Woodstock’s Town Meeting will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 4, at Woodstock Town Hall. Voting on ballot items will occur from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 7 at Town Hall.
Woodstock
Town Administrator Phil Swanson said that, while going through old town records for an unrelated purpose, he came across a 1985 resolution that showed residents voted to merge the village highway department and the town highway department, which would have allowed for an equitable sharing of costs among residents of both locations. But that merger never happened, which means that village residents have been paying to support its own highway department, and also paying to support the town highway department.
Town officials say this is unfair, in part because town residents are heavy users of the centrally located village streets, yet have not been paying for them.
The change is one of the driving factors in a proposed town budget that would add $400,000 in costs to the town tax burden, and 5 cents to the town tax rate.
The proposed FY18 municipal budget is for $5.45 million, up 11.5 percent, or $562,000, from the current year budget. Under the proposed budget, the amount raised by property taxes would be $3.66 million, up 14.2 percent, or $456,000, from the current year’s.
Right now, town residents pay property taxes at a rate of 42.2 cents per $100 of assessed property value. Under the proposed budget, that would increase 12.8 percent to 47.6 cents. For a home valued at $250,000, that amounts to a $135 increase.
The town tax rate for village residents will also go up, but that will be more than offset by the reduction in village taxes. The village tax rate will go from 59.1 cents per $100 of assessed value, to 58.9 cents, a net decline of less than half a percent.
The actual cost-shift will amount to about $160,000 in added tax burden for the town, said Swanson, but because the village will now pay more money to the town for the merged department, it creates an impression of having a larger impact, and is responsible for the majority of the $562,000 net increase in the town budget, said Swanson.
Other drivers of the budget include a loss of non-tax revenues, which Swanson said represents an exhaustion of efforts to mitigate the tax burden over the past several years by drawing down reserve funds and leaning more heavily on timber harvesting.
A restoration of a full-time paramedic to ambulance services has contributed to about a $30,000 increase in that department, while paying firefighters a new minimum of a $2 callout has added about $24,000 in costs to that department budget.
Voters will also choose between two candidates for the Woodstock Selectboard, where Selectman Preston Bristow is facing challenger Sonya Stover.
Both Bristow and Stover said they agree with the decision to merge the highway departments, which they characterized as a matter of fairness. Stover, 43, moved to Woodstock from Westchester County, N.Y., three years ago with her husband and two young children.
She said she’s been recently motivated to become a part of the solution to the town’s problems. “I’m not much of a hand-wringer. There’s a lot of hand-wringing on Facebook these days. I can’t really do anything on the national level. This is where I can do,” she said.
Stover said she thinks the town is on a good track, but that she could bring a fresh perspective to the Selectboard’s efforts to stimulate the local economy.
“Woodstock has to make sure it doesn’t stagnate, so we might need some creative ideas or willingness to try new things,” she said.
Bristow, 63, has lived in Woodstock since 1978, and works as a zoning administrator for the towns of Barnard, Pomfret, West Windsor and Newbury.
He said he would keep the town on its current path.
“My opinion is that Woodstock is a well-run town, and we have a good administrator that we like, and I think the town’s economic development commission, and the 1 percent sales tax, has allowed us to do a lot of good things,” he said.
He said that keeping the town’s taxes affordable is always a challenge, and that he also shared concerns about increasing traffic levels.
“I’m sympathetic to those who say the more we promote Woodstock, the less livable it gets. … There are certain days you say, ‘I’m not going to go across town because it’s just not worth it.’ ”
After nine years of service, Margaretta Howe is stepping down from the Selectboard. Jill Davies, 56, is running unopposed to fill the seat. Davies, who has worked as a management consultant and currently teachers personal development, moved to Woodstock from Plymouth six years ago. She is on the board of the Ottauquechee Health Foundation, and the advisory board of Sustainable Woodstock.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.