Town Meeting Day brought communities across the state together this week to weigh in on a wide range of issues.

I think town meeting is a wonderful opportunity for communities to come together and listen to people who and and listen hard to people who don't see the world through the same lens they do.

We'll recap results and hear how school budgets fared this year, plus a federal program to reform how the state pays for health care.

Faces an uncertain future.

All that and more ahead on Vermont this Week.

From the Vermont Public studio in Winooski.

This is Vermont this Week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Thanks for joining us on Vermont this Week I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, March 7th, and joining us on the panel this week, April McCullumfrom Vermont Public, Peter Dejoria from VtDigger.

And Aaron Calvin from the Stowe Reporter, news and Citizen.

Thank you all so much for being here.

Of course, we're going to be talking about Town Meeting Day and what a difference a year makes.

School districts across the state breathed a sigh of relief this week as over 90% of spending plans one voter approval this year, a big change from last town meeting day, where nearly a third of the budget's failed budgets passed in at least 101 districts on Tuesday that, according to preliminary data compiled by the state's superintendent and school boards associations and failed in just nine districts, many of which typically have trouble passing their budgets.

In any case, April Mccollam, I want to start with you on this, situation here again, you know, big difference this year to last 90% of these budgets passing.

What do we what's the early take on why these budgets, had such better voter approval this year?

Well, in a lot of cases, the school districts were being quite conservative with their budgeting, cutting positions, even making unpopular choices, and trying to keep things level as much as they could, even though they had cost pressures that were were pushing the budget up, even just with the status quo.

There wasn't as much of a threat of a giant tax increase this year like there was last year.

There also wasn't the chaos of some of the legislative maneuvering that we saw last year, where there was this last minute scramble to try to delay things.

So just overall a more smoother year, for approval.

But of course, there's this bigger conversation happening about education finance reform.

And I don't think the pressure is really going to let up that much on that conversation.

Yeah.

And the governor was quick to point out, too, that, you know, he says we shouldn't really be celebrating this.

I mean, it looks like budgets are going up about 6% or just under that a little bit differently, different than 16% from the year before.

So that is that is a kind of a win there.

But, you know, there are still pressures on the budgets here.

And he wants something to get done, for governance in the future and financing for education.

Right, right.

Because I mean, next year there's going to be more cost pressures.

And like, this is just going to continue.

And so even though they can get through this year, there's, there's some communities where things are getting to an unsustainable level and, that's not going to go away, you know, but again, most of these budgets passing and on first tries, Peter Duryea, something that I found really interesting about this is that we know that health care costs for schools are really going through the roof.

We have a graphic, that we're going to show you here.

You know, since 2018, it looks like they have more than doubled these health care premiums for school employees.

So, you know, given that and given that these are tied to to some of the school budgets, how is it that schools were able to to come up with these reasonable for voters anyway, budgets, given these health care costs?

Yeah, that's a great point.

I mean, this is one of the really, really big, pressures that is, you know, driving up these school budgets, driving up these, these property tax rates.

In 2018, you know, health care was something like 10%, of school spending statewide.

And now it's, it's 15%.

I mean, you saw that that chart that you just showed.

So districts have had to made had to make as April's talking about just a lot of, a lot of choices and really, really lean.

You know, we reported, that, something, you know, I think the NEA estimated something like 300 to 400, positions had been cut statewide.

You know, this is teachers.

This is, a classroom assistance.

This is admin roles, this is, you know, bus service in some cases, nursing staff cutting, like, classrooms.

So, yeah, school districts are really, really cognizant of, I think, some of the chaos that you mentioned certainly last year and really trying to avoid that and trying to make cuts where they can.

So these budgets pass.

Yeah.

We're going to come to some of these health care, cost and situations a little bit later in the show because it really is quite striking.

Now, in addition to weighing in on school budgets, some towns were also considering what to do with school buildings that are no longer being used as education facilities.

What did the voters of Belvidere have to say about their town school building?

So the future of their school was a major topic at their town meeting day, even though there was no, binding resolution made.

