Waterbury Town Meeting: $6.6m budget, flood mitigation bond vote, local option tax appropriations

February 2, 2026 | By Lisa Scagliotti 

The Waterbury Select Board has finalized the list of town business for voters to enact on Town Meeting Day that includes a $6.6 million 2026 budget, a bond vote to move a major flood mitigation project forward, nearly $1 million in allocations of local option tax revenues, and a new fire truck purchase.

Looking across Randall Meadow at Randall Street. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

Randall Meadow bond vote 

A unique question this year for Waterbury voters will be on a paper ballot and it’s unusual enough that it warrants its own public information session ahead of Town Meeting Day. 

Voters are being asked to give town officials approval to issue bonds to borrow up to $4.3 million for a proposed flood mitigation project at Randall Meadow. The question fulfills a requirement for the town to receive a $2 million federal grant that the project has been awarded, making it unlikely that the town will need to pay for the full cost of the project. In addition, town officials are working to secure other grant funding to pay for as much of the remaining $2.3 million as possible. 

The project involves a large-scale effort to excavate the roughly 45-acre Randall Meadow property that lies between the Winooski River and the Randall Street residential neighborhood. Currently leased to a Mad River Valley dairy farmer who plants corn on much of the parcel, the location could provide critical storage capacity for floodwater in future floods.

Waterbury has had three recent major flood events – July and December 2023, and again in July 2024. In addition, 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene wrought even more flood destruction on Waterbury’s downtown and river corridor. 

Randall Meadow is presently owned by the state of Vermont as it’s part of the State Office Complex property. The state last year agreed to transfer the property to the town for a nominal fee for flood mitigation purposes. That transfer would take place once the town decides for certain that the mitigation project is a go.

In December, Waterbury was awarded a $2 million grant of federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding to put towards the project. Preliminary estimates anticipate a cost of $4.3 million, which the town applied for from the grant program. The state Agency of Commerce and Community Development made the grant decisions, allocating nearly $50 million to more than two dozen projects around the state to address flood mitigation and housing needs. As a result, the Randall Meadow project was awarded less than half of the town’s request. 

The $2 million will be used for engineering and more detailed study to investigate the feasibility of the project and to explore for any environmental or other issues that might pose obstacles. Meanwhile, town officials are pursuing other state and federal grant opportunities to help offset the remaining $2.3 million. 

The bond that voters are being asked to approve is a step in the federal grant process that requires grant recipients to demonstrate that they have the financial ability to pay for the project should the grant funding not be available. 

The town select board and town manager have written an informational piece explaining the bond and the project in greater detail. (Read that in the Opinion section here.) The town website also has a page with flood mitigation project information, including details about the Randall Meadow project, including the initial environmental assessment done in 2025. 

Under the process for holding a bond vote, local officials will hold a special informational hearing about the bond for members of the public to learn more. That will be conducted as part of the select board’s regular meeting scheduled for Feb. 17, starting at 6:30 p.m. in the Steele Community Room and online via Zoom. Note that the meeting is on a Tuesday, given the Monday holiday. 

Waterbury residents gather in the Brookside Primary School gym for the 2025 town meeting. Town officials run the meeting from the stage. Photo by Gordon Miller

Proposed 2026 town budget

Town officials this year streamlined the wording on the Town Meeting Day warning when it comes to presenting the proposed town budget for 2026 (Waterbury follows a calendar fiscal year.) Rather than listing each of the main sections of the budget and capital spending totals, the budget information is consolidated into one Article 9. It asks voters to approve a budget of $6,567,486 and of that, $4,585,774 would come from property taxes. Nearly $2 million will come from non-property tax revenue such as grants, fees and the local option sales taxes.

In addition to that article, additional articles at the end of the meeting warning calling for taxpayer donations to more than two dozen nonprofits would add an additional $50,632 to the budget for a total of $6,617, 618. That represents an increase of 3.37% over the budget voters approved in 2025. The estimated tax increase that will be needed to support that budget is 2.7% which would amount to just shy of $45 of an increase on the tax bill for a home valued at $300,000. The tax rate gets set in July after the town’s property grand list is finalized, so the actual rate charged on tax bills may vary slightly.

