[Riley.]

Originally Posted by NYLIER

I keep looking at the property taxes in Delaware and the Carolinas and they are much cheaper than here. Delaware seems to be a nice state but I won't know the drawbacks until I go down there and check it out.

And many of these states make provisions for seniors, or don't tax social security, or give a break on property taxes etc. And then there are the states that don't tax income.

Not so here in VT. We have a large senior population that they draw $$$ from. Without us, I'm not sure how they'd fund this circus. They don't really do anything for us.

[skeddy]

Originally Posted by NYLIER

I keep looking at the property taxes in Delaware and the Carolinas and they are much cheaper than here. Delaware seems to be a nice state but I won't know the drawbacks until I go down there and check it out.

I'm primarily in Delaware. My neighbor just sold their house in January. His annual property tax bill for 2022 (on the listing) was $2164. His house sold for $1.1M. No sales tax here either, I've lived in VA, MD, MA, and NJ. We see a lot of tranplants from the NE in the Southern part of the state. IMO, Delaware is the best deal for seniors in the Mid Atlantic.

Was up in Stowe this summer, beautiful country, doesn't give the visual appearance it should be a so expensive to live there if that makes any sense.

[arctichomesteader]

Stowe is a ski resort town and with Vail's epic pass it brings even more people in now than before.

[Riley.]

I always thought it was so expensive because people with money buy there and can kind of claim their own little paradise.
That changed over the last few years, with COVID and then Vail's EPIC pass.
But I always thought it was people with money (originally) who bought and owned homes there. It stays expensive to keep out the riff raff, so to speak.

Now that COVID is over and the outsiders are left with the high taxes and heavy traffic during tourist season, people are renting out residences/condos, etc as Air B&Bs...because they probably have to to pay those property taxes, and then that created another problem of locals and seasonal workers being priced out. At least that's my perspective. I am probably wrong on some of that.

That said, Stowe is a lovely little town. My husband always remarks that except for that monstrosity of Spruce Peak, it is pretty much the same town we visiting long ago before we moved here. Back then, we could probably have afforded a house there. Not now and in retrospect, I'm glad we did not live there. We go there ALOT in the summer. The dog loves swimming in the river and walking different paths and we like having a beer at the Public House in the village or eating lunch at one of our favorite restaurants there. We never go to Burlington.

I lived in Vail for a number of years, and it was spread out, with good public transportation, so even when it was crowded, in the village, you didn't have traffic jams everywhere.

[Riley.]

We may have crossed the line in my small town yesterday with a double digit (27%) property tax increase based on some new convoluted education funding formula.

1100 registered voters in town. 141 came to the in-person town meeting. 77 (7% of registered voters) voted in favor of the school budget, 33 against. I guess the other 31 people left. LOL.
I know the rationale is they are not going to vote against a budget that the school board actually has very little control over and they are not going to do it to 'send a message to Montpelier,' although this is just about what our state rep says needs to be done (he was at our meeting and said things are hopeless in the Golden Dome). Like Gov Scott, RINO or not, they try but they are outnumbered.
If this is your cup of tea, then VT is for you. Bring a good salary and be ready to tolerate whatever they throw out you, because dissenters don't really have a voice.

I'm sad today.

[arctichomesteader]

My town and the neighboring towns that are in the same school district rejected the budget. As did apparently roughly 1/3 of districts according to the news I was reading. A pay raise for the tax collector was voted down by a large margin, but there was no interest in my proposals to gut the town budget to offset the education taxes by a lower town rate.

My rep was at the meeting and basically said no one in Montpelier cares a bit about the small towns in the state, just the bigger ones and Chittenden County. A selectboard member was only given 5 minutes at a committee meeting to speak while a Chittenden County selectboard member was given over 50 minutes. If the supermajority doesn't go away after November this state is toast. It's pretty far gone now. My rep is retiring too, she's had enough of it.

[Riley.]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

My town and the neighboring towns that are in the same school district rejected the budget. As did apparently roughly 1/3 of districts according to the news I was reading. A pay raise for the tax collector was voted down by a large margin, but there was no interest in my proposals to gut the town budget to offset the education taxes by a lower town rate.

My rep was at the meeting and basically said no one in Montpelier cares a bit about the small towns in the state, just the bigger ones and Chittenden County. A selectboard member was only given 5 minutes at a committee meeting to speak while a Chittenden County selectboard member was given over 50 minutes. If the supermajority doesn't go away after November this state is toast. It's pretty far gone now. My rep is retiring too, she's had enough of it.