It's kind of a microcosm or a specific example of an issue that I think has affected and will affect a lot of small towns throughout Vermont, Belvidere as a population of 358 people, one of the smallest towns in Vermont, their town meeting comprised about 25 people in Belvidere Central School.

It's one of the only buildings in the town large enough to host a public gathering of that size.

Used to, host a pre-K cohort, until that cohort was merged with neighboring Waterville in a round of budget cuts to the Liberal North Supervisory Union last year.

Now, they are faced with whether or not the town wants to take ownership of this building.

And there is sort of a dilemma that they're faced with their budget, their town, municipal budget is only about 250 $100,000.

The cost, the annual cost of running of maintaining this building would be about $100,000, according to, some school board members.

So that's a sizable cost for those taxpayers to take on.

That's right up against it.

Yeah, right.

And, you know, so some are raising alarm that like, you know, we can't afford this, but other people are saying we have the opportunity to acquire a space like this.

That doesn't come along very often.

And, you know, the Belvidere Community Club, which hosts events in that town, has been using it to hold events during the winter, and bring the community together.

So it's really quite a dilemma.

Okay.

A larger than usual number of Vermont municipalities consider local option taxes for Town Meeting Day this year, with a mixed response from the voters.

Some of the reasons behind those proposals were rising costs and climate and health care crises, a desire to reduce property taxes, plus a simpler approval process after a change to state law last year, made it easier for municipalities to adopt local option taxes.

April.

Tell us a bit about the local option tax.

For those of us who may not be steeped in this, this kind of thing, what's it all about?

Sure.

So the local the municipalities have the choice to add 1% to the sales tax rate, rooms and meals, alcoholic beverages.

And they get to keep, a lot of that money, if they choose to enact that local tax.

And, it's in some ways an attractive, place to look especially, you know, in an era of school budgets rising and tax rates being under pressure, at least this is another lever you can pull.

That's not on the town tax rate.

Of course, a lot of town residents end up paying that tax and things like sales.

You know, it depends on the community.

And so in some communities, the argument is, well, it's mostly tourists who will be paying this, and so that might be more palatable, for them.

So, yeah.

And the legislature made it easier, last year to enact these so that they do not have to get legislative approval every time.

And so then there's been kind of this, this wave of new towns who had never been able to do this before considering this option for their finances.

And it looks like voters were, you know, willing to go this route.

I think we have a graphic about how many of these towns approve local option taxes.

There you go.

Hartford, Marlboro, Middlebury, Montpelier, Springfield.

All seeing.

Yes.

They did fail in Royalton and in Whiting Ham.

So thank you for that explainer on the option taxes there.

It's great to know how these things actually work.

Aaron Calvin, I want to get back to you on, covering the county and, what are some of the big takeaways from town meeting day?

Well, so Peter was talking about how very few towns voted down their school budgets.

One of those towns was Wolcott.

They voted down their, budget after they saw a large increase proposed, partially due to the tuition cap going up.

It would have required them to pay 400,000 more dollars to send their kids to middle and high school outside of their town, and a significant revenue shortfall in Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union, which would have also required them to, contribute an extra $400,000 to, the broader school district, and Hyde Park.

We saw a resolution to a sort of an interesting, technicality problem that had arisen where it turned out that the town of Hyde Park had been conducting illegitimate Australian ballot elections for 30 years.

For 30 years?

Yes.

And it requires some legislative action, actually, it was the first bill signed by the governor this session, but eventually we kind of all came to the conclusion.

It seems like that, Hyde Park, I guess, was the canary in the coal mine.

There are many other towns in Vermont that had been not been following state statute and electing only some officers by Australian ballot.

Now that's totally legal, and Hyde Park is going back to doing things the way they always had.

That is fascinating.

I thank you for giving the update on that.

And we're going to get into some of these, you know, in-person voting questions in a moment, too.

Now, in some Vermont communities, a question about voting itself was on the ballot.

And here are two Waterbury residents debating the merits of in-person voting.

As I was just talking about.

Here's both arguments on that side.

It makes me sad that people are thinking that it's more convenient and yet is more convenient to just simply check a box.

But we should be finding our boards to be fighting to get people to come to this meeting.

5% of the eligible voters making decisions for the rest of us.

