By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—The Brandon Selectboard convened for its regular meeting on Monday evening. A relatively light agenda and the absence of both town managers made for a brief meeting.
Board Chair Doug Bailey began the meeting with a recognition of Charlene Bryant, the Board’s recording secretary, who was attending her last Selectboard meeting before retirement. Mr. Bailey thanked Ms. Bryant for her years of service to the town.
Mr. Bailey also noted that the Board is experimenting with an AI program that will record the minutes, eliminating the need for a replacement for Ms. Bryant and saving the town thousands of dollars every year.
Town Manager and Community Development reports
Since Town Manager Seth Hopkins was on vacation and Deputy Town Manager Bill Moore was attending a family event, their reports were summarized by Mr. Bailey. Both reports are reprinted in full in this issue.
Mr. Bailey drew attention to the Brandon Police Department’s hiring of Mikayla Fontana, a Level-2-certified officer who has already been licensed by the Police Academy. Officer Fontana will begin work at BPD on June 16.
Mr. Bailey also noted in the Community Development report that this year’s Independence Day festivities have already been planned and cannot be changed. This was in response to a discussion on Front Page Forum in which several town residents suggested that the town adopt a silent fireworks display and/or move the fireworks from their current location downtown. Before COVID, the fireworks were traditionally set off from Park Village north of town. Residents were concerned that the downtown location created too much noise too close to residential neighborhoods.
Board Vice-chair Cecil Reniche-Smith suggested that anyone interested in making changes to the Independence Day program consider joining the committee for next year.
Trustees of Public Funds
The Board unanimously appointed Faith Daya, Devon Fuller, and Tracy Wyman as the three Trustees of Public Funds.
These three will replace Laura Miner, Tanner Romano, and Courtney Satz, who all resigned last month after harsh criticism of their approach to managing the trust left to the town by Shirley Farr in the 1950s.
Ms. Daya has a background in corporate finance, having worked as the Finance Systems Manager for Bose Corporation.
Mr. Fuller has sat on several boards in Brandon, including the Selectboard, the OVUU School Board, and the Brandon Industrial Corporation. He is currently also President of the Downtown Brandon Alliance.
Mr. Wyman is a former Chair of the Brandon Selectboard and a member of the Planning Commission.
The three new Trustees will serve until Town Meeting in March of 2026, at which point all three seats will be on the ballot. Since Mr. Romano would completed his three-year term in March, a three-year seat will be open. Ms. Miner and Ms. Satz would have had one year and two years left in their terms, respectively, so a one-year seat and a two-year seat will also be on the ballot in March.
Homestead penalty
The Board unanimously agreed to waive the penalty for late filing of homestead declarations. The state allows towns to levy fines against homeowners who file their homestead declarations late.
By law, homeowners in Vermont are obligated to declare their residences “homesteads” by April of each year if they are their primary residences. Vermont has a different property-tax scheme for homesteads versus second homes and rental properties.
Ms. Reniche-Smith urged all Brandon homeowners to file the declaration every year because there are no guarantees that the Board will continue to waive the penalty in the future.
Mr. Bailey and Ms. Reniche-Smith both noted that the declaration is necessary for the state to determine whether a given homeowner is entitled to an income-sensitivity reduction in their education and/or municipal tax. The reductions are available only to those who have established their primary residences in Vermont.
Mr. Bailey added that a homeowner whose income is below the threshold for federal income tax should still file a 1040 short form with the IRS in order to establish their eligibility for tax reductions in Vermont.
“We don’t want anyone to worry that they’ll have to leave their homes because of property taxes,” said Mr. Bailey.
Town-wide reappraisal
The town has received notice from the Vermont Department of Taxes that a town-wide reappraisal of property values will need to be undertaken.
The state uses metrics known as the Common Level of Appraisal (CLA) and the Coefficient of Dispersion (COD) to determine whether towns’ Grand Lists (the list of appraised values of all taxable properties) have kept pace with the local real-estate market. During times of rapid increases in value, a town’s Grand List may fall behind the fair-market value of the properties on the list.
The COD measures how far Grand List values are from the median fair-market value in the town. The more the Grand List values deviate from a town’s median, the higher the COD. The purpose of the COD is to ensure fairness in a town’s Grand List.
A “perfect” COD is zero, which means that all taxable properties on the Grand List have been appraised at exactly the same percentage of their fair-market value. For example, if every property is assessed at 100% of its fair-market value, the COD is zero. If every property is assessed at 50% of its fair-market value, the COD is also zero because all properties are being treated similarly. However, when there’s a disparity in assessed values vs. fair-market values, the COD rises.
Vermont law mandates a Grand List reappraisal when a town’s COD exceeds 20%, the point at which the state has determined that a town’s Grand List is not equitable. Currently, Brandon’s COD is 21.81%, triggering a mandatory town-wide reappraisal. Most towns in Rutland County currently have CODs above 20% and will need to be reappraised.
Mr. Bailey noted that the handful of appraisal companies in the area are booked out for years, so the reappraisal will not occur immediately.
He also noted that an increase in a property’s appraisal does not automatically result in an increase in property tax because taxes are based on the amount needed to be raised and not on a fixed percentage. For example, if the town budget remains the same but the Grand List value goes up, the municipal tax rate will actually go down because the town will not need to use the higher rate to reach its revenue goal, since property values are higher.
If the town needed to raise $1,000 from a Grand List worth $100,000, for example, it would use a tax rate of 1%. If the value of the Grand List increased to $200,000, though, the town would lower the tax rate to 0.5% in order to raise that same $1,000. If the town needed to raise $3,000 from a Grand List worth $200,000, by contrast, it would need to raise the tax rate to 1.5%.
The Board also designated the town manager as the town’s liaison with the state in all matters relating to the reappraisal.
Public comment
The only comment offered by the public was from a resident who praised Mr. Hopkins in his role as town manager, in light of the Board’s pending annual review of Mr. Hopkins’ performance.
Warrant
The Board unanimously approved a warrant in the amount of $104,146.30 to cover the town’s obligations and expenses.
