good evening and welcome to our continuing coverage of town meeting twenty nineteen here at channel seventeen we're happy to have you and we're going to be talking about the wineskin city budget and ballot items and we are a couple of them are bond items so i've and i think it's always good to read and understand what the strategic vision is of when a ski because you are really very much a values driven community so when we start with that that is correct so a few years ago  the council decided to work with the community to be very very clear about where it was we were hoping to get to as a city and so the statement is up i don't know if it's on the screen at the moment but we're committed to being a affordable livable diverse community where the role of government is to foster and guide investments in economic vitality municipal infrastructure housing and ensuring that our we have safe healthy and connected people so those four areas have really been areas that we've devoted a lot of time attention to and which our budget is intended to carry forward from what has been years of planning to into action and can numb i just ask you just quickly i don't want to use of your time because i know you've got a lot to say but just say since how how does a budget process work and how do you get feedback from the community about how to inform the budget and these values so as nicole said the strategic vision really guides our work it's the community's value it's what we align our city work plans to so in the fall in october that we staff that with the council and set some goals for our  budget we then a staff go back and develop a budget we do that in conjunction with our commissions as well so we have a pretty extensive commission structure where we have community voices at the table guiding how these values are reflected in our operations we then bring bring a proposed budget to the council at the beginning of december we go through a series of six or seven public meetings where we really dive into the weeds of our each department operations what's in the budget what what's proposed for new initiatives new projects and  ultimately at the end of january the council decides what to put forward to the voters got it so what are the hype high levels with the high level on the budget this year i see it's means only this yeah but it does a number of it's a critical budget for the city really we have had years of planning as i mentioned before and this budget both maintains current level of services and moves forward for large capital projects two of which have been approved by the voters over the past year our main street revitalization project and the memorial pool reconstruction and two that are just critical infrastructure needs for the community water in st improvements to street and new downtown parking infrastructure that we're going to go through  during the presentation all right and if i can just emphasize a little bit i think it's really important to acknowledge that the community has spent years going through a number of planning efforts many of which have been covered here at c c t v from our main street project to our parking study or transportation master plan or community nomic development strategic plan and those plans have really rolled up into this call for action our voters approved two bond votes last year and this is the budget that enables those projects to move forward as well as hickox tree and our new parking garage so i think it's really important to reflect back that the community has spent years building towards these four votes and really laying a strong foundation to make sure that  if we receive approval from the voters we're able to execute relatively quick yes i want to just remind folks that if you have any questions we are it six two three nine six six we'd love to hear from you this is a good time for a wineskin residents to weigh in with any questions they have on the budget or upcoming ballot items for the march fifth vote so the main street revitalization project how is that reflected in the budget so this project this year an f y twenty  hundred fifty five thousand dollars engineering expense the total cost of this project is expected to be around twenty three million dollars and we've identified some federal sources in terms of low interest loans and grants  t this year we need to move forward we're in the phase of final design phase for the full project and so that will incur about one hundred fifty five thousand dollars in expense just as a reminder this vote was presented in may of last year was approved with sixty three percent approval and at that time we were projecting about a four to six percent tax rate impact for that project you'll debt cost for the engineering that we're going to incur and f y twenty if we're rely solely on the property tax to fund that would be about a three cent increase to the tax rate luckily we don't have to rely solely on property tax revenues and we'll talk about that a little bit later but certainly the next council is really going to need to wrestle with the pace timing and scope of that project moving forward so that we can you know manage that twenty three million dollars cost  over the course of several years and what the highlights of that main street revitalization what's going to be different shore so right now the water and wastewater lines under the street are about one hundred years old we're experiencing some pretty significant water breaks along those lines so it's a full reconstruction subgrade so new water lines waste water we're going underground the utilities along main street and then improve the streetscapes out the sidewalk allow for new street trees green space along the road  all right so trees and pools so the pool has been closed for a few years now this past august voters approved gave us bond authorization for up to three point eight million dollars to support the reconstruction of this valued community asset the estimated cost for this fiscal year is three hundred thousand dollars we have work cited to announce today we received a grant from the state of vermont for close to one hundred fifty thousand dollars so we are really as a council been very committed to identifying sources of revenue