How can we possibly know the will of the people when only 5% of the eligible voters is voting?

April Mccollam.

This is such an interesting, question here.

And it really gets to the heart of what Town Meeting Day is all about.

On the one hand, yes, you want this.

You know, this participatory, factor of people coming together talking about these issues.

But as the other woman in that clip was pointing out, not a lot of people overall really take place.

Take part in this.

Yeah.

And some towns have worked really hard, you know, changing the time or the day of their meeting, providing childcare, providing transportation, doing a potluck, all these things to try to encourage participation.

And, you know, and in some cases, I think I've had some success with that.

But fundamentally, yeah, you're probably not going to get as many people voting, when they have to show up and spend a few hours, on a Tuesday morning, for example, as one option, to, to make these decisions.

But I think this year a lot of we, we heard quite a few people, really feeling emotional about this chance to be in a room with their neighbors, to be able to raise questions and concerns, feeling very, affectionate for that form of democracy in a time where, you know, national politics feel, feel very chaotic.

This is something that's, that's steady.

So I think it was it was notable hearing that this year there are some towns in Vermont I know that do their town many days on Saturday.

There aren't very many of them.

But, you know, this reflects the larger national debate too, about whether or not it makes sense to have national elections on a Tuesday, when, again, as you pointed out, people have to work.

Some people can't get childcare.

These are issues that perhaps keep people from going to their town meeting day.

Right.

And so then often it's, you know, just skewed representation of the town.

So yeah, it's interesting.

Linden is another example that happened this year in Waterbury also.

They both voted to to stick with in-person.

Linden had been remote since the pandemic, and this was their first time back in person.

And then they decided to to stay with in person.

So, yeah, really interesting that, like, this is kind of the end of that pandemic era of of a lot of, a lot of ballot and remote voting.

I think it's good that people are just talking about it.

Go ahead.

Peter, you just going to jump in real quick?

I reported on this last year and in in Jericho and you saw sort of the clip of people getting really, really emotional.

I think part of why people feel so strongly about this is it seems like such a, it's like a centuries old Vermont tradition.

And it's like so part of the state's identity in so many ways.

It's like local participatory democracy.

And then on the other side, as you got it, there's like this equity issue, right?

And not only like, you know, getting off of work or getting childcare, but also, you know, if you have a disability, maybe it's hard for you to come out to vote.

And I think this is just this fascinating story that, you know, you've been following, getting to the question of where ATV should be allowed has proven controversial in some parts of the state, leading to heated debate about where these vehicles should operate.

Highgate voters signaled support for the nonbinding article, advising the selectboard to allow all terrain vehicles on town roads on Tuesday, but in Fletcher, voters resoundingly rejected the idea, disapproving of ATV road use.

I want to get to the issue of, Middle East resolutions that came up, during town meeting.

Dave, this is an example April of, you know, issues where town meeting the goes goes well beyond local politics.

And there were some resolution questions dealing with, the war in the Middle East and support for Palestinians.

What what can you tell us about some of those votes?

Yeah.

So this was a number of towns were considering, what was, as far as I could tell, the same statement, at least as it was presented to them, which was termed an apartheid free community pledge.

And it was support from Palestinian people and opposing, what they termed Israel's settler colonialism and, apartheid actions and, and things like that.

And so, yeah, in some towns it was it was very, emotional and touched on a lot of, you know, as you can imagine, very heated opinions.

And it's an example.

There's this long history of this, actually in Vermont.

This is one of the things that's, kind of, I guess, special about Town Meeting Day is that, these meetings are a chance for people to make these non-binding symbolic votes about what they think about national global politics.

It's not the first time it's happened.

And so it's a way for people to feel like they have their voice heard, even though they know this is not going to, in itself change anything.

Yeah.

Folks who were listening to Vermont Edition this week heard a great example of that where some old tape was played from 1982 when folks were weighing in on the issue of banning nuclear weapons.

And it's just fascinating, you know, again, Vermont are showing that they're paying attention not just to what's happening locally.

They've got opinions on what's happening in a national, international scale as well.

Now, in Rutland, Mayor Michael Dodgers has won reelection.