Town officials will present the budget at the March 3 meeting to review highlights and answer questions. One key part to this year’s increase comes from a reduction in the amount of money the town anticipates it will receive from the state of Vermont in its annual Payment in Lieu of Taxes for state buildings and other property in the town. The budget anticipates a payment of just under $521,000, down 18% from the nearly $636,000 the state paid to Waterbury in 2025. That shift accounts for half of the tax increase in the budget, according to Town Manager Tom Leitz.

Other increases are in general government for personnel costs, and the highway budget.

Local option tax spending

Carol Dawes, left, and Beth Jones, right, are Waterbury's town clerks through Town Meeting Day. Formerly Waterbury's Assistant Town Clerk, Jones was appointed interim town clerk following Karen Petrovic's resignation. A longtime former Barre City Clerk, Dawes will serve as an interim assistant town clerk through early March to assist with the election. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

The Waterbury Fire Department has an opportunity to replace an aging fire engine truck at a cost estimated at $414,407, to be paid over several years. Article 14 asks voters to approve the purchase with the 2026 payment of $110,000 coming from local option taxes. 

Article 15 presents an itemized list of the proposed uses for $935,000 in local option tax revenue coming from the 1% local portion of retail sales taxes, rooms, meals and alcohol sales. The list has 15 individual uses for the tax revenue that the town collects separate from property taxes. 

The largest three items are $150,000 each for gravel road upkeep, sidewalk replacement, and a new filtration system for the town pool. Another $126,667 would cover a payment on a fire department truck that voters approved in 2025. Debit of $103,000 on a public works truck approved in 2025 would be paid for, along with $75,000 for a new F350 truck for the department. 

Waterbury will look to the Washington County Sheriff’s Department to contract for additional hours of local police services with an allocation of $75,000 of local option tax revenue. The funds would pay for sheriffs to mainly provide additional motor vehicle safety patrols over a nine-month period. This would be in addition to the contract the town has with the Vermont State Police for $477,000 in the general budget that covers two full-time troopers devoted to Waterbury. 

Charitable contributions: $50,632 

The rest of the Town Meeting Day articles list donations of taxpayer funds to 26 separate nonprofit organizations in Waterbury and around Central Vermont that serve Waterbury. 

Article 16 combines the smallest requests – those of $1,000 and under – from a dozen groups totaling $9,125 that include allocations to Capstone Community Action and the Friends of Waterbury Reservoir ($1,000 each) and the Waterbury Community Band ($800). 

The remaining 14 articles are for individual requests, all greater than $1,000. The largest request is from The Children’s Room early childhood education resource center for $7,500. The Waterbury Area Senior Citizens Association has a request for $6,500, which is in addition to $32,500 allocated in the main general town budget. The Waterbury Common Market has asked for $5,000, and Washington County Mental Health has a $3,000 request. 

See the full Town Meeting Day warning on the town website under the Voting and Elections section of the Town Clerk page here. 

Town Meeting details 

Voters casting early and absentee ballots may use the ballot drop box outside the town office main entry through March 2. File photo

The annual town meeting will be held March 3 at 9 a.m. in the gym at Brookside Primary School, where voters will gather to discuss and debate the town’s finances for the coming year along with some other issues up for a vote. The meeting includes various announcements, updates from local legislative representatives, and civic awards. 

Only those in attendance may vote on the business at hand. Lunch will be provided in the school cafeteria by the Waterbury Area Senior Center staff, donations accepted. Plans are also being made for child care to be available on site.   

Local elections to fill town and school district offices are held by paper ballot available all day – from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. – also in the school gym. The Randall Meadow project bond will be on a paper ballot, as will the Harwood Unified Union School District’s budget questions.  

Town annual reports are being finalized and will be available soon, both in printed copies at the town office and various locations around town, and posted on the town website. This post will be updated with details and a link when they’re available. 

Interim Town Clerk Beth Jones said that election ballots will be available by Feb. 10 for voters who wish to cast their ballot before March 3. To request a ballot by mail, voters may call 802-244-8447 or email the town clerks (bjones@waterburyvt.com); the Secretary of State’s online voter portal can process ballot requests as well. Voters also may visit the town office in person to cast a ballot up until March 2. 

Any ballots received by mail must be returned to the town office or the ballot dropbox at the office main entry by March 2 or at the polls on March 3, election day. More information is online here.