to offset the impact on the property tax we have a pool fund raising committee that has a goal of raising some funds so support the construction of the the slide and the shade structure so we're really excited about the prospects for moving forward this spring with construction and this again this and investment in the f y twenty budget allows us to do that excellent and then hitchcock's the water improvements that is a bond request for this ballot it is so one of the things we heard through the previous planning efforts was our neighbors really wanted us to focus on the neighborhoods as well as improving the infrastructure in our core downtown and along our gateways so the hickox tree area has needed some work for a long time needs infrastructure improvements so this is primarily a water replacement project we're going to replace the water lines underneath the road and then repave the road it's focusing on one of our most important neighborhoods and doing so with no impact to the tax rate no increased impact of the tax rate we can fund this projects a little solely through our water rates our waste water rates and our existing debt service capacity within our general for so i get the i'm getting the impression that the infrastructure underneath wineskin needs to be replaced as it does across the state  exactly so you're planning to do it in sections as opposed to one big undertaking ok and you're going to talk are you going to talk about the impact on the water rates this was well in a in our core downtown it's currently used as a parking lot this new parking infrastructure will allow us to alleviate some of the parking pressures in our current garage therefore creating some new space new accessibility for our residents and visitors to park close to the downtown the restaurant community etc it also allows us to fully develop the tiff district so a couple of years ago we had permitted a hotel at the bottom of the rotary and when that ran into some legal challenges some concern about where that was situated and how the traffic flow would work so with this project we will move that hotel development to lots of what we call lot seven d the corner of when you ski falls way  hotel developer is on board with this will then subdivide the lot we will build our parking infrastructure on one side between c c v in the hotel and then the hotel will go on that prominent corner at the corner of abenaki way and when you ski falls way and we're really excited about w slated to successfully wrap up the tiff district in five years we're on track to do that and that downtown master plan always envisioned a hotel in our downtown so i think this is really bringing the community's vision for our vibrant downtown community to fruition and this is the last lot that the city owns in that in the tiff district and it's currently being used for parking so we really believe that this project maximizes the potential of that space and meets a critical need for for our residents and business partners so so those are that's a general obligation bond it is so they're both good all the geishas bonds but that bond will be paid solely through the parking fees within our parking fund so there again will be no impact to the taxpayers as a result of this construct ok so so when we talk about our level services budget so this budget obviously maintains current levels of services as we said earlier we had some assumptions built into that that lead to increases and including a two point eight percent cost of living adjustment increases in health insurance we also projected a modest increase in the ground last because the pace and scale of development can be difficult to predict so we always err on the side of caution in terms of estimating new revenue generated by development but were into supporting about forty thousand dollars in new property tax revenue for the general fund which will offset the need the residents when you look at a two hundred twenty five thousand dollars home that's roughly one hundred thirty seven dollars a year increase when we talked about the main street project and the pool project with our community at the time that the bond votes were being presented we had estimated somewhere between i think are eleven and seventeen percent tax rate impact for those projects so how did we get to six cents with funding both of those projects and maintaining our without cutting operations that is because we've identified some new revenues to offset the tax rate impact so council was really clear with the community that in order to move forward with some of these major infrastructure projects that we were going to be pursuing every possible avenue to offset the impact on the property tax so one option that we are presenting to the voters that they will need to approve on town meeting day a local option sales tax and a local option rooms meals and alcohol tax and that's something the burlington worked with the business community and they seem onboard with this as a way to ensure that you know when you ski is a destination for many for monitors and non verbal terms and if we're going to be investing in  our water sewer and road infrastructure that this is a good way to ensure that those visitors contribute to those costs as well so that's why you bring that slide up again given that there's a lot of information on that slide and it's a little hard to read so what's the most important part on the slide jesse that people should be looking at so i think the most important thing to think about when we're considering the local options tax is it really is a way to diversify our revenue streams to bring revenue into the city that's not solely property tax revenue not solely our residents but as to call said as we become a destination how do our visitors contribute to that infrastructure that they're walking over driving over parking in excess i think it's really important to note that when you ski right now is in a donut hole we are surrounded by other communities that already benefit from this diversified revenue stream so how do we capitalize on that and bring those revenues into the city council has been very clear that these new revenues were projecting about two hundred  seventy seven thousand in the first year collected