He beat former city clerk and Board of Aldermen member Henry Heck with about 56% of the vote counted.

Ballot items passing in Burlington included three charter changes.

One gives the city council authority to determine how much notice landlords must give before terminating leases.

Another eliminates the need for the legislature to approve the city council's redistricting, and the third would ban guns in bars.

Now, all three of these charter changes would need approval from the state legislature and the governor before they take effect.

And here's the Burlington City Council president on the issue of banning guns in bars.

Isn't a red state blue state issue States like Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana, states like New York, and other blue states to have recognized that guns and alcohol don't mix.

I think this is something Vermont should actually take on a statewide basis.

And that was Ben Travers, again, a city council president, talking about the issue of, guns and bars.

But again, April, this is something that, you know, it's come up before and it won't happen unless, the legislature decides to take action and the governor, too.

Right, right.

And last time.

So the Burlington did pass this, once before.

And as far as I remember, it didn't really go anywhere at all in the legislature.

And, gets to the hesitance that the legislature has to do kind of patchwork gun laws across the state in different communities.

And so, yeah, maybe it will have to be a statewide, decision, as Ben Travers was saying at some point, because I think the legislature so far has been very hesitant to to touch that in these local, local ordinances.

One more town meeting day item I want to get to.

Voters in Royalton rejected a measure to adopt new restrictions on development in floodplains and river corridors on Tuesday.

Now, these regulations would have banned new development in the 500 year flood plain and imposed new restrictions on new development in river corridors.

River corridors are the area where a river is likely to move and change over the course of years, which is where much of the most erosive and dangerous flooding happens in Vermont, the state is in the midst of writing the first ever statewide regulations on new construction in river corridors.

They're due to go into effect in the year 2028.

You know, Erin, this gets to the future of the Oil River's, floodplain analysis, which is kind of in an uncertain position.

Right?

Right.

They've done some initial hydrology, hydrology studies, that lays the groundwork for understanding, how floods affect communities through the Lamoille River corridor.

Basically from Hardwick, through, Fairfax and Georgia.

And, you know, this lays the groundwork for towns to be able to build off of this and gives them, sense of how to do that, and, provide some work so that they don't have to do that initial upfront.

Cost to, you know, maybe start some different projects to do some different flood mitigation stuff.

Now you have 17 buyouts alone in Johnson, including their former grocery store, that are still pending in Sterling Market.

Right?

Yeah.

Sterling Market.

And, you know, there's a new general store coming in to Johnson.

But it's going to be a lot smaller than the old grocery store.

And in the meantime, there's a lot of questions about how to best use this new, town owned greenspace to prevent future flooding from having the devastating effects that it had in 2023.

But, with, you know, some of the chaos that we talked about, at the federal level, a lot of federal representatives at the Royal County Planning Commission meeting in February, voiced a lot of uncertainty about, you know, the very vital federal grants that you know, these these towns need in order to do these, this kind of work.

So, you know, this hydrology hydrological study is really interesting.

We'll see what towns can ultimately do with it.

And talking about uncertainty at the federal level, Peter, this gets us to this issue of health care, the fate of the federal health care payment reform program is now in question.

What can you tell us about that?

Yeah, I will try to bore people.

This is a, federal program that Vermont has been selected for.

It's scheduled to start in 2027.

It's called the ahead model.

And basically, it would help Vermont draw down, quite a bit of money, sort of in Medicare dollars.

It allow Vermont hospitals a little more flexibility.

Vermont providers, more flexibility in spending that money.

And it would direct some funding to primary care.

So, you know, as we talked about before, Vermont, in Vermont, health care is extremely, extremely expensive.

The state has been looking for ways to sort of, you know, help, make it more accessible, help lower costs, help improve the quality of the care.

We'd sort of been expecting this program, but amid this federal chaos that you're mentioning, you know, whether or not this thing is going to go forward is is an open question.

The feds, they issued what, I guess, what's known as a communications hold.

So they're not talking to Vermont about it.

A number of the people who, had been working on this at the federal side are no longer working there with the federal government.

They canceled a bunch of meetings, with Vermont.

