The snow keeps coming—please stay safe out there. Kudos to Public Works for keeping our sidewalks and streets clear, even as many Vermont towns are running low on salt.
I'm speaking for myself here, and not the City nor the City Council.
January was largely about continued budget planning and deciding what will go on the April ballot. Below is a brief summary of what we were up to.
Budget
Over several meetings, the Council and staff discussed changes to the budget and clarified those numbers that were not finalized in December.
We now have a proposed General Fund budget of ~$12.9M. This represents an ~4.2% increase in the tax rate: making the property taxes on a median $280k home go up by $119.
There's a good overview here: https://www.essexjunction.org/fileadmin/files/Administration/Clerk/Annual_Meeting/Open_House_Posters_FINAL.pdf
From a high level, this is pretty flat budget. Most of the increase is driven by fixed costs, particularly a roughly 10% increase in health insurance costs for staff, expected to hit in the second half of the fiscal year.
Ballot Initiatives
There’s a lot on the April ballot this year. Below is a high-level summary to help provide context as you think about April.
Ballot Initiative: City Councilor Stipends
There are three questions regarding City Council stipends, all coming out of the Governance Committee:
1) Increasing councilor stipends from $2,500 to $3,800
2) Setting the Council President’s stipend at 25% more than other councilors
3) Indexing stipends to increase with inflation
Councilor Haney and I abstained when this came before Committee. When the questions reached the full Council, the vote to place them on the ballot was 4–1, with me voting in the minority.
I’ll share my full statement in a separate post.
Ballot Initiative: Charter Change Committee
As part of the Governance Committee’s work, we spoke with officials from several similarly sized Vermont municipalities. One model we learned from was Brattleboro’s Charter Change Committee, which periodically reviews the town charter for needed updates.
Nothing prevents the Council or the public from proposing charter changes at any time, but this provides a structured, regular review.
Ballot Initiative: Postmarks
In Vermont, property tax payments that are postmarked on time are generally considered on time, even if they arrive late. There is also an 8% penalty for late payments. Both the deadlines and the penalty are set by state law. However, a municipality can vote to change the deadline part. That's this ballot initiative.
Because mail delivery can be slow, payments mailed on time sometimes arrive weeks late, creating extra work for staff to reverse penalties and interest. As a new municipality, Essex Junction has not yet voted on whether to accept postmarks or instead require payments to
arrive by the deadline.
My view: allowing postmarks is easier for taxpayers, while requiring arrival is easier for staff. I believe we should err on the side of taxpayers. The vote to place this question on the ballot was
4–1, with me voting in the minority.
The practical effect:
Vote NO if you want postmarks to count as on time
Vote YES if you if you want payments to arrive at 2 Lincoln Street by the deadline
Please read the ballot language carefully and decide what feels right to you.
Ballot Initiative: Bond Issues
The first authorizes borrowing up to $892k to identify and mitigate lead in underground water infrastructure. This functions more like a line of credit: if no remediation is needed, the funds would not be drawn. I support this bond issue.
The second proposes to build a new Public Works garage off Jackson Street. I strongly support Public Works staff and improving their working conditions, but I voted against placing this bond on the ballot. In my view, we can meet these goals goals for significantly less than $13M.
Conclusion
If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to me or any of my fellow Councilors, or join us at one of our public engagement opportunities: https://www.essexjunction.org/news/item/city-council-engagement-on-ballot-articles-2026
I look forward to hearing from you.
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Brian Shelden
City Councilor
bshelden@essexjunction.org
(802) 879-7665
