1. No runoff required in tie vote if a candidate withdraws from the race. The legislature amended the law last year to permit towns to avoid a runoff vote when there is a tie vote for any local office and one of the candidates decides to withdraw from the race. The new law provides that "if one of the candidates that are tied withdraws his or her candidacy within five days after the election, the town clerk shall certify the other tied candidate as the winner, and there shall be no runoff election." 17 V.S.A. §2682(e), amended effective July 1, 2007.

2. Not every local official must get paid. While some officers, like clerk, treasurer and tax collector have fees set out by statute, Vermont law states that unless compensation is fixed by law or by vote of the town or town school district, local officials cannot demand payment for their services to the town. However, the law provides that if an official makes a request for payment the auditors must report the claim as well as the nature and extent of the services at town meeting. 24 V.S.A. § 931.

3. Town or selectboard may set salary. A town may vote to compensate any or all town officers for their official services. 24 V.S.A. § 932. However, when a town does not set a salary or stipend for an officer (or for town employees) the selectboard may fix the salary. Note that they may not set their own salary – but the selectboard’s salary can be fixed by the auditors at the time of the annual town audit. Or, if the town has voted to eliminate the office of auditor and the voters fail to fix the compensation to be paid to members of the selectboard, selectboard members shall be compensated at the rate at which they were compensated during the immediately preceding year. 24 V.S.A. § 933.

4. Salary of election workers is set by the voters or by the selectboard. There is no law that requires a town to compensate the people who work at the polls on Election Day. The law permits the town to set a salary for these officials, and if they have not, then the selectboard may set a salary. In many towns the board votes to pay election workers minimum wage. Note that this wage has just increased to $7.68/hr.

5. New vote is not required for board to spend reserve fund money for the purpose the reserve fund was created. When the electorate has voted at a town meeting to establish a reserve fund, such as a highway capital reserve fund, the selectboard is authorized by statute to expend those funds for purchase of capital assets for the maintenance and improvement of highways and the selectboard does not need another article to approve each expenditure (so long as the expenditure is for the purposes for which the fund was established.) 24 V.S.A. §2804. If the selectboard wants to use the funds for some other purpose, then the board needs to warn an article for voter approval to use the funds for a different purpose.

6. Property bought at tax sale must be sold in arm’s-length transaction. The town bought property at tax sale five years back and a neighbor has asked to purchase the property. The selectboard has an obligation to both the taxpayers of the town and to the delinquent taxpayer who last owned the property to sell the parcel for the highest price possible. The best practice is to try to sell the property for fair market value and allow all members of the public to place a bid or make an offer on the property. Any money that is received by the town in excesses of the taxes, fees, penalties, carrying costs, lost tax revenue and any other costs to the town associated with the property is remitted to the delinquent taxpayer. Bogie v. Barnet, 129 Vt. 46 (1970).

7. Town officers take office at town meeting. Newly elected town officers take office on town meeting day. Some officials must take an oath before they officially take office. This can be done by the clerk at town meeting, or at any time thereafter. 17 V.S.A. § 2646. An official who is required to take an oath of office (by either swearing or affirming) and who refuses to do so may not take office, thereby creating a vacancy.

9. Australian ballot is not a paper ballot. People often confuse the terms "written ballot," "paper ballot" and "Australian ballot." A "written ballot’ and a "paper ballot" are blank pieces of paper that are used to vote at a traditional floor school district or town meeting to elect certain officers as required by statute, when required by a particular statute, or when requested by at least seven voters. An "Australian ballot" vote refers to the practice of voting at designated polling places during designated polling hours (set by the BCA, but commonly from 7 a.m.-7 p.m.) with pre-printed ballots that are available 20 days prior to the school district or town meeting for absentee voting.

10. Town gets 120 days to remit taxes to school district, even if not yet collected by the town. 16 V.S.A. § 426 (b) provides that "within one hundred and twenty days after the date on which taxes become delinquent, but in no event later than the end of the school year, the treasurer shall deposit the balance of the sum of the gross school tax levy in the school account." This means that even if taxpayers are delinquent, the school portion of those taxes must be remitted by the town to the school district. The town is responsible for collecting the delinquencies, and when it does so can keep the entire proceeds.

11. Town treasurer must pay taxes to school as they come due. One treasurer deposited the tax payments into the town account and left them there to accumulate interest for the town. The school district objected. According to 16 V.S.A. § 426, unless the school board and selectboard agree (in writing) otherwise, the treasurer must deposit the school taxes within 20 days after the date they become due and payable.

