This commentary is by Don Keelan of Arlington, a retired certified public accountant.
Warning: you may not want to read about this topic concerning Vermont and its 250-or-so towns and villages. But it needs to be published.
For the past 260 years, Vermont towns and villages have been structured and governed in the same way, but this will not be sustainable in the future. For some municipal entities, the future is here. Village and town government operations have become more complex and challenging in dealing with municipal, state, and federal laws and regulations, financial matters, and an inability to engage folks to serve in numerous positions and boards.
It is typical for a Vermont village or town to have the following positions needing to be filled: select board, planning board, zoning board, listers, treasurer, delinquent tax collector, dog and fire wardens, town/village clerk, and building/zoning inspector. Add the highway/roads and wastewater/water/recreation department personnel to the list. Once run by volunteers, towns and villages have resorted to the professional field of town administrators and managers; even the smallest towns and villages have gone this route.
We must include the most critical of services: fire and EMS. Not every town or village has a standing fire/rescue, and they depend on their neighboring town or village to have one to call upon when needed. What was historically a volunteer effort, fire and rescue have, in many locales, become full-time paid positions. This gets to another pending crisis: the inability of rescue services (many are nonprofit entities) to sustain themselves financially. Fire companies are right behind them.
The overarching problem from the above is that town and village governments have become an expensive burden for their residents, and the future cost could be exponential.
In my hometown of Arlington, my home’s assessment is $557,000 (a big house on 17 acres), and the school and town taxes are $11,153 or 2% of the assessment. On top of the taxes I incur, I make annual payments of $488, $200, and $1,344 for water, wastewater, and rubbish removal (not including any spring or fall clean-up). Arlington has no police department, relying solely on the Vermont State Police. In Arlington, Virginia, a friend’s home with a similar dollar assessment has taxes of 1.13% or $6,302, and all of the above services are included. Now, I don’t wish to live in a county of a quarter-million folks and a million cars going through the county each day trying to get into Washington, D.C. What helps considerably is that a substantial portion of the Arlington, VA tax base is made up from commercial properties. A luxury most Vermont towns do not have.
Therefore, innovation must take place to address the inability to obtain volunteers, hire critical personnel, operate the complexities of a small municipal entity, and maintain an affordable tax rate.
One possible innovation would be for small contiguous towns and villages to consider joining forces — in effect, merging. At the risk of being tarred, feathered, and banished from Arlington, I suggest that our town leaders explore the feasibility of joining the three towns contiguous to Arlington. Sandgate, Sunderland and Shaftsbury are presently populated with 400, 1,100, and 3,600 residents, respectively. Add to this Arlington, and there are approximately 7,500 residents — a reasonable number of citizens to govern under one governmental entity. Redundancy of town employees, managers, and boards would be eliminated. None of the above towns have a police department, and that just might continue. Others would take up fire and rescue to determine if these critical services might fare better if a more regional, county approach was considered.
What is needed is for towns and villages to think outside the box on how to remain financially and operationally viable for future generations. The signs that troubled waters are ahead are evident with increasing taxes, dwindling volunteers and the challenge of hiring personnel. I haven’t even addressed the next generation’s affordability to live in the above-mentioned towns. We will have to wait for another time to discuss the merging of schools.
