Royalton’s pre-Town Meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on Feb. 27 at the Royalton Academy Building. Voting will take place from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on March 6 in the South Royalton High School auditorium, with the floor portion of Town Meeting starting at 10 a.m. the same day.
Royalton
Some of the proposed increase in gross spending, which stands at a combined $2.13 million, comes from a 17.6 percent rise in the police budget that would fund an increase of between $3,000 and $4,000 to the police chief’s salary, Selectboard Chairman Larry Trottier said.
“We’re looking for a new police chief,” Trottier said in an interview last week, “and what we’re finding is what Royalton has been comfortable with spending is not what police chiefs around Vermont and the country get.”
The town has been searching for a new chief ever since James Beraldi left in April 2017, which the Selectboard then said was because of differences in their “respective visions for the town police department.”
A few candidates have turned down offers since then, including one prospect in December who declined to start at $55,000, with the option to negotiate up to $57,000, according to meeting minutes.
Royalton’s only full-time police officer resigned in mid-September and soon after pleaded not guilty to a charge of taking heroin from the department’s evidence closet and giving it to a third party, according to federal court records.
The remaining part-time officer resigned the next month, leaving Royalton with only its constable for police coverage. The town has since contracted with the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department.
Trottier said the proposed budget’s effect on the tax rate was unclear because some figures needed to calculate it hadn’t yet arrived; however, if the town used the current Grand List, among other variables, the municipal portion of the tax rate would see an increase of a little less than one cent per $100 of valuation.
That’s the equivalent of nearly $25 on a $250,000 property.
On the ballot, Selectwoman Sandy Conrad is running for re-election to a 2-year seat against challenger Harry Dodge.
Selectwoman Peggy Ainsworth is stepping down from her 3-year seat, leaving Chris Noble uncontested in the election to fill it.
The school side of Town Meeting will run a little differently for Royalton residents than it did last year, since the school district is merging with neighboring Bethel under Act 46, the Vermont school governance law.
Royalton voters will meet on Monday, March 5 at 6 p.m. in the South Royalton School gymnasium to hold their floor meeting, where they will address an extremely short agenda consisting mostly of planning for the merger.
Balloted voting will take place the next day, March 6, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the same location, where residents will elect two School Board members whose positions will cease to exist when the district is merged, according to the warning.
Then, later on March 6, at 6 p.m., Royalton and Bethel voters will convene a meeting of the White River Unified District at the Whitcomb Junior-Senior High School in Bethel.
There, they will vote on the new district’s combined $11.6 million budget.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.