The Selectboard will meet on Monday night at 7 pm at the Town Center for the second of three meetings focused on the FY25 town budget (which will go into effect on July 1 of 2024). The public is encouraged to attend.

However, if 7 pm on Monday will not work for you, Town Manager Josh Arneson and I will be at the Richmond Free Library at 11 am tomorrow (Saturday) to go over the draft budget as it currently stands. Anyone is welcome to show up. We will have copies of the draft budget to hand out and review.

If you would like to look at the draft budget as it stands right now, you can see it at

https://www.richmondvt.gov/calendar/meeting/special-selectboard-budget-11-13-23

There's a lot there but most of it is details of the annual requests from charitable organizations and such. The key documents are 3a1, 3a2, 3a3, and 3a5. 3a4 is also of some interest.

* 3a1 and 3a2 are the same draft budget information, one in Excel format and one in PDF format. Please note that the Excel version has multiple tabs. It all starts on the FY25 Expense tab.

* 3a3 details our unassigned fund balances.

Unassigned funds are not the same thing as reserve funds; reserve funds are dollars set aside for specific future uses such as large purchases. Unassigned funds are dollars budgeted during a given fiscal year but not expended. For example, if we budget $23,611 for health and dental insurance for employees in the town administration department and do not spend all of it because of a vacancy. the unexpended money goes to the "unassigned" pot. We then spend this money in the next fiscal year instead of raising the same amount in taxes, leaving behind an unexpended amount to cover cash flow and emergency purchases (we target that unspent amount to be 15% of the budget).

There are two "unassigned" pots -- highway department monies, which are referred to as "restricted" unassigned funds because they can only be spent on highway department items, and all other monies, which are referred to as "unrestricted" and can be used to pay for expenses from any department.

You will note that document 3a3 shows a growth in the amount of unassigned funds at the end of each fiscal year, year over year. Some of this comes from "vacancy savings" -- salaries and benefits not paid to police employees we didn't have. We expect and hope that will trend back downwards as we work to fully staff the police department. Document 3a4 specifically addresses this question -- it shows four different options for how to budget for the police department.

3a5 is our draft capital plan. It is in Excel format and has multiple tabs, detailing the setting aside of and expending of reserve dollars for highway equipment, highway infrastructure, police, fire, admin, and so on. The goal of the capital plan is to save up for purchases rather than taking loans, and to avoid having seesawing tax rates.

I go into this much detail because I very much do not like asking people to vote on things they don't understand and didn't have a chance to comment on and contribute to. I am always available to answer questions; the same goes for the other members of the Selectboard and town staff. If 11 am on Saturday does not work for you and you cannot attend on Monday night, please reach out and we will find time to meet.

Youth Field Hockey Skills and Scrimmages

Jul 9, 2024, 5:30 to 7:30 PM

St. George Board of Abatement Meeting - July 11

Jul 11, 2024, 6 PM

Town Hall Event at Huntington Library July 11

Jul 11, 2024, 7 to 9 PM