At Thursday’s Brattleboro Selectboard meeting, I joined Amanda Thurber in voting against the proposed 27 million dollar budget because Brattleboro municipal taxes have far outpaced wage growth. At selectboard meetings, in the street, and Thursday at the Senior Center, I kept hearing, “Enough.”
We need to stick up for everyday folks who are working for a living, trying to save for the future, and wanting to give their children a better future.
The Brattleboro RTM Finance Committee will meet on Monday, January 26, 2026, at 6:00pm in the Hanna Cosman Meeting Room.
The Brattleboro Arts Committee will meet on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, at 5:00pm in the Brooks Memorial Library Meeting Room.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will hold a special meeting on Thursday, January 22, 2026, at 6:15pm in the Selectboard Meeting Room at the Brattleboro Municipal Center (230 Main Street, Room 212) and over Zoom. The attached agenda contains information on how to access the meeting remotely, including the required “passcode.” Closed captioning will be available for deaf and hard-of-hearing community members. The backup materials for this meeting will be available on the town website by the end of the day.
The Brattleboro Selectboard, where I’ve served as clerk since last spring, has repeatedly committed to prioritize fiscal responsibility. Now the rubber meets the road — We have an opportunity to align our actions with our words.
The selectboard has tough decisions to make. At our meeting Tuesday night we prioritized honest budgeting for a more realistic picture of expected revenue and expenses. We restored funding for critical infrastructure for our bridges, retaining walls and bicycles. And we unanimously passed my motion to restore the finance director position. If we can stick with these decisions, we will set the town up for better financial health and stability.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will hold a special meeting on Thursday, January 15, 2026, at 7:00pm in the Selectboard Meeting Room (230 Main Street, Room 212) and over Zoom. The attached agenda includes information on how to access the meeting remotely. Closed captioning will be available for deaf and hard of hearing community members.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, January 13, 2026, at 6:15pm in the Selectboard Meeting Room at the Brattleboro Municipal Center (230 Main Street, Room 212) and over Zoom. The attached agenda contains information on how to access the meeting remotely, including the required “passcode.” Closed captioning will be available for deaf and hard-of-hearing community members. The backup materials for this meeting will be available on the town website by the end of the day.
PAYT Bags, FY27 and a Town Policy on encampments are all planned for the next regular meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard – the first of the new year.
A discussion of town-owned parcels of land was focused primarily on parcels that are vacant and have the potential to be built upon, be they parking lots or watersheds. The board asked the planning department to continue their investigation of land that might be sold, conserved, or developed.
Windham and Windsor Housing Trust closed out a grant, and the board heard from a number of departments about their FY27 budget requests.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will find out what land the Town owns might be suitable for housing during their next regular Tuesday meeting. They’ll also hear from many more departments about their budget request for FY27, and hold a quick close out hearing for a scattered site grant with WWHT.
You can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation.
The main components of the $2 million dollar increase in Special Education funding includes:
● An increase in intensive services at the elementary level including medically fragile students and the need for specialized equipment and technologies.
● An increase of $700,000 in benefits with the majority in health insurance as well as about $500,000 in contractual salary increases. It was noted that it is a new occurrence that an increase in benefits is now larger than salary. The balance of the increase is from the additional need for contracted services for evaluations and specialists such as speech language pathologist and psychologist services.
The Windham Southeast School District Independent Budget Review Committee will meet Tuesday, December 9, 2025 at 6:00PM at The Academy School and remotely via Zoom.
The Brattleboro Finance Committee will meet on Monday, December 8, 2025 in the Hanna Cosman Meeting Room at 6:00pm.
Ruby McAdoo noted that the next step in the budget development process will be at the full WSESD Board meeting 12/16/25. Working with the Board Chair, the budget review will be earlier on the agenda to encourage public involvement. The Communications Committee will be spreading the word about this meeting.
Despite the weather conditions, the Brattleboro Selectboard went forth with their first meeting of December. Being a very long meeting, I decided to jump in somewhere around the time of the discussion of health care changes and voting on RTM, which appeared on the agenda for roughly 8:15, which was actually more like 9pm.
The board covered the DPW, Rec & Parks, Library and DID budget requests. Interestingly, they decided to hold public hearing to gather important feedback from the public about declaring an emergency and making it more difficult for social service and charitable use organizations to exist. This will be at a special meeting of the selectboard to be held December 22nd, overseen by Mr. Potter.
Frank Rucker reviewed the proposed budget summary (linked above). The percent change is currently at a 2% change. When developing a budget, meeting student needs as well as inflation rates are heavily considered in order to put forth a fiscally responsible budget.
Nancy Wiese shared information about the budget development for WRCC. She spoke to the challenge specific to WRCC; if a position is reduced, then a program is eliminated. Using carefully designed solutions, this year she is able to present a zero increase budget. This will not be sustainable in the future, but is the case this year. Currently the culinary program is being rebuilt and will be offered again next year.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will continue work on the FY27 budget at their first regular meeting in December. From the way it is scheduled, this could be a VERY long meeting. The agenda-setters have the final item beginning AFTER 10 PM, and we all know how good they are at estimating agenda starting times.
In addition to hearing from Rec & Parks, the Library, the downtown organization, and Public Works about their budgets for FY27, the board will take up the bigger items of a change of health care providers, a discussion of options for voting to end Representative Town meeting, a new potential zoning change to start controlling “social assistance or charitable services” through conditional use permits, a monthly budget update, and anything else the public wants to bring up during public participation.
The Windham Southeast School District Finance Committee Meetingwill meet Monday November 24, 2025 at 5:00pm in the WSESU James Kane Conference Room, 53 Green St. Brattleboro, VT, and remotely via Zoom.
The Brattleboro Selectboard was focused on budget and finance issues for most of their meeting. Near the beginning of the long meeting, they adopted a new solid waste plan, agreed to a contract with Casella for three years, and decided to add additional fees to the already-increased PAYT bag costs in an effort to help keep expenses down for some people in a program TBD.
Fireworks are expensive, but drones are even more expensive so Brattleboro will continue to pay for the joyful explosions upsetting pets and people with PTSD.
In the budget presentations, the police department made accusations against a selectboard member that they said accused the police department when asking questions at a recent meeting. And the fire department really wants a 42 hour work week and four platoons instead of the 56 hour week and three platoons they currently suffer under.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will be working on the budget at their next regular meeting. The Police and Fire departments are scheduled to present their FY27 requests. The Town will also adopt a new solid waste contract and program, raising your PAYT bag prices and having DPW expand to pick up compost.
The board will also discuss trespass warnings and fireworks, and you can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation.
The Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) is currently in the process of developing a budget that will be presented for vote at the WSESD Annual Meeting on March 17, 2026.
Suggestions for Community Engagement in the Budget Development Process:
Engage with School Administrators & Leadership Councils: The budget development process is underway in our district. Each administrator is developing their portion of the WSESD budget to reflect the values of their school and community. The Leadership Councils can be a place to engage with this work.
Attend Finance Committee Meetings: A critical part of the budget development process takes place in the review of the draft WSESD budget by the Finance Committee. Meetings are open to all to attend.
