The first regular meeting of the month was relatively short, though the public took full advantage of Public Participation. Many talked about a beautiful space on Elliot Street, 69A, that is part art gallery, part safe space, part… whatever you want it to be.
The board also heard a summary of the June 2025 Finance Report. It is the almost-final report that could change, but is nearing a stage where an auditor can look it over. Except the Town is having a bit of trouble finding an auditor.
Preliminaries
They start…. late. Then there is just audio, then… it freezes, then…
Chair Elizabeth McLoughlin – inflatables. A family night the police have designed. Bridge Week Celebration – at the Creamery Covered Bridge. Watch a film about covered bridges. Free ice cream. A nice event by a number of organizations.
Town Manager John Potter – water and sewer bills were mailed out; payment is due soon. Tax bills also mailed, also due on the 15th. The state’s paving project around town – overnight parking is not allowed in the work areas. There are electronic message boards outside. The milling downtown will be tonight. Downtown work will be going on for the remainder of the summer. On Monday, police and others found someone without a pulse, they did CPR, then took him to the hospital, and now he has survived.
Amanda Ellis-Thurber – Tomorrow, art our farm, we are doing a fundraiser of BCTV and WVEW. Food, flowers, live broadcasts, at Lilac Ridge Farm on Ames Hill Road.
(Peter’s chair is broken).
Katy – 69A Community Space – I want to share about it. WE rented a space asking what is needed, and throw open the idea we all have things to share. It’s an evolving space with people bringing food, dance, films, art, and a site of care and meeting people’s needs in a beautiful way. We are an art gallery for all, just come in and be yourself. There is an amazing artists by Trish this month. Trish made beautiful lamps and picture frames… there are many stories like this. A haven. Our mission is to take care of people and let everyone be seen and heard. We take donations. There has been a lot of support. We’re trying to find solutions together in town. We are all in it together. We are here to figure out what is going on together.
(There is an echo that is distracting her).
Liz – are you a licensed social service provider?
Katy – I’m an artist, and have a…
Isaac – if we are to interrogate people shouldn’t we put this on the agenda…
Liz – Okay thank you Katy.
Caitlin – I will also talk about 69A. I have a decade plus experience as a community organizer, and have an MFA in performing art. I have taught, and have been at 69A since it opened. I want to put this on the public record – there have been so many rumors and accusations floating around. I want to say outlaid what the space is. It is a sober space. It is an art gallery. It is licensed and zoned. It is paid for privately by artists with a history of social practice. It is functioning as that. It is a community center art gallery. I have an MFA, de-escalation trained, NARCAN trained. Lisa and Dave have done this work for decades. There are complaints about emergency services being called. The only difference is that these people have emergencies in a place where people know you. That is 69A – people ar taking care of one another.
Liz – your time is up.
Randy – I want to thank over 500 voters who want the Australian ballot – it will be on the ballot for town voters in the near future. Second, I want to say after being here for a year and a half, I want to thank everyone who has participated in meetings. We have made strides in accounting and practices, and we need to strive for improvement. We have resilience and determination and can always do better.
Martha – I’d like to support the board, police, traffic safety committee, and traffic issues people. I’d like to bring light to the issues on Western Ave, near Exit 2 moving west to the Creamery. I live on Orchard St. There is an increase of people parking on Orchard Street. There are paper signs there now, and hope for permanent signs. There is also congestion at Country Deli. I’d be interested in the findings and suggestions
Bob O – two people mentioned 69A. I’m not affiliated but have been there weekly for a while. It is an excellent place for connection and admire what the people are doing there. Do a shout out to them. It’s a heavy lift and they are really trying. Drop in , or contact men and we can go together.
Dick D – John, an update on the railroad and the right of way access, and have we contacted DOT to get light synchronization – something needs to happen there. Nothing has gotten better. Last thing, especially new members… the new members talked about a review of the budget process. It is Aug 5th with nothing on the agenda. Won’t meet until Sept 11. What kind of review will you do right before budgets. People are shocked about their tax bills. It was disappointing. You and RTM got cracks at it. You aren’t pushing for much of a review. Why hasn’t it happened?
Liz – the increase from last year was 2.9% for property tax, and at our retreat the budget was 80% of our conversation. Processes and structure for the upcoming budget.
Oscar – We discussed it. There will probably be more to come. The process will start earlier and we will do some things differently.