12. Non-voters must request permission to speak at town meeting. Because town meeting is a meeting of the voters of a town, only voters have a right to speak at the meeting. If a non-voter wishes to speak he or she can request the meeting to grant its permission to address the assembly. This is done as a motion to suspend the rules to permit a non-voter to address the assembly which must be passed by a two-thirds vote. In some towns the motion includes limitations on the time the person is given to speak (i.e. the nonvoter may speak once to an issue for a time not to exceed five minutes, etc.)

13. Moderator’s rulings may be challenged by voters. During a traditional floor voting town meeting, any voter may challenge a moderator’s ruling on points of order by requesting that the issue be put to a vote. Many wise moderators will encourage voters to challenge a ruling when they are in doubt by prefacing the ruling such as "The chair is doubtful, but will rule that …." This encourages a voter to rise to challenge. Robert's Rules provides that any voter can rise to ask that the ruling be voted upon by the assembly. It is difficult for any moderator to know every rule and anticipate every type of motion that may be presented. Robert's Rules thus allows the majority of those voters present to decide what is fair and just under the circumstances.

14. Moderators should not provide legal opinions. The best practice is for moderators at the annual meeting to refrain from speaking to the legality of an article or to give an opinion regarding the legal effect of taking action on or passing over an article. While moderators generally desire to be helpful, it is the moderator’s role to manage the process and procedures of the meeting with the primary purpose of seeing that the will of the electorate is given effect, with fairness and impartiality to all legal voters who are participating. Even a well-intentioned comment regarding the legality or impact of an article could be misunderstood as showing partiality for or against an article. If there is truly no one else in the room that can answer a question, and the moderator feels compelled to enter the discussion, the moderator should call for a moderator pro tem to take over, and step down to participate in the debate.

15. Person elected to incompatible offices must decline or resign one, which will create a vacancy. When a person is elected to more than one position in the town or school district and the positions are incompatible, the person must resign from one of the positions. This creates a vacancy which must be filled according to statutory procedures. Under Vermont law, the runner-up or next highest vote-getter does not move up or become the winner. To fill a vacancy in town officer the selectboard posts the vacancy within 10 days of its creation, and then appoints a person to fill the term of office until the next election. 24 V.S.A. §961 and 963. For vacancies in town school districts, within 30 days, the school board appoints a person to fill the position until the next election. 16 V.S.A. § 424. For vacancies in union school districts the clerk of the union district notifies the school board of the town which elected the original incumbent and within 30 days the school board must appoint to fill the position until the next election. 16 V.S.A. §706l.

16. It is not best practice for spouses to serve on the same board. There is no Vermont law that would prevent spouses from serving on the same board. That being said, it is our opinion that it is not best practice. This is because boards work best when their membership reflects some of the diversity of the town. Indeed, we have observed that when two family members serve on the same board it affects the public confidence in the board because of a perception that one family dominates the decision-making to the detriment of the minority perspective in the town. Even if the spouses act independently from one another, the public will generally still believe that they act together. In towns that have a three-member board having two spouses serving raises significant questions about whether the open meeting law is violated whenever they discuss the business of the town at home, outside of the public meetings.

17. School board may use school district resources to educate public about upcoming vote. The law permits a school board to use the school district resources to develop and present to the public informational materials related to issues on the school meeting warning. If public funds and resources are used these materials may not say "vote yes" or "vote no" on a particular article, but it may explain the board’s position. The law provides that the school board "May, at the expense of the district, present informational materials to the electorate on any matter to be voted. However, such materials shall be limited to those that are reasonably designed to inform, educate and explain to the electorate the board’s position on the matter." 16 V.S.A. § 563(23).

18. Executive sessions should not be recorded. An executive session is designed by law to be an opportunity for a board to privately discuss matters that have been deemed too sensitive for public discussion. 1 V.S.A. § 313. This includes, for example, discussion of personnel matters, contract negotiations and litigation. When a board permits a member to record these sessions there is a real risk that what was private will become public. (Note that if the board is not concerned about whether their discussion could become public, then the matter should have been discussed in the open session in the first place.) In order to ensure the integrity of the executive session discussion the board should adopt a policy of not permitting the taping of executive sessions.

19. Minutes of meetings must reflect the business of the meeting. In one town a person asked a board to amend its meeting minutes because the minutes included a statement by a board member that the person believed was factually inaccurate (although it was actually discussed during the meeting). Because the minutes must reflect the topics of discussion, the proper way to proceed was to allow this person to submit a letter explaining why she believed the statement in the minutes was false, and to include this in the file with the minutes. It would not be proper to alter the minutes so that they would no longer "give a true indication of the business of the meeting." 1 V.S.A. § 312.

