Increased tax revenues could temper Stowe budget

“So, that will create some fiscal capacity,” Safford said.

He said it’s too early to tell how much the new 1 percent local option sales and tax that went into effect July 1 will bring in when budgeting that revenue to offset next year’s spending. The state tax department is expected to release those figures in early November.

Safford said with a statewide unemployment rate of under 2 percent, the town needs to be competitive when seeking new town employees, and the unions representing police and other municipal workers likely know this, too.

“We have two labor negotiations coming up, and I think you’re likely to see a push for higher wages within those unions,” he said. “I think you’re likely to see the need for some seasonal employment that we’ve had hard times filling and keeping up with demands we face.”

There’s also a budgeting error in the police department budget that led to the $150,000 shortfall that the town must absorb in the next fiscal year.

The cost-of-living increase that largely drove the increase in the current fiscal year’s $16 million budget is not as concerning going into the next budget season at it was going into this one, and Safford said health insurance premiums are “looking pretty good,” too, at around a 5 percent increase.

Safford also warned of some capital improvement projects the board might consider next year, such as:

• The Stowe Recreation Path, which is showing its age, especially the bridges, which are 40 years old. Public works officials are evaluating the path between Town Farm Lane and Cape Cod Road, where the path doubles as the Mountain Road sidewalk for about half a mile, to see if it could be widened. The bridges alone could cost $500,000 apiece.

• A master plan for Memorial Park, the area in the village that houses the parks and recreation headquarters, ballfields, pickleball and tennis courts and Stowe Arena. The recreation commission is scheduled to present its plan to the selectboard next week, but the overall cost could ring in at $5-$10 million.

• Moscow village improvements, a scaled-back version of which could cost $100,000 — for things like a welcome sign and flashing speed limit signs — until a more substantial project could be tackled.

• Akeley theater heating, ventilation and air conditioning work, which came to the forefront this summer and added to Stowe Theatre Guild’s already-existing woes. Initial cost estimates are roughly $100,000 just for a third-floor HVAC system, or $200,000 for a full building boiler replacement.

Even before the board got its first taste of departmental spending proposals — per Safford’s budget adoption schedule, department heads will spend the middle part of November working on their needs and presenting those to the finance department — some board members looked past their own timetable with concerns about how the public might react.

Board member Paco Aumand said, speaking before next week’s vote $39 million school construction bond, that he does “not want to understate the importance” of taxpayers possibly being shouldered with that.

And board member Nick Donza asked what Safford would recommend cutting first, “if we were to want to go down that road.”

“My intent is to provide a status quo budget,” Safford said. “If, when you package that, it doesn’t seem like something you’re going to be able to digest, then the more difficult conversations begin with what are you really prepared to pull back on?”