In her Reformer commentary, “I won’t be silenced,” Elizabeth McLoughlin claims to be committed to the Town’s “stability, safety, and fiscal health” and, so, wishes another three-year term on the Selectboard. When it comes to stability and fiscal health, Ms. McLoughlin has been a forceful member of a board that delivered an 11.4% Town property tax increase last year and is presenting a 6.3% increase for next year. Even so, we ran a deficit in FY24, and there may have been a deficit also in FY25—we don’t know on the last because the formal audit which is normally available in the fall won’t be completed until May or June.
Stability for the Town means we are prepared to deal with shocks. But while McLoughlin has been a leader on the board, the unassigned fund balance that is intended to serve as a reserve fund for emergencies has been reduced to less than half of the Selectboard’s own guideline. The Revolving Loan Fund, intended to support community and economic development, is projected to be down over $800,000 (a third) since FY24. Stability also requires investing in our aging infrastructure, but streets and sidewalks, to mention just two areas, have been starved.
An important piece of this fiscal dysfunction is the Selectboard decision, goaded by Ms. McLoughlin, to spend—in the middle of a fiscal year—more than $800,000 on the police and the creation of the Brattleboro Resource Assistance Team. This budget-busting measure was declared necessary because there was an “emergency” even though people downtown were complaining about problems a full two years earlier. Dither until you want to declare an emergency. There is anecdotal but no systematic evidence that the Downtown Safety Action Plan has led to improvements in public safety, but this action has undermined our fiscal health. The Selectboard was warned that this was an unbudgeted program with recurrent costs, to which the response was that it would be figured out later. When is later?
Brattleboro can do better than elect Ms. McLoughlin to another three-year term.
