Duxbury voters eye a budget increase, sparse elections
March 3, 2025 | By Cheryl Casey | Correspondent
At least 80 Duxbury residents gathered for the town's third Citizens Have Your Say Day at Crossett Brook Middle School on Saturday, Jan. 11. Photo by Gordon Miller
Voters in Duxbury head to the polls on Tuesday between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the town office drive-through loop to decide the town budget and elections, and budget questions for the Harwood Union Unified School District and the Central Vermont Career Center School District.
The key item on the town ballot is a budget of $1.3 million, up 12% over the $1.17 million budget voters approved in 2024. Highway Department expenses, by far Duxbury’s most significant budget category, are alone projected to increase by 15% in the coming fiscal year. Part of that increase is the result of significant pay raises for the town’s road crew.
At Duxbury’s third annual Citizens Have Your Say Day on Jan. 11, Selectboard Vice Chair Jamison Ervin described what she saw as a “juggernaut” of budgeting challenges—including an increasing population, a statewide shortage of gravel as well as labor, increasing storm events and the increasing costs of generally everything. Referring to the road crew salary increases, Ervin noted that “the improved wages are not out of the realm of road crew wages across the state.”
Former Duxbury Selectboard member Mari Pratt is the only candidate on the ballot for the board, seeking a one-year seat. Courtesy photo
Also on the ballot is a question asking voters to put $125,000 into the Capital Reserve fund and another question on whether to spend $210,000 from the same fund for a new loader. Other items include setting the property tax payment due date for October 10, and designating the town treasurer as tax collector.
The first big decision facing the Duxbury Selectboard after Tuesday’s election likely will be to get the board up to full membership. Three of the board’s five members have come to the end of their current terms—Chair Richard Charland, Crystal Sherman, and Jerry McMahan—and all three have declined to run again. Sherman and McMahan hold one-year seats, while Charland’s term ran for three years. Ervin and Patrick Zachary conclude their three-year terms in 2026 and 2027, respectively.
Only one candidate filed to get their name on the ballot: Former board member and chair Mari Pratt is running for a one-year term. Pratt served on the board for five years. “I have decided to step back into what I think is a civil adventure in local government. I enjoy working with a team of people!” said Pratt.
Voters may write in candidates for the other open one-year and three-year positions.
None of the other offices on the ballot are contested. When Town Clerk and Treasurer Maureen Harvey announced that she would run again this year, she said it would be her last term. Daniel Senning is running for moderator, Mo Lavanway for lister, and Naomi Alfini for Cemetery Commission.
Two other spots with no candidates on the ballot are a five-year term on the Budget Committee and one of the town’s two seats on the Harwood Union Unified School District School Board. School Board member Life LeGeros has come to the end of his term and is not running for re-election. School board terms are for three years.
The selectboard – or in the school district’s case, the school board – would need to appoint volunteers to any offices that do not get filled in Tuesday’s election with write-in candidates. Appointments run for one year and would end on Town Meeting Day in March 2026.
The vacancies speak to the high volume of work that must be done by a relatively small pool of people. At Say Day, Charland explained that given the volume of administrative work that road projects and grant applications entail, the selectboard has been in ongoing discussions about the need for a part-time town administrator. The selectboard has been doing the work, but, according to Charland, “not always successfully” because of the amount of time required. Nearby Waitsfield recently hired a town administrator and Middlesex, according to Charland, has been conducting a similar search.
The position has been advertised for several months, reported Charland, but had not turned up suitable applicants. Given that the selectboard membership will change soon, the board put the search on hold.
An important request is answered
Around 80-90 Duxbury residents came out on Jan. 11 for the town’s third annual Citizens Have Your Say Day, where the selectboard summarized last year’s projects and proposed the budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, in preparation for voting on March 4. The meeting aimed to get public input and answer questions along with everyone sampling pie and community groups and committees sharing information at tables in the Crossett Brook Middle School cafeteria.
The meeting discussion centered on the proposed budget and its 11% increase, the significant raises demanded by the town’s road crew and how they would affect the bottom line, and the communication breakdown between the selectboard and road crew. Foreman Brian Gibbs admitted that to bring attention to the staff wages issue he decided he had to “go to the extreme to get heard.”
The wages issue played out at the very end of 2024 when on Dec. 31, Gibbs in an email to the selectboard stated that if the road crew staff wage increases were not incorporated into the proposed budget, he and road crew member Eric Austin would resign, effective Jan. 2. The issue prompted two special Duxbury Selectboard meetings in executive session followed by a public meeting on Jan. 3 to formally increase the budget lines in question, giving the foreman a 19% salary increase and Austin’s position, road crew member 1, a 15% increase.