John – the RR right of way – we have been struggling to reach the correct person, but did get put on the right tracks… course. The VTrans lights – we try to tweak those but small adjustments effect other things. DPW says the best thing would be a traffic study, but that is expensive, so maybe VTRans can do that to help us out, but don’t know if that will happen. We know it is an issue.
Jane – I want to share a story. At 69A at the last Gallery Walk I was hanging out there. I”very much been going in there every day. I get a boost. before going to work. I bring some excess food, and moving material around. People offer to help me. At Gallery Walk – teens and parents and older folks all came in, and there was a funny little guitar and I was singing, and other people came in with skateboards and we were signing. It really fed my heart. Someone had a hard night at the end, but was in a safe space. There was other art happening, and took the burden off someone being in a crisis. A good example of family and the commitment to family – our chosen family – it is hard to have a relationship and move through conflict when you don’t have time for the food and art… 69A has that in that kind of space. I’ve made lots of friends and am grateful and honored to speak to it.
Gary S – VTrans question – what they say doesn’t match with what they are doing – I thought Canal Street would be done by now. Can a rep come to the next meeting to explain. There were days they didn’t show up. Can we get someone down here? When is the end game of this project?
Liz – we can make that an agenda item.
Abby – 3 points. One is echoing the uplifting 69A Elliot and the much needed services it offers as existing as a free space. They have public bathrooms, a need in our town for years. They have two, very clean. It is a sober space. No drug use. I hope community support grows. I also want to uplift the Moover – I hope that whenever there are opportunities for the town to fund them we do it. It is much needed services – I rode around with my daughter the other day. Rode all around. It was joyful, filled with community connection, everyone knew everyone else. Third, often times people talk about how the town can’t do everything, and the federal government is impacting every level of support, and the state, too. I don’t trust the state is there other protect us, that means more need to protect ourselves locally.
Liz – I feel the Moover is a huge sustainability element in town.
Consent Agenda
Kinney Drugs Second Class Liquor License- Approve
Melchen Road Slope Stabilization – Award $100,640 Bid
Oak Grove Sidewalk – Award $158,000 Bid
Williams Street Wall – Ratify $10,800 Change
So consented!
June 2025 Finance Report – Year End (Unaudited)
Potter – I’ll ask Sally Cruz Nix and Bonnie Batchelder to come up, too. As you know, since we don’t have a finance director, Sally has been covering much oversight, and Bonnie is the financial consultant CFO for the town.
Sally – we contracted professional services with her back in April 2025. She helped develop the approved budget. She’s been working with us on budget development, works with Open Gov budget portal, and will present the year end for FY25.
Bonnie – I know that you have the memo and I’ll go over some highlights. Keep in mind these are figures that are current and the town is on a modified cruel basis, so there is a still a window to do adjustments. These numbers will change. The general fund came in 107%, with expenses at 112%. The deficit is $927k, but there was a use of fund of $269k, and another 852k, so you are covered in that deficit and have a bit of a buffer there. We do have adjustments to make so that may change. The cash balance is 14 million. Receivables is a topic of discussion – all those have been in the financials all along except for the EMS receivables. There is 900k to offset those. Revenue highlights – EMS – 1.5 million including a receivable of 38%. Bonds and notes exceed… benefits were over budget. Solid waste was over budget. FD overbought due to overtime. Police overbought due to downtown safety and overtime. Utilities fund – revenues are 106% and expenses were 95%. Of the surplus, there are receivables we need to book. Parking fund has a deficit, but we have depreciation to break even. Various other reports are in the memo. Questions?
Oscar Heller – really grateful to have you doing this. Any receivable talk by me is because it is confusing. There are notable things in the line items, but we;’ve been tracking them. the $2000k accelerated payment – that was an item we chose to do to save the payment to reduce the budget?
Potter – reduced by $50k
Oscar – a cost we were to pay later we paid now… I was wondering were are we with the audit. Have we found a new person?
Bonnie – we sent out an RFP and it is difficult. We’ll do a follow up. No responses yet. I will start calling people and telling them this is in good shape for auditing. We will find one. It might take time.
Oscar – other employee contributions – actuals are zero – are those receivables?
Bonnie – that number isn’t really accurate. There is a portion paid by the town. There is no revenue captured there.
Isaac – thanks so much – could you break this down for me. The difference between revenue and receivables – what is the difference?
Bonnie – hmm.. The receivables is revenue particularly related to FY25 that has not been received. We are required to record it. It isn’t cash, it is revenue we hope to receive in the next 60 days. You’ve got close to 1.1 million.
Isaac – wasn’t some of that transferred from another fund?