And so I think some sort of players in the health care world are saying, like, we got to forget this.

We got to sort of, you know, look within our borders and see what we can do locally to bring cost down and bring up quality.

But these but the federal money is so important.

There's tax credits involved.

There's I mean insurance rates.

How in the world could that happen locally.

And when you talk to legislators, they must be expressing some frustration about how they can operate with that communications block you're talking about.

If they don't know what's coming from the feds, how can they make these decisions locally?

Yeah.

I think this is an open question.

I think everyone is sort of looking at the federal government and saying, who knows what's going to come out this week, who knows what's going to come out next week, who knows what's going to come out the week after?

There has been some sort of percolating legislation in the statehouse around health care.

I don't know yet.

I don't think anyone knows yet.

If it's going to go anywhere, there's been a lot of focus quite recently, actually, just before this town meeting, day week recess.

A couple of bills that are looking very closely at hospital spending, hospital spending is one of the really, really big drivers of, you know, health insurance spending, the cost of premiums that chart we saw earlier.

And I think, I mean, we'll see where it goes.

It's early days.

But I think it reflects an appetite, at least among some lawmakers, as sort of looking at hospitals, looking at their costs.

If you want to take a deeper dive into all of this, by the way, Brave Little State has a recent episode out called Why is Health Insurance So Expensive in Vermont?

It digs real deep into some of these issues, but, you know, Peter, as you were saying, these operating costs are just continuing to spiral.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, the state's largest health insurer by far, reporting losses of $62 million.

Yeah.

So that was in 2024.

They've lost money, I think, for at least the three previous years, or at least the two previous years.

This is this insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, largest commercial insure in the state, insures roughly a third of the state's population.

And so, you know, they're when they lose a bunch of money and they have to hike premiums, that affects a huge, huge swath of the population.

Yeah.

Folks who buy that insurance through the individual, you know, marketplace, an individual plan, they can get a lot of federal and state help in bringing down their premiums.

Really, these small groups, these small employers that are buying this insurance, like they have to sort of just eat these price increases to a very large degree.

It really falls kind of on their shoulders.

And that, you know, affects a huge number of small businesses in the state.

Really appreciate your reporting on that.

We'll keep following that as well.

And, you know, every once in a while, Vermont makes news well beyond our green mountains here.

And this was certainly the case when Vice President J.D.

Vance came to visit with his family for a ski trip.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Waites Field last Saturday to protest and counter-protest, during a visit from J.D.

Vance, who was in the state with his family.

Again, skiing here, you can see some of the signs, a lot of people were angry about.

This was right after that kind of chaotic and really, frankly, surreal meeting with, the Ukrainian president at the white House.

One of the signs that was up there said J.D.

Vance, skis in jeans.

I don't know about any of you can think of a more, insulting remark to make for those of us who ski in Vermont.

Folks were definitely, upset about this.

April, it just showed again.

You know, Vermonters are paying attention.

They came out in droves.

That's a lot of people for wage feel right?

Yeah, they came out for that.

They came out at the airport, when the vice president was was arriving and departing.

People were really tuned into it, over the weekend and the nation was as well.

Vermont was was the topic of conversation.

And by the way, J.D.

Vance said on social media afterward that, he that Vermont was beautiful and he barely noticed the protesters.

And that was even though he did have to move, his location right to where they were staying.

Yes, yes.

The I believe it was from an N to an undisclosed location so that there may be more privacy, for, for for the visit.

Well, it was certainly interesting to see Vermont reflected in, national news, even international news, as you say.

And, by the way, Vermont is kicking off its maple sugaring season.

It is that time of year.

And of course, with everything happening with the tariffs, we'll have to see how that affects the maple sugaring industry as well.

A lot of the equipment that local, producers here buy comes from Canada.

It may well have an effect.

And I'm afraid that's where we're going to have to leave it for today.

Thank you so much to our panel.

April McCullum from Vermont Public, Peter Diorio from VtDigger.

And Aaron Calvin from The Stowe Reporter.

Thank you so much for being here.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb, but this is Vermont this Week.

Hope you'll tune in next week as well.

Hope you have a great week.

In the meantime.