20. Selectboard members on BCA may not act independently of the BCA quorum. Although selectboard members serve on the board of civil authority they serve as equal members to the rest of the board. This means that the selectboard may not make decisions on behalf of the BCA at selectboard meetings. BCA meetings must be independently warned, and all members of the board must be given an opportunity to attend. 24 V.S.A. § 801. According to law "Meetings of the [BCA] shall be called by the town clerk, or by one of the selectmen, on application, by giving written notice to each member, and by posting a notice in two or more public places in the town at least five days previous to the meeting."

21. Selectboard may require social service agencies to report on how they spent town money before including an appropriation in the selectboard’s budget. Some selectboards have a policy of including appropriations for social service agencies that the town has funded in the past in the budget it presents to the voters. The board may choose to condition placing these appropriations in the selectboard’s budget on the agency presenting to it a report on how the prior year’s appropriation was spent. Note that the law permits social service agencies to bring in a petition to get an article on the warning to appropriate money to the agency. Social service agencies that petition such articles cannot be required to present a report of prior spending. However, during a floor meeting the voters may ask questions about the appropriation, and if not satisfied with the information provided, they can choose to vote against the article.

Town clerks should furnish presiding officers with one or two certified copies of the checklist, depending on whether the town has opted not to use an exit checklist. 17 V.S.A. § 2507.

Town clerks must also deliver sufficient quantities of the ballots to the presiding officer. 17 V.S.A. § 2479.

The presiding officer should assign specific duties to each election official, ensuring that the election officials work in pairs, with each pair containing members from different political parties if possible. 17 V.S.A. § 2562.

In an Australian ballot election, the presiding officer declares the polls open on the day of the election between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. (the specific time is set by the board of civil authority or by the voters), and declares the polls closed at 7 p.m. 17 V.S.A § 2581.

Town meeting begins at a time designated by the legislative body, unless the town has voted a specific time at a previous meeting. 17 V.S.A. § 2655.

In towns that start their annual meeting on one of the three days preceding the first Tuesday in March, and use the Australian ballot system on Tuesday, public discussions of ballot issues and all other issues appearing in the warning, other than election of officers, is permitted at the Saturday, Sunday or Monday meeting. In addition, towns that hold their Australian ballot voting on Tuesday may discuss ballot items at the floor meeting if the Australian ballot voting is held in a different building, or if it is accessible only through a separate entrance. 17 V.S.A. § 2640(c).

Neither the warning, the notice, nor the ballot itself shall include any opinion or comment by any town body or officer or other person on any matter to be voted on. 17 V.S.A. § 2666.

In an Australian ballot election, the presiding officer should ensure that within the building containing the polling place no campaign literature, stickers, buttons, information on write-on candidates or political materials are placed, handed out, or allowed to remain and that no candidate, election official or other person distributes election materials, solicits voters or otherwise campaigns. 17 V.S.A. § 2508.

Outside the building, the presiding officer must ensure that voters can enter and leave the polling place without interference from candidates or other citizens. 17 V.S.A. § 2508. The provisions of this section apply equally to election of candidates as to votes on public questions, including the budget, if done by Australian ballot vote.

For items discussed at a floor meeting the moderator may permit the distribution of literature (including campaign materials), information and political materials.

In traditional town meetings the moderator must follow reasonable and necessary procedures to ensure that people who are not voters of the town do not vote. 17 V.S.A. § 2656.

The moderator must preserve order in the conduct of business and debate. If a person, after notice, continues to be disorderly and refuses to withdraw from the meeting, the moderator may order him to be removed by the constable or some other person. 17 V.S.A § 2656. A person who disturbs town meeting may be fined $200 by the district court.

Remember that while Robert’s Rules of Order or some other rule of order must be followed at town meeting, these rules have been modified by state law. For example, the assembly must not reconsider articles already voted once consideration of another article has begun; when a vote declared by the moderator is immediately questioned by one voter, the moderator shall divide the meeting, and if requested by seven voters, the moderator must take the vote by paper ballot; the assembly may take no binding action during the "other business" portion of the meeting; the moderator shall allow sufficient time for voters to cast paper ballots whenever that method of voting is to be used. 17 V.S.A. §§ 2660(d); 2661(a).

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Table of Contents     |     Past Issues of Opinions     |     Secretary of State's Homepage

Table of Contents     |     Past Issues of Opinions     |     Secretary of State's Homepage