This story by Briana Brady was first published in the Shelburne News on Sept. 11, 2025.
Shelburne voters on Tuesday re-certified a slate of bonds that had previously been approved by residents over the past four years.
The 15 different bonds total just over $5 million dollars and pay for some projects that have already been completed, such as the Irish Hill recreation path and the beach house replacement. There were no new bonds included in the vote, which passed 671-111.
The vote was the result of a procedural error — town officials had failed to correctly warn the initial bond votes.
According to state law, legal notices must be placed in the paper of record every week for three consecutive weeks leading up to a bond vote. In the case of these bonds, not all those notices were placed, which nullified the initial votes and prevented the town from accessing the bond funds.
The town caught the issue as part of a financial overhaul led by the new finance director Patricia Carpenter. Over the last year, her office has been working through a backlog of audits that hadn’t been completed since 2021.
In assessing the town’s finances, Carpenter’s office noticed that many of the bonds that had been taken out over the years had never been drawn down — towns will traditionally front cash or take out short term loans known as bond anticipation notes to pay for projects, taking on the debt with the state bond bank once the item has been purchased or the project completed.
This put Shelburne in a sticky situation. Because the bonds had never been drawn down and now couldn’t be due to the issue with the legal notices, it left the town with $1.2 million in cash on hand and an $800,000 bond anticipation notice for new water meters that would need re-approval to be rolled over on Sept. 20.
Had the vote been rejected, the town might have been forced to use private loan providers to finance its debt, which usually offer much higher interest rates than the state bond bank. Currently the interest rate at the bond bank is around 5% — higher than it might have been when the bonds were initially passed, but lower than what the town might find elsewhere.
In response to an email releasing the unofficial results of the vote on Tuesday night, town employee Susan Cannizzaro quickly wrote what most were probably thinking, “Phew! Great news!”
Although the town will now be able to draw down its bonds, there are still some issues that need attention.
Carpenter said the problems with warning for the bond votes is an example of why the town’s financial policies and procedures need updating — there was confusion over whose responsibility it was to post the legal notices.
“The people that were here were here for so long that they didn’t have policies and procedures. They just knew what to do. And so, when you get new people in here, we all don’t know,” Carpenter said in an interview about the financial audits.
Updating the policies and procedures, she added, and writing everything down, will ensure that, even if there’s turnover, everyone will know who is responsible for what.
“I am excited to get back to work now that we’ve put this issue behind us. Onward!” selectboard chair Mike Ashooh wrote in response to the bonds passing again.
