Essex residents will vote on whether to add new local taxes this November — but the matter is far from settled.
A yes vote in a few days would need another sign-off by voters in March, due to a missed deadline for alerting the town. A no vote, on the other hand, means the measure fails.
“In this case, ignorance is not bliss,” Bruce Post, a former Essex selectboard member, wrote on a Front Porch Forum post which he shared with VTDigger. “It could end up costing you a lot of pennies.”
Essex is proposing that residents and visitors pay a penny more on every dollar of meals, drinks, rooms and retail sales, with half the money going to help lower property taxes.
The math is the easy part. The harder question is whether voters will trust the town that put this on the ballot.
The local option tax is proposed as a way to offset property taxes and generate revenue for the town. The taxes would add one penny per dollar to meals and alcohol, rooms or sales, with each component of the tax being voted on three separate ballot options.
According to Vermont tax policy, 75% of all local option tax revenue goes directly to the municipality, while 25% goes to the state.
When residents of Essex received their ballots this year, there was a section on the ballot that listed three questions for local option tax implementation. But residents did not receive an official warning of the ballot measure from the city 30 to 40 days before the election, which is the time frame required by Vermont state law.
The late notification was caused by an oversight among town officials, according to Shannon Jackson, chair of the Essex selectboard. They thought an official warning of the ballot measure would be included in the state elections notices, but they found out last Friday that the warning was not included.
The town immediately consulted legal experts, Jackson said, who advised the town to go forward with the vote.
Jackson said he was “disappointed” that the mistake occurred but emphasized it was not an intentional action. He added that he will be appearing on Town Meeting TV along with Duggan and Ethan Lawrence, the selectboard vice chair, at 5:25 p.m. on Wednesday to explain further.
“This was an honest mistake made by our town,” Jackson said. “And since it occurred, we have done everything possible to ensure transparency and honesty with the public to ensure that this vote can properly occur and be ratified should anything pass.”
Post, who was on the selectboard from 2009 to 2012, expressed in an interview with VTDigger his frustration with the selectboard, saying it had months before now that this issue could have been addressed.
The taxes are hard to find on the ballot, Post wrote in a Front Porch Forum post, adding, “some people never turn the ballot over; others don’t even know they’re there.”
The late-stage warning leaves Essex residents in a tricky situation, very close to the upcoming election, Post said. In a conversation with a friend of his before the warning was issued, Post found that his friend had received his ballot but still had no idea that the local option taxes were part of the vote.
“And how many hundreds of ballots will already have been cast?” Post added.
The town of Essex issued a statement on Oct. 12, announcing the error and the town’s plan for proceeding. They decided with the advice of their legal counsel to go forward with the November vote, but emphasized that the vote will be non-binding until a second vote occurs at another town meeting, which is the procedure lined out in Vermont law for situations such as this one. If the vote fails this November, town manager Greg Duggan said, that will be the final vote.
“If any of the local option tax questions pass, we anticipate having the ratification vote(s) at Town Meeting in March 2027, and will ensure plenty of voter education happens prior to that vote,” the town’s statement said.
If the tax measures pass in November, a second vote will be held at a town meeting on March 2, according to Duggan. The vote will be decided on a simple majority, he added.
According to a FAQ sheet from the town of Essex, which analyzed revenue from 2025, the taxes could bring in over $1 million in net revenue. The total tax revenue generated in 2025 from meals sales added up to $136,634, while the revenue from alcohol sales added up to $15,962. The tax revenue from local retail sales added up to $1,006,489 and tax revenue from online retail and short-term rental sales added up to $251,622.
Once they subtracted the state’s share of the tax — which added up to $352,677 — the net proceeds were $1,058,030.
Rachael Lizotte, an Essex resident, shared a Front Porch Forum post with VTDigger in which she argued that the tax could be a valuable source of revenue for the town.
“Essex — you’ve seen how this has gone in the past,” Lizotte said. “A vocal group of community members rallies together to take on an ‘issue campaign’ — and then the misinformation starts.”
“It’s often really really hard to keep up.”
Essex is in severe need of revenue, Lizotte wrote.
“There really is nothing left to cut — I’m sure we all feel this acutely in our own lives too,” Lizotte said. “But still things need to operate.”
Still, pennies add up, said Post, the former Essex selectboard member. He added that the town’s mistake served to erode his trust in town leadership. It was a serious misstep on a high-impact vote, he added, and town leadership, particularly the town manager, needed to be making sure things were in order.
In this case, Post said, the town failed to do so.
“So it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and the mouths of other people,” Post said.
