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Weekly news coverage for Charlotte and Hinesburg
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Charlotte Selectboard approves budget
Rising mist
Voters will decide firerescue, library spending SCOOTER MACMILLAN STAFF WRITER
president of the department’s board. The increase is due to salaried employee benefits. (See letter to the editor, page 5) Currently, the fire and rescue department has four full-time employees. It is seeking to add three more with this year’s budget. The department is seeking to switch from a volunteer-run department to an almost all-paid department, Faulkner said. He would like the selectboard to have
On Monday night, Charlotte was minutes past the eleventh hour for the selectboard to send its proposed budget to voters. Prior to the selectboard meeting chair Jim Faulkner talked about the necessity of agreeing on the budget to meet the printer’s Tuesday morning deadline. It took more than four and half hours, but the board finally agreed a $2.6 million spending plan that will mean a tax rate of almost 25 cents ($0.2475) or $247.50 per $100,000 in property value — if both the main budget and three separate town meeting articles are approved by voters. This means that a property owner with a home valued at $500,000 would pay $1,237.50 in town taxes. Without the separate articles, the town property tax rate would be just under 12 cents. “There is change in the format of the budget this year in that the allocation to Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Services was put into a separate article, and the budget for the library was also put into its own article,” town administrator Dean Bloch said. The selectboard also approved a third article to let voters decide whether to allocate $50,000 for a study into the feasibility of building a Charlotte community center. The total increase in the tax rate, if the proposed budget and articles pass is almost 3 cents ($0.0277) or
See FIRE DEPARTMENT on page 6
See BUDGET on page 16
PHOTO BY SCOOTER MACMILLAN
Single digit temperatures created mist on Lake Champlain at the Charlotte Town Beach Saturday.
Charlotte selectboard, fire department iron out budget ask SCOOTER MACMILLAN STAFF WRITER
After a few weeks of contentious exchanges between the Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department and the town’s selectboard, a recent budget meeting started on a more conciliatory note with selectboard chair Jim Faulkner attempting to correct some of his earlier comments about the department. “I made some comments that the Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department was not complying with what we call
the memorandum of agreement,” Faulkner said. “I probably was premature in doing that.” Faulkner said after looking over the agreement, he realized there might have been “some missteps, but that wasn’t the way to handle it.” Faulker had objected to the fire and rescue making the switch from a volunteer fire department to a primarily paid department without consulting the selectboard. He also alleged at that time this was a breach of town’s agreement with the department. “That was my responsibili-
ty and I take full responsibility. That was my mistake. I really should have never said anything like that,” Faulkner said, adding that anyone who misconstrued his comments to be a reflection upon the quality of service the department delivers is wrong and the department has always delivered good service. The fire and rescue budget request has gone up this year because it is adding more salaried positions. The cost of the salaries is not so much more than the per diem paid now to fire and rescue volunteers, said Fritz Tegatz,