Hartford
“It has yet to be determined,” said Hartford School Board member Kevin “Coach” Christie, who also represents Hartford in the Vermont House.
When voters approved a change to the town charter on a 1,641-1,309 vote, it was meant to clear the way for the 1 percent local option tax to be implemented on July 1.
“The process for the charter change is for the town clerk to get a copy of the votes on the charter change to the Secretary of State’s Office,” interim Town Manager Pat MacQueen told the Selectboard during a March 29 meeting, “which she is currently in the process of trying to do.”
But MacQueen said that town staff had not been immediately able to locate a set of minutes that the Secretary of State’s Office needs to move forward.
Supporters of the tax say the estimated $250,000 in annual revenues are desperately needed to close a budget gap that threatens the town’s ability to keep up with needed repairs of its equipment and crumbling infrastructure.
The minutes, which Hartford School District Superintendent Tom DeBalsi produced on Wednesday evening in response to a request from the Valley News, are from a joint meeting of the School Board and Selectboard held on Dec. 28.
The minutes show the School Board voted unanimously to approve the language for one of three changes to the town charter.
However, draft minutes of a governing body are generally reviewed by members at a subsequent meeting, during which members may suggest changes for accuracy, and vote to formally adopt them.
It is unclear whether the School Board minutes were ever formally adopted, because there is no record of such adoption in the minutes of School Board meetings on Jan. 13 or Jan. 27.
DeBalsi said on Thursday that the School Board actually approved the Dec. 28 minutes during its Jan. 13 meeting, but that the minutes of the Jan. 13 meeting had incorrectly omitted the approval.
“I will need to bring the print copy to the board’s next meeting to correct (them),” he said.
While the Selectboard also participated in the meeting, it appears that no one on the Selectboard took formal minutes.
The Selectboard minutes are typically taken by member Sandy Mariotti, but Mariotti was one of three Selectboard members who were not present during the meeting, which took place three days after Christmas.
The seven-member Selectboard only achieved quorum through the remote participation of Selectboard member Becca White, who called in and cast her votes through a speaker phone.
Eliza LeBrun, Hartford’s executive assistant to the town manager, said that she received the School Board’s minutes for the Dec. 28 meeting from DeBalsi after DeBalsi had received the inquiry from the Valley News.
She said that she and Town Clerk Beth Hill had sent a packet of documentation to the Secretary of State’s Office on April 1, and planned to send the Dec. 28 minutes along as a supporting document within the next day or two.
Christie said that the documentation has to go through several steps before the charter changes become law.
“The town has to get the information to the Secretary of State,” he said. “The Secretary of State then forwards that information to the House Government Operations Committee.”
According to information posted on the website of the Secretary of State’s Office, the office files the charter change certificate and delivers copies “to the Attorney General and Clerk of the House of Representatives, the Secretary of the Senate, and the chairman of the committees concerned with municipal charters of both houses of the General Assembly.”
Christie said that the legislative counsel for the House Government Operations Committee would “go through it with a fine-toothed comb,” to ensure that all of the documentation was in order.
The documentation would then need to be approved by the House Government Operations Committee and then voted on by the Legislature.
Efforts to reach Rep. Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor, who is chairwoman of the Government Operations Committee, were unsuccessful.
Selectboard Vice Chairwoman Rebecca White said she wasn’t familiar enough with the legislative process to know for sure whether the charter changes would be approved this session.
“It goes to the Legislature,” she said. “That’s where we’re going to see what the timeline looks like.”
The Legislature typically adjourns in May, andChristie said charter changes have a standing provision that allow them to be voted upon even after the “crossover” date when bills have to be cleared by one chamber and sent to the other, which increases the chances that Hartford’s rooms and meals tax will be implemented on time.
“If it gets to the Secretary of State as expeditiously as possible, we should be able to get it done before the end of the session,” he said.
However, Christie said, he hoped the issues could be resolved quickly.
“Yesterday would have been good,” he said. “There’s no specific deadline, but to put people’s backs against the wall isn’t a good thing sometimes.”
The Secretary of State’s Office cites 17 V.S.A. § 2645 in explaining what documents it needs to approve a charter change.
Among the documents the Secretary’s office requires are “minutes of the municipality’s legislative body showing the origins and intent of the proposal,” and “warnings for the two public hearings on the proposal and certified copies of the minutes from those meetings where the proposals were discussed.”
Christie said the reviews are important, because they guarantee that the public has had ample opportunity to understand the proposed charter changes and to weigh in on them and cast knowledgeable votes.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.