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Town Meeting Tune-Up, 2024

Event date:  2/7/2024

Ed Chase, Westford Town Moderator, deconstructs the annual town meeting process step by step. Ed explains the basic role and responsibilities of the moderator and reviews the most common types of motions and amendments used at town meetings, pursuant to the newly printed 12th Edition Robert’s Rules of Order. 

This training is for town moderators who will conduct a traditional annual meeting from “the floor.” Other officials who will assist their moderator may also find information in this training useful. 

Avoiding Zoombombing During Virtual Public Meetings

Member for

1 year 3 months
Submitted by iminot@vlct.org on

Editor’s Note: This article was adapted by VLCT Municipal Assistance Center staff from “Virtual Meetings and Avoiding Zoombombing” by Dene Westbrook of the Michigan Municipal League (April 2, 2020).  

Several of our members have begun conducting their public meetings in a hybrid or fully remote setting (under the temporary provisions of Act 1) using online conferencing platforms. We wanted to share some information regarding a phenomenon called “Zoombombing,” which some of you may have encountered. 

So-called “Zoombombing” is when someone (who may or may not be a resident of your community) joins a remote or hybrid meeting and causes disorder by saying offensive things in chat or during public comment, or by hijacking the meeting by screen sharing content on their computer. This can be disruptive and uncomfortable when offensive material or speech is shared. There are some things you can do to protect yourselves from Zoombombing and still stay within the confines of the Open Meeting Law (OML). Regardless of what platform you choose to host your meetings, the host/organizer of the meeting should be comfortable with the meeting controls and settings to best manage any potential disruptions. 

To better protect your meetings, use these best practices, being sure to double-check the relevant settings:  

  • Turn file sharing off – that way you’re not allowing a participant to send potential profane or virus-infected documents to other attendees.  
  • Disable screen sharing for attendees. This will prevent a hijack and potential visibility of profane or unwanted content in your meeting.  
  • Make sure that the platform’s mute/unmute settings are configured to mute all participants upon entry. In some platforms, you can also turn off the ability of people to unmute themselves so the meeting host must manually unmute people for the public comment period. This provides more control over when a participant can talk, ensuring that only those participants recognized by the chair are unmuted.  
  • Turn off video sharing in the meeting for participants. In some platforms, you can turn off the ability of people to share their video (e.g., camera) so that the meeting host must instead manually allow a person’s video feed for the public comment period, if so desired. This provides more control over when a participant’s video is shown.       
  • Don’t allow participants to join the meeting before you, the host/organizer. No one should be allowed entry unless the meeting has begun. This includes board members to ensure they are not present without the public.  
  • Turn off the annotation and whiteboard features (if any).  
  • Either turn off chat functionality completely or change your chat to only allow chat to presenters/hosts/panelists for technical issues, or for when it’s the public comment period.  
  • Warn all attendees against clicking unverified links.   
  • Set a meeting password. However, it must be clearly posted for the public with the public meeting notice or agenda for each meeting.  
  • Ensure that you have the latest software release from the service provider installed on your computer. Remote meeting software companies consistently update their programs to help prevent Zoombombing attacks and other security vulnerabilities.  

Unfortunately, these practices won’t fully protect you from participants who are intent on causing disorder during the public commenting period. If a participant’s comment results in disruptive behavior (e.g., by exceeding time limit or by providing irrelevant, repetitious, or disruptive speech) the chair of the public body can manage the comment per the board’s rules of procedure up to and including removing the disruptive speaker. Review our Model Rules of Procedure for Municipal Boards for information on managing disruptive behavior in accordance with the Open Meeting Law. 

External References  

Setting Up a Hybrid Public Meeting  

  • See VLCT's Hybrid Public Meeting Toolkit for resources on conducting a hybrid public meeting. The toolkit includes a checklist, model notice and agenda, and a model opening script. 
Publication Date
02/06/2024

Are Residents Putting Snow on Your Town Highways?

Member for

1 year 3 months
Submitted by iminot@vlct.org on
What Can Municipalities Do To Prevent Residents from Moving Snow From Their Walks and Driveways Into the Highway?

Vermont law prohibits people from placing “obstructions” or “encroachments” within town highways that would hinder or prevent public travel or injure or impede a person traveling on the highway. 19 V.S.A. § 1105. Even more broadly, 19 V.S.A. § 1111(b) prohibits the “deposit[ing] [of] material of any kind within” town highway rights-of-way. While these laws do not specifically refer to snow, we think they are broad enough to include instances when private landowners are pushing or depositing snow into town highways.  

Violators of 19 V.S.A. § 1105(b) can be fined up to $1,000 and be held personally liable for the actual costs of repairing any damage and reasonable attorney’s fees. Similarly, a violation of 19 V.S.A. § 1111(b) can incur a fine of  $100 to $10,000 for each violation. A warning letter to the violator, describing the nature of the violation along with the potential penalties, may be enough to stop their practice. 