Thanks for sharing your perspective from down south.
What a troubling situation to have voices suppressed such as you describe. To a lesser degree, that occurs at our 'town meeting.' A misnomer IMO when only 141 people show up out of 1100 registered voters. But don't dare stand up and voice something the liberals disagree with (and I'm sorry, it's always the liberals, sadly). You will suffer insults, snarky remarks and inaccurate characterizations about your intellect and political leanings. I did on Tuesday for bringing up Australian ballot voting (again). I'm pretty much done.

Anyway. Troubling also is when elected reps tell you it's pretty much hopeless and they are outnumbered. I doubt enough people would be replaced in November to equalize the opposing views to a more manageable number. And I'm not sure why anyone with a more conservative voice would want to put themselves in that situation. Fighting against those who will never agree with you or even consider valid any ideas you may have that might help course correct some of our financial issues.

[harry chickpea]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

My town and the neighboring towns that are in the same school district rejected the budget. As did apparently roughly 1/3 of districts according to the news I was reading. A pay raise for the tax collector was voted down by a large margin, but there was no interest in my proposals to gut the town budget to offset the education taxes by a lower town rate.

My rep was at the meeting and basically said no one in Montpelier cares a bit about the small towns in the state, just the bigger ones and Chittenden County. A selectboard member was only given 5 minutes at a committee meeting to speak while a Chittenden County selectboard member was given over 50 minutes. If the supermajority doesn't go away after November this state is toast. It's pretty far gone now. My rep is retiring too, she's had enough of it.

A lot traces back to the 1960s and the reapportionment of the legislature. Before that, the conservative small towns had near absolute power. After that, based on population, Chittenden County became the elephant (or should I say donkey?) in the room.

The first few years were great, as a lot of long term simmering problems got resolved and the entrenched powers-that-be had their short hairs closely clipped (which is almost always good, no matter how you lean). By the mid-1980s, it was clear that the power shift had gone too far AND the years of promoting tourism/ecology over everything else came back to haunt the budgets and started taking big bites out of practicality.

Any competent financial planner will first point out the importance of a diversified portfolio, and income coming in from at least three or four INDEPENDENT sources, so if one underperforms and fails, the others keep you solvent. As an analogy for a state, the government needs to be driving a tank, or at least a four-wheel drive vehicle. Vermont has increasingly been trying to ride the unicycle of tourism/ecology and use a big clown horn to drive off industry and any large commercial growth. That unicycle has just run into mud season.

While Vermont has been driving away industries, other states have been encouraging those same income providers by making industrial parks, offering all kinds of incentives, and growing the future. Alabama and Tennessee fought a few years back for a giant Volkswagen manufacturing plant. Tennessee won that one, but Alabama has come back with some impressive wins. Population is growing, and people can earn enough to make a living.

About five years in to the southern connector debacle in South Burlington, I realized that the troubles in Vermont were only going to get worse. When IBM sold off, if Global Foundries hadn't stepped in, that alone could have been the end of Happy Days in Vermont.

[Riley.]

As always Harry ^^^ very much appreciate your perspective.

[NYLIER]

Originally Posted by Riley.

We may have crossed the line in my small town yesterday with a double digit (27%) property tax increase based on some new convoluted education funding formula.

1100 registered voters in town. 141 came to the in-person town meeting. 77 (7% of registered voters) voted in favor of the school budget, 33 against. I guess the other 31 people left. LOL.
I know the rationale is they are not going to vote against a budget that the school board actually has very little control over and they are not going to do it to 'send a message to Montpelier,' although this is just about what our state rep says needs to be done (he was at our meeting and said things are hopeless in the Golden Dome). Like Gov Scott, RINO or not, they try but they are outnumbered.
If this is your cup of tea, then VT is for you. Bring a good salary and be ready to tolerate whatever they throw out you, because dissenters don't really have a voice.

I'm sad today.

I'm sorry for your loss, Riley. It didn't surprise me though. Our school budget didn't pass (thank God) but our Town Budget did. Some of the people demanded that Town Meeting day be on a Saturday instead of Tuesday so they get a chance to vote on the budget. I want the town budget to be the same as our school budget...voted by Australian ballot. That way everyone has a voice. I doubt they will do that because they don't want easy access to voting. No one wanted law enforcement in my Town. I just shook my head and walked out. I also found it odd that they listed people on the Republican primary ballot that weren't running, Christie, DeSantis, etc. Why, so they could put the "orange man" last? I thought it funny that the two states, VT and DC, where I found the people to be the most unwelcoming were the only ones that voted for Haley.

I really believe that this state's intentions are to get the middle class out. Chittenden County has Reps that are pushing for big spending, which the small towns can't afford. We vote these people in to work for us, but they get elected and turn on the people. The Public Utility Commission keeps approving rate hikes for Green Mountain Power and I can count on one hand how many taxpayers voice their opinions on their website. Maybe if a majority of taxpayers raised hell about the spending, but people complain on social media and do nothing.