OFFICE OF THE SELECTBOARD
TOWN OF HALIFAX, VERMONT
SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES
February 2, 2024
4:00 PM AT THE HALIFAX TOWN OFFICE
CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 4:03pm by Pete Silverberg. Other selectboard members attending were Tristan Roberts virtually, and Edee Edwards and Karen Christofferson in person. Patty Dow also was in attendance in person.
CHANGES AND ADDITIONS TO THE AGENDA
Edwards asked to add Treasurer’s Report for the Town Meeting to the Agenda.
Edwards and Christofferson will share meeting minutes responsibilities.
OLD BUSINESS
Review and confirm budget schedules for Town Report
Christofferson shared the Selectboard’s BUDGET worksheet FY25 file from the last Selectboard Meeting. No changes, other than formatting, were made in the interim.
Unresolved changes were walked through point by point.
There were no questions with the Highway Budget.
With the Selectboard Budget, unresolved items or questions were reviewed individually. They included – the FY22 Medicare budget line item was confirmed. Also, account line 6250 SB total was incorrect in the original spreadsheet and book because account 6267 was missed in the formula to calculate the total. Account 6000 in the FY23 Budget column was keyed in directly rather than a calculation. The calculated number was $364,773. The corrections will be left as is, and Christofferson will add comments in the relevant cells for future reference.
Following a discussion initiated by Roberts as to the precision of the definitions used in the column with the header Fixed, Commodity or Flexible, the board decided not to include a schedule called “Selectboard Discretionary Analysis” in the Town Report, but to keep it in for reference. The definitions of categories and some of the labels might need more work. The columns for Fixed, Flexible, Commodity, and not applicable N/A) will remain in the two budget worksheets and be printed in the Town Report.
Silverberg reviewed last year’s VLCT guidance that said voters can amend the budget by line item. Ideally, the Selectboard themselves presents a tight budget, but voters could propose changes.
There was a discussion about whether we could have a projector and screen at the informational and town meeting. The logistics for this are not something Dow can add to her duties for that very busy election/Town meeting day.
At 4:47pm, the equipment schedules were initially skipped, and we looked at the Surplus (Deficit) schedule. (Note: Surplus(Deficit) is an accounting format that means “Surplus or Deficit”. Deficits are denoted by negative numbers or surrounded with parentheses.)
A discussion ensued regarding an unexpected payment received by the Town from the School. The wording around the “school rebate” used in the schedule was discussed. Dow described this as an overpayment received from the school after the State reconciliation of school taxes is done. The reconciliation is basically the result of Homestead Declarations calculated against the Grand List, which resulted in $64,973.98 (Note: This is the more precise number versus the $64,000 estimate used at the January 25, 2024 meeting.) being returned to the Town this year. A discussion ensued and the final calculation of the tax revenue shortfall from last year’s warning article was reconciled. It was corrected by $973.78, which was the difference in the actual versus estimated amount for the “school rebate”. Adding this together, the full deficit was calculated as ($180,797), which is being added into the FY25 budget so we can pay our obligations. Including the FY24 Budget as approved at last year’s Town Meeting. All of these edits/corrections led to the recalculation and finalization of the Raise & Appropriate amount to be included in the FY25 Proposed Budget..
At 5:42pm, Roberts had to sign off the meeting.
Upon further review, Dow asked that we amend the Surplus(Deficit) schedule by changing some figures which should have been on the “Expense” side. The Account 8210 and 8220 line items were t to the Self-Funded side. This further reduced the FY23 year end deficit to $27,271, and the final calculation of the entire line of money needed to fill the budget hole from FY23 & FY24 issues to $180,797, down from $194,296.
At 6:45pm, Edwards made a motion to approve the budget revisions so that the final amount is a total of $2,426,996 of which $1,962,296 is raised by taxes and $464,700 is non-tax revenue. Silverberg seconded. The motion carried 3-0.
The order of adding the schedules was discussed:
- Selectboard
- Highway
- Raise & Appropriate
- Surplus/Deficit
- Equipment schedule
- Vehicle finance schedule
At 6:50pm the Equipment Schedule and Vehicle Finance schedules were discussed. Edwards made the point that the sudden change to a 7-year replacement schedule would further add to future budgets, but that the Selectboard as a whole had not discussed this in detail. This was updated following a recent meeting with Michael Fournier, Peter Silverberg, and Karen Christofferson to verify the highway and eqiopment schedules and further discuss replacement timing requirements. Christofferson and Silverberg noted that the 7-year replacement timeframes were “Optimal Life Span” replacement timeframes in order to minimize costs from Maintenance and Repairs and maximize vehicle trade in values. Christofferson added back the column with the “Original Lifespan” replacement years to be consistent with the information shared in prior Town Meeting reports.
At 7:02pmThe Treasurer’s report was discussed. Edwards noted a concern that nothing we had put in the town meeting book detailed the income. Dow decided to add the P&L as in past years. She said that McAllister had asked for a number of separate schedules for the auditors to review that also aren’t included, but adding back in the P&L was an easy task. Christofferson noted that she felt full professional audits should be done every year, due to the amount of work it takes to reconcile all of this, with Quickbooks being a very difficult tool to use. Silverberg noted the need for new software that would be appropriate for Municipal Finance. We did not add software and training costs to the FY25 budget pending further discussion.
At 7:19pm Edwards shared her screen and reviewed the Town Meeting Warning.
- Town Meeting Warning Articles
- Walk through of all of them
- Is anything missing?
- Signatures on final town warning
- Next steps: Patty to post physically; Edee to post on website
Edwards described her conversation with Katie Buckley from VLCT, in particular, Edwards led a discussion regarding the addition of Article 5 to the Warning that would rescind and redeposit $136,056.46 from the Grant Reserve Fund to the General Fund. Christofferson read the timing requirements from Katie Buckley’s October 2023 presentation for funding so as not to necessitate return to the U.S. Treasury if not compliant. A discussion regarding Account 5440, the P&L Income line item for Grants ensued to address and confirm that the apparent variance of $33,371 was resolved. Dow reported that the amount of $136,056.46 was correct.
At 8:15pm Dow noted that the Cemetery Request for funding had increased to $23,714 versus the amount shown in the Selectboard Budget of $18,691. A discussion ensued and the $23,714 amount was updated.
At 8:35pm the members of the Selectboard signed the Warning.
Edwards discussed the Agenda for the next meeting on February 6th and timing to post the warning.
ADJOURNMENT
8:38pm Christofferson moved to Adjourn the meeting. Silverberg seconded. The motion carried 3-0 and the recording was turned off.
Meeting Recording: https://youtu.be/9QFrd_svww0