim Guiles argued against questioning the expertise of the department heads who had submitted proposed budgets, adding that it was not a productive use of the meeting’s time. Board member Heather Nelson advocated for continuing to examine each line item in order to assure voters that they had been thorough.
Members of the Budget Committee tended to agree with Mr. Guiles, though Committee member Barry Varian suggested that they take a department head’s budget history into account when determining how much deference to give a proposed expense. He noted that some department heads, such as the Highway Department’s Jeremy Disorda, had earned deference through careful and economical budgeting in the past while others, such as the Police Department’s Chief David Kachajian had not.
Chief Kachajian’s department had been the subject of some concern early in the process when it was brought to the Board and Committee’s attention that the Police Department’s annual overtime budget of $19,000 had already been exceeded only one quarter into the new fiscal year. The Police Department budget will be the subject of the next budget workshop on Monday, November 18.
Board member Ralph Ethier suggested that while it might be useful to look at individual line items, what mattered most to town residents was the bottom line, a sentiment echoed by Board member Brian Coolidge.
Mr. Bailey and Ms. Nelson reiterated that it was important to show the town that the process had been stringent, given the anger voiced by residents in the spring.
“I don’t think people have faith in this process this year,” said Ms. Nelson. “We’ve lost a lot of confidence from the community. We need to be able to back up every line.”
“The lack of trust isn’t about the process but instead about the product,” Mr. Varian responded. He added that whatever process they followed, what mattered most was the final proposed dollar amount.
As the Board and Committee continued to examine the proposed departmental budgets, they found little that absolutely demanded change. One change was the removal of an $8,000 expense for 2 speed radar carts and the addition of a $24,000 truck lease payment to the highway department (it had been previously allocated from the 1% local option tax fund), which still kept that department 0.6% (less than 1%) below its budget from last year.
The examination of the Recreation Department did not result in any changes to the budget but did spark a discussion of how to increase the department’s revenues, despite universal praise for its programming. Mr. Bailey noted that although the department habitually went over budget, it also habitually brought in more revenue than projected.
Committee member Gabe McGuigan said it was necessary to justify the department’s cost to Brandon residents who don’t take advantage of its offerings.
Members discussed asking neighboring towns to help fund the department in exchange for in-town rates for their own residents. It was also suggested that the department begin charging out-of-town players to play pickleball, as other towns already do.
An examination of the expense of maintaining the electric-vehicle chargers in the public lot behind Dunkin’ Donuts led to a discussion about establishing an annual review of the rate that the town charged EV owners for electricity at those stations, to ensure that it remained in line with surrounding communities.
A $5,000 expenditure for maintenance of the clock in the steeple of the Congregational Church raised eyebrows, but Town Manager Seth Hopkins reminded the room that the town—not the church—owns the clock and has an obligation to maintain it, unless it’s willing to abandon it entirely, which he suspected would not sit well with town residents.
Finally, as the meeting drew close to its scheduled end, Mr. Bailey brought up the subject of Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) for town employees. COLA is a yearly raise in wages and salaries to ensure that town employees’ pay keeps pace with inflation. Last year, several town residents criticized the Board’s decision to grant a 4% increase to all town employees when many Brandonites were having to make do without raises or were living on fixed incomes, like Social Security, whose COLA was significantly less.
Mr. Hopkins argued that if the town doesn’t provide a COLA, it must provide merit-based raises, since it would be difficult to retain employees if there were no mechanism for annual raises.
The Board and the Committee broadly agreed that merit-based raises made more financial sense than across-the-board COLAs. The COLA for Social Security in 2025 will be 2.5% and several members suggested using that as a guide, with some members suggesting 3%, some portion of which could be a universal raise and the remainder awarded based on merit. No final decision was made.
Without the additional costs of COLA and health insurance, the second draft of the proposed budget for FY2025 currently stands at $3,283,297, a 0.66% increase over FY2024. The amount to be raised by taxes currently stands at $2,747,980, a 0.39% increase over FY2024. These numbers will certainly increase once the COLA is fixed and the cost of health insurance, which is set to spike this year, is factored in.
The next budget meeting is on Monday, November 18 at 7 p.m. in the Selectboard meeting room at the Brandon Town Hall. The public is welcome to attend.