More specifically, the act of dumping snow into a town highway, shoulder, or sidewalk is also a violation of state law under 23 V.S.A. § 1126a: 

No person, other than an employee in the performance of his or her official duties or other person authorized by the agency of transportation (in the case of state highways) or selectboard (in the case of town highways), shall plow or otherwise deposit snow onto the traveled way, shoulder or sidewalk of a state highway or a class 1, 2 or 3 town highway. 

Law enforcement officers may enforce this state law by issuing a civil violation complaint (i.e., a ticket). 23 V.S.A. §1013.   

It may be more efficient, however, for towns to regulate snow removal and prohibit the depositing of snow on town highways by enacting a local highway or nuisance ordinance. In this way, towns may establish their own tailored violations and penalties and be in a better position to enforce the regulations. 

Publication Date
02/05/2024

Highlights of Your 2023 Compensation and Benefits Survey Responses

Member for

1 year 3 months
Submitted by iminot@vlct.org on

Every year since 1968, VLCT has collected compensation and benefits information from its member towns, cities, and villages and shared it with all members to provide insight as to how they compare with each other. In our latest such survey, conducted in the summer of 2023, we collected the most responses ever, despite a record number of communities dealing with the results of catastrophic flooding. We received 182 responses to our online survey and 171 payroll reports, with a total of 184 distinct municipalities participating. 

Our goal for the survey is to provide hard to find contextual and comparison data in a format that is easy to use and understand. We organize all responses into the year’s report, to which every responding municipality receives free access both digitally and in a bound print. We know that municipalities rely on this resource to assess their pay rates, develop their budgets, and compare budgets and employee benefits with similar communities. 

During the last five years we have radically redesigned the survey to make it easier for municipalities to contribute their data. For example, we ... 

  • moved from a manual process to an online survey platform, 
  • worked with NEMRC to incorporate automated payroll reports for their users, 
  • extended the time for participation, 
  • reformulated questions to reduce the size of the survey, 
  • added an iPad raffle incentive for participating, and 
  • incorporated more contextual data (such as hire and termination dates) to help communities compare positions more accurately. 

These changes have increased participation in the survey and also the value of the data. If your municipality hasn’t responded in the last few years, we hope you will participate in 2024.

The timing of the annual survey is always a bit tricky given that two thirds of respondents operate on a July 1 to June 30  fiscal year and most municipalities begin their budget planning in the fall to prepare for their annual meeting (Town Meeting in March). Therefore, municipalities with a July-June budget cycle have a tight timeline after June 30 in which to provide their current year financial information. To ensure that our members have access to a robust dataset for their budget planning and salary setting endeavors in the fall, we leave the survey open through the first week of August and compile and format the data in a few short weeks to prepare it for the printer in October. Responding members receive free digital access to the report in October, and a bound print is mailed to their municipal office as soon as possible after that. We also make the report available in our web store for purchase by other members and non-members. 

Below we share with you a few highlights aggregated from the 2023 report. Some of these items include comparisons with the 2022 report to illustrate changes in the data or items that have remained relatively static. 

 

Population of Responding Municipalities

More than 79 percent of 2023’s 184 responding municipalities have between 169 and 3,000 residents, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. In the table below, the missing population ranges had no respondents.

PopulationNumber of Responding Municipalities
0-1,50099
1,501-3,00047
3,001-4,50018
4,501-6,0006
6,001-7,5005
7,501-9,0004
10,501-12,0003
21,001-22,5001
42,001-43,5001
Total184

 

Budget Cycles Used by Responding Municipalities

Of the municipalities that responded to our 2023 survey, nearly two thirds operate on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year, one third are on a calendar year budget cycle, and a mere five individual members use a different budget cycle. This is represented in this pie chart:

 

Budgets and Payroll Changes

Operating and personnel budgets remained surprisingly static this year despite the uptick in annual cost of living increases provided to municipal employees. Additionally, average personnel budgets as a percentage of total operating budgets increased by about only one percent this year. However, it is important to note that these are not exclusively apples-to-apples comparisons because responding municipalities may change from year to year. In fact, 137 of 2023’s respondents had also provided their total operating budget and personnel data in 2022. Twenty-five of 2022’s respondents were unable to participate in the 2023 survey, whereas 57 of the 2023 respondents had not participated in 2022.

Average and Median Operating and Personnel Budgets

Calculations2023 Personnel2023 Operating2022 Personnel2022 Operating
Average

$1,158,014.06 (36% of operating budget)

$2,975,163.67

$1,099,622.53 (36% of operating budget)

$2,587,007.23

Median

$528,614.00 (34% of operating budget)

$1,534,659.00

$1,437,786.00 (33% of operating budget)

$432,552.00

n=

175

175

170

170

 

Statutory Officials

Of the 2023 respondents, 64 (28 percent) have a chief administrative officer (CAO) to lead municipal operations, whether a statutory municipal manager or a non-statutory municipal administrator. In 2023, one municipality added a municipal manager position and three added a municipal administrator position. 

Most positions that are required by state law were still elected in 2023, as you can see from the Elected vs. Appointed chart below. 

 

 

Stay tuned! In 2024 we will re-launch the municipal census (last conducted in 2014) to gather more in-depth information from members on the status of Vermont local government operations.

Publication Date
01/17/2024
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