goes solely to capital so we're not telling tapping that revenue resource to pay for operations it's only going to our increased cost for main street and the pool so the sales tax is projected to raise  hundred forty four thousand in the rooms and meals is their meals and alcohol is projected to raise about one hundred thirty three thousand correct and i think it's important to note that the sales taxes not applied to essential items like food clothing know you are you know have a supermarkets in well we have commodities in our downtown so we achieve that for the downtown i think from a large scale supermarket perspective the market is very hard to make working w know an eighth of a mile from our border you got it ok so in terms of the water projects we we do we have identified new revenue through increases to the water and sewer rates  we're presenting a two and a half person we've approved actually as council two and a half percent increase to the water rate and the three percent increase in the sewer rate taken together that will have a collective impact of around thirty two dollars a year an increase we go to the next slide you'll see again that's a little hard to read but you can see our rate history for water and wastewater rates have not increased those rates since two thousand and twelve and even with these increases were about in the middle of the pack in terms of our neighboring communities this council if you can see the chart you'll see some years we had an eighteen percent nineteen percent increase in the new years of no increase so i think the attitude now is the the better approach to ensure we're you know having putting money aside for these capital these infrastructure needs that we don't have a plan to address that we would see regular moderate increases on an annual basis rather than nothing for years and then us and you're not part of this the champlain water district or are you we are yes and so how do these water rates tie into the champlain water district so the communities that are part of the champlain water district buy wholesale water from the district and then we operate the distribution system so we buy the water that we manage the pipes under the streets we manage obviously the wastewater treatment plant where the water ultimately goes and the rates we charge cover both our wholesale purchase cost as well as our operation and capital cost to run the distribution system or using any increases from them for the cost of what they provide they've made a small increase this year but again along the lines of nicole as nicole is just saying  seventy dollars ok great so you've got this cite your past tax rate increases are lower than inflation yes so this is just to you know i think most voters will see a six percent increase and say well that's higher than we've seen and so we just want to remind folks that this was intentional so for the past five years council and the city manager's office worked really hard to hold the line on increases in spending and really try to keep the matter below inflation and as i said earlier the water and wastewater rates have not increased since two thousand and twelve because we knew we were coming into these critical infrastructure needs and that we would need to be asking  our taxpayers to support these investments so all of that is intended to again we're excited about the fact that we were able to present this budget with a six cent increase and move forward with main street and the pool and maintain high levels of service to our to our residents of think you know when you really thought about a potential eleven to eighteen percent increase to fund just main street and the pool to be able to come back to our voters and say the final budget in the slide has more detail in terms of the split but when you break out the six cents two point fo percent of that is for operations and then the remainders for main street and the pool so kudos to jessie and her team for really being thoughtful and creative about ways to diversify the revenue to make sure we can actually move forward on the projects but not place the entire burden for doing so on the property tax so for folks who might have just joined us jesse would you just read to recap for us sure so this  the budget items the four different ballot items we'll be asking the voters to vote on on town meeting day really bring to fruition what we've already heard from them they want main street to be revitalized they want the pool to be reconstructed they want  invest in our neighborhood infrastructure and they want us to successfully wrap up our tift district this this budget while a six percent increase a six cent property tax increase as you said one hundred seventy dollars impact for the average property tax paying family over the year really lets us get to that place where we can implement we've been talking in planning and talking about community values and and visioning for our community for many years this lets us put shovels in the ground and get these things to fruition for our residents and our neighbors all right all of would you like to come and remind everybody when you come and vote and i just say one thing and this last slide talks about the four questions that will be on the ballot box to me the first is the prove the amount to be raised by property taxes the second is to approve the bond vote for him st the third is the bond vote for the garage and the fourth is a one percent local option tax on sale sales and rooms meals and alcohol we need for yes votes in order to move forward with this community vision for example of the local option fail facts fails and then we really need to rethink the entire budget because so much of what is included in the budget relies on that additional revenue moving forward so really appreciate the opportunity it's a complicated budget the pieces fit together like a puzzle and so we're hopeful that we do see four yes votes when folks come to vote and when do they do that all of  and not to forget that election day town meeting day is march fifth so thanks so much for watching and thank you so much for presenting them in a ski budget in balance jesse baker nicole maze to see baker is the city manager nicole mace is the mayor of win