Potter -w e set aside $250k in special projects to cover start up costs, in that 1.1 million. Even without that we are above the budget for EMS reimbursements.
Amanda – thanks for coming – it helps us all.
Public –
Brian – who reimburses the EMS?
Potter – we can probably provide that.
Brian – is there a website we can look at – is it all state medicaid coming back?
Liz – the FD has that data.
Brian – so I can get past info?
Liz – you can get it from previous meetings. Email the town manager.
Dick D – I went through the line items and have 100 questions, but the big one – benefits were over, and I had asked in April when the board was redoing the budget and they found that it had been underfunded for calculations for payroll and taxes, around $400k?
Liz – that included 3 firefighter positions…
Dick – it was a significant number, and John told the board that we had a real huge deficit. Who is responsible for those numbers, part of this budget we are looking at, but the tax calculations for benefits and taxes made the error in the budget, and that’s a significant amount of money. That’s a huge financial mistake. Doesn’t anyone wonder why the mistake was made? Someone should have to answer for the huge financial impact in the budget.
Liz – I’m sure the answer was in our budget meetings.
Potter – between 1-200k – less than half a percent of the whole budget. It is significant and we don’t like to make underestimates, and Bonnie is helping us fix errors. Budgets are an art, not a science. Things change.
Kate O – I want to clarify the 250k into EMS that isn’t EMS revenue. WE have 65k more than anticipated. EMS receivables… there is a time when we won’t go after collecting, when does that time come and what will we really capture in FY25 – we say $399k in receivables – how much do we expect and when is the cutoff. We’ve been asking for two years for an aging report that shows when bills were sent and paid. Everything stops in public works to pay for these other things. It is a big deal when we look at how the money is spent.
Liz – the FD report has the EMS details.
Potter – it is great that we did very well on reimbursements. We expect 38% to come in.
Oscar – we have been talking about the aging report and are trying tow work that out. The 38% is an overall estimate. You’d expect the remaining claims are less likely to be paid. $400k in receivables is close to $1 million in billing. The other fair point is we were on track for a big deficit and operationally reeled it back in – did we do it sustainably? A conversation to have going forward.
Potter – we saved across the board in many departments, not just DPW.
David L – There are 19 pages of line items, some positive and some negative. I noticed some smaller patterns that are notable. I was unable to do a word search in the document but it seems like – for some minor revenue items there are overestimates in a number of them. The town might want to budget more conservatively for revenues. Telephone is underestimated. Gas and utilities are underestimated. And it looks like there was underspending – deferrals? – in DPW and those could be costly.
Randy B – Thanks for more info. Can we do more trend analysis? Can Open Gove Gove town staff tools to see the trends for budgeting? We need to watch the trends. Budget accuracy is important. Cost controls is a major thing, to catch it sooner or make a change.
Amanda – the idea of forecasting. The line of tax abatement – we budgeted 10k and spent 20k and that forecasts it is a bad year?
Liz – it has to do with legislative…
Potter – no, it is when listers give an abatement to someone experiencing hardship.
Kate O – with EMS receivables – we have until August 30 to make changes – does that mean money coming in after August 30… does it always get backfilled, or applied forward…
Bonnie – the Aug 31 date is when we finish the dates for modified accrual. If the audit hasn’t happened and we get a windfall for FY25, we can put it in FY25. If the audit has taken place, it would go to FY26.
Randy – the EMS money is very complicated – some pay cash, others have federal programs paying, others have private insurance. The mix is a bouncing ball and spends on a lot of things. Unless we publish it more regularly, we don’t know where we are at.
Gary S – Curious to know do you also deal with risk management? Does the auditor determine certain futures to help guide what is coming down now with increases and taxes?
Potter – Everything we do is risk management and we try to balance it all the time. We try to mitigate things through the year and hope to do better in budgets.
Board Nomination for the Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV) Board
They move to accept the finance report. It’s approved 5-0.
Board Nomination for the Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV) Board
Liz – we have the board nomination.
Potter – we received a letter from the president of the BCTV Board and ..
Garret Harkawik – we used to have members of the selectboard or town staff on board, then it stopped, so we want to bring it back. We ask that you do it again, and Seth Thomas would love to do it, so we ask you nominate him, then when he is done, nominate someone new.
Liz – seems easy.
Seth Thomas nominated, and approved!
Liz – that is the end of the agenda… I have two more motions… we are returning to executive session (contracts) and also another (real estate) inviting Town Atty, DPW, Assist DPW, Solid Waste Consultant and Human Service Director