BARNARD
Town Meeting Tues., March 1 at 10 a.m. (Floor Vote) Barnard Town Hall
BARNARD — It appears there will be lots of balls in the air at Barnard’s Town Meeting on March 1. In addition to electing a moderator, a lister, an auditor, a delinquent tax collector, and first and second constables, voters will be asked to choose someone to fulfill the last two years of Tom Morse’s select board seat, from which he is retiring after holding the position for almost 30 years, and to re-elect or replace selectman Tim Johnson, whose three-year term in office expires at Town Meeting.
According to Morse, which people might be interested in running for his seat or against Johnson will remain a mystery until March 1, as Barnard, which doesn’t use Australian balloting for town elections, does not require contenders to register or collect petitions announcing their intention to run. Nominations are made at the Town Meeting, followed by the voting.
Warnings include a proposal to build a new Emergency Services Facility next to Town Hall. The project is split into two phases: $1,300,000 for building the facility itself, and another $100,000 to install solar panels on its roof. Prior to Town Meeting Fire Chief Scott Mills will hold an information session for the public, complete with a model of the proposed building. Voters will be asked to approve financing the project.
Assuming voters approve the proposal, building would be financed with a standard construction loan; the decision of how to finance the facility long-term would be made upon completion. As the building would be on town-owned land and the Fire Department has no way to finance it, the town would either take out the loan or issue the bonds, and lease the facility to the BVFD for a nominal rental.
The proposed school budget for Barnard Academy includes two different scenarios, depending on whether voters approve setting up “a reserve fund for the purpose of supporting contractual obligations upon the retirement of professional staff.”
If the fund is approved, the school budget would be $1,224,896. If not, it would be $1,184,896, which would indicate the proposed fund would be $40,000. Last year’s school budget was $1,117,928. The select board was told that the school tax should be going down this year, as the penalty regarding per/pupil spending has gone down, and there is a surplus from 2015-16 after special needs expenses decreased.
The town is proposing a budget of $1,558,276 versus last year’s budget of $1,445,376, or an increase of 7.8 percent. This will increase the property tax rate from 20.4 cents per $100 of assessed value, to approximately 21.99 cents. For the owner of a home assessed for $200,000, this would mean a tax increase of about $32.
Morse said the expected decrease in the school tax rate would mitigate the increase in the town rate. “I’d guess the overall tax rate would be about the same or up a little.”
— Curt Peterson
This article first appeared in the February 25, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.