Over an hour into the January informational meeting, Duxbury resident Mark Morse broached the topic of “the elephant in the room,” stating, “There is no way I can support an 11% increase overall or a 19% increase for highway workers.” The nearly 90 attendees soon began sharing their opinions for or against the raises. The most frequently stated concern was the communication breakdown between the staff and town officials and how the amount of the requested increases took voters by surprise.
Selectboard chair Richard Charland immediately apologized for what turned out to be “a bit of a cluster,” saying that when the selectboard reviewed Gibbs’ budget, “we were shocked as well.” Charland acknowledged the difficulties of finding skilled workers across all the trades and described the selectboard’s decision to propose the increases as one driven primarily by concern for residents’ safety. “It’s not an easy town to deal with as far as roads and road maintenance,” he admitted.
Selectboard members McMahan and Sherman also expressed their regrets that the issue had unfolded as it did. Fifth selectboard member Zachary was not in attendance for that meeting.
Invited to speak, Gibbs described his version of events, explaining that his actions were the result of two years of trying to convince the selectboard to address road crew salaries. When that didn’t happen, Gibbs said he felt he needed to make a more forceful case for the issue to get attention. “It was the only way to get heard, and it worked,” he said, pointing out to the audience that the issue may have seemed like news to the community because it had not been discussed publicly before.
Community members responded with frustration and gratitude. Marty Wells, who owns Wells Land Services, noted longstanding communication difficulties between the selectboard and road crew, but “I applaud Brian [Gibbs] for doing what he needed to get attention,” he said, adding, “The delivery might have stung, but the root cause was the communication breakdown, not the road crew.” Wells also expressed support for the staff raises saying “we’re talking pennies,” or approximately 2 cents of the 8-cents increase in the tax rate.
Pratt, who has served on Duxbury’s budget committee said she hoped the episode would bring attention to the issue so that it could be addressed. Ideally the budget committee should be aware of such issues to properly plan, she said, adding that she hoped all of the town officials could improve their communication.
The road crew heard much support from attendees who said road maintenance is very important to their daily lives. For example, Piper Boudreau attends college in Johnson and works in Stowe. “The easiest place for me to get around is at home here, and that’s all thanks to these guys and the early mornings and late nights they do. I think the most important thing is remembering that our roads are drivable because of these guys,” Boudreau said.
Heidi Wood, who moved to town in the last year, agreed. “I come from a long experience with dirt roads…I live off a dirt road, off a dirt road, off a dirt road. I never have problems. It’s not hard to get to me because of this man and his crew.” The effort was especially appreciated after last July’s flash flooding that damaged many of Duxbury’s roads. “When the water receded, immediately, those roads were back in working order and I was back to work,” Wood said.
Life Legeros said the town employees’ request was fair. “If you want to go the route of just human dignity, and us caring about our community of which these people are a part, they deserve this amount,” he said. “Given what it costs to survive around here, it’s a very reasonable proposal.”
The meeting included a full page-by-page overview of the draft budget, the final version of which is now in the town annual report.
In recounting 2024 highlights, Charland described the efforts to re-open roads after the July flash flooding, particularly Ward Hill Road which was difficult to reach given access was on the far side of the Route 100 bridge that was closed to traffic for several weeks. Contractors were hired to help with several washouts and culvert replacements. In his report in the town annual report, Gibbs writes about that work and thanks all of the contractors. “Everyone put in endless hours in a race to trying to get all the roads put back to a plowable state before winter,” he said.
Citizens have their say - and pie
2024 highlights + 2025 projects
According to Charland, the town had sufficient funds in reserve to cover the flood repair costs without additional borrowing and it has filed a claim with the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Charland also acknowledged Duxbury resident Mame McKee who has been working with the local long-term recovery group CReW (short for Community Resilience for the Waterbury Area) based in Waterbury.
Two particularly thorny projects for the town were completed in 2024: significant repairs to the Scrabble Hill Road slide and the long-awaited construction of a new town salt shed. An upcoming project expected to be under construction in 2025 is the solar array to be installed at the former town gravel pit off Route 100. Voters approved the project in 2022 and town officials have decided to contract with Norwich Solar in White River Junction for the work.
The town is looking to secure state funding to assist with the remaining work to rebuild upper Camel’s Hump Road between Scrabble Hill to the state park entrance. “Significant portions of the road are sliding into Ridley Brook,” Charland said. The town also is seeking state funding to replace a culvert on River Road.
More updates from town officials are in the Duxbury 2024 Annual Report that’s available online on the town website and in paper copies at the town office.