MVDC Town Meeting 2025 TLDR Explainer
TLDR = Too Long, Didn’t Read
At our meeting on Friday, March 7th, one of our newer members asked for some explanations of this year’s elections - Voting Day, Tuesday, March 11th from 7 AM to 7 PM at the Mont Vernon Village School (MVVS)and Town Meeting, Wednesday, March 12th starting at 7:00 p.m. (MVVS Doors open at 6:00 p.m.)
This explainer may still be long because there is a lot to cover. ☺
You must be registered to vote in town for either day. You can register at the school during voting hours. You can find the requirements at this link.
SCHOOL BALLOTS -Tuesday, March 11
For the schools only, MV is what is known as an “SB2” Town. The name refers to Senate Bill 2, the original 1995 bill proposing this style of local government. The SB2 format features a Deliberative session followed on another day by a Voting session.
Because we voted in SB2 for school matters (only) years ago, everything related to the schools that requires a vote is done via ballots on Voting Day. For MV, this means that on Tuesday you will complete 1 ballot for the Mont Vernon Village School District and 1 Ballot for the Souhegan Cooperative School District of which we are a part. Since MV kids attend Amherst Middle School for grades 6 and 7 under a tuition agreement, there is no ballot associated with AMS. AMS tuition is included in the MVVS budget.
Article 1 is always “Elected Officials”. All MVVS candidates are running unopposed.
Although no one originally filed to run for the position of School District Clerk, our own Sarat Rogers has stepped up to run for this important position. We ask that you enter her name on the “Write-in” line in the “Clerk” box and fill in the oval as you will have done for the other candidates.
For NH SB2 towns, all budget matters listed in the ballot are simple up or down votes. Each of the school ballots contains the overall annual school budget as Article 2. The law establishes a “default budget” that will go into effect should the requested budget not pass. The default budget is based on the current year budget plus any contractual obligations that may apply.
The 2025 MVVS ballot includes two articles that are a little different. Articles 3 & 4 relate to the new teacher contract. The School Board has negotiated the contract in Article 3 with the Mont Vernon Education Association (the teachers’ union), but MV voters are required to ratify the agreement. Because the teachers would be working without a contract if Article 3 fails, Article 4 would allow the School Board to conduct a special meeting to address the issue. Vote “Yes” on MVVS Articles 3 and 4.
Each school ballot also contains other Warrant Articles requesting specific funding. Most of these articles request permission to use surplus funds from the current year budget to add to various trust funds that help the schools deal with either unexpected costs in a given year or larger projects that span multiple years. Each of these shows that they have “No tax impact” because the money was already collected last year. They also show a negative tax impact if the article fails since that amount of surplus would then be available to return to the general fund to cover current year expenses.
All the Warrant Articles on both school ballots are recommended by both their respective School Boards and Budget Committees. While none of these groups is infallible, they have put in hundreds of hours of work preparing and studying these budgets.
TOWN BALLOTS – Tuesday, March 11
Articles 1 thru 3
For town matters, MV is currently a traditional Town Meeting town. This means that most of the town’s business is voted on in person at Town Meeting. The ballots used on Voting Day cover only Elected Officials (Article 1) and changes to local ordinances (Articles 2 & 3 this year). Although many towns have both Voting Day and Town Meeting on the second Tuesday in March, Mont Vernon conducts Town Meeting on Wednesday to avoid having to count ballots during the meeting.
ARTICLE 1 – Elected Officials
There is only one contested race on this year’s town ballot. 3 candidates filed for the position of Select Board member. One, David Teshinsky, has indicated he is no longer interested in running. Both remaining candidates are veteran members of the Select Board. John Quinlan is a current member and previously served for 12 years before being defeated in 2018 by Tim Berry, who served one term. Because John Quinlan has consistently championed long-range planning to support predictable town budgets, the consensus of those who attended the March MV Dems meeting was to vote John Quinlan for Select Board.
ARTICLE 2 - Mont Vernon Recreational Vehicle Occupancy
Vote YES to adopt the Ordinance proposed by the Planning Board (pursuant to NH RSA’s 674:17 and 675:3). The ordinance is intended to clarify when an RV can be used as living quarters. It provides ample allowances for normal temporary use but prevents use of an RV as a permanent residence. The Select Board supports this article.
ARTICLE 3 - Junk and Junkyard Ordinance
Vote YES to adopt the Ordinance proposed by the Planning Board (pursuant to NH RSA's 674:17 and 675:3). The ordinance is intended to define junk and junkyards, and allow for responsible, licensed operation of junkyards, while also allowing for enforcement mechanisms that protect public safety and health. In the absence of a local ordinance, state junkyard laws have been very difficult to enforce locally. The Select Board supports this article.
TOWN MEETING - Wednesday March 12th
PETITION WARRANT ARTICLES - These warrant articles were created by town residents who gathered signatures on petitions requesting the warrant articles appear at Town Meeting to be voted on. Our MV Dems petitioned successfully to have Article 4 appear to be voted on at Town Meeting.
ARTICLE 4 - Education Freedom Accounts
Vote YES This warrant article sends a message, though nothing is binding, to our state legislature - That voters of MV do not agree with expanding taxpayer funding for the Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) program, which could increase our town property taxes, until more accountability has been established about the purposes and costs of using our education funds for EFAs. The Select Board supports this article.
ARTICLE 5 – Mont Vernon Police Cooperation with I.C.E.
Vote NO to avoid imposing contradictory, and costly, requirements on our MVPD. Our local police do not have the staffing or funds to assist ICE in finding and detaining persons targeted in ICE’s newly expanded operations. MVDems do not agree with ICE’s newly expanded operations. Neither the Police Chief nor the Select Board support this article.
ARTICLE 6 – Voting by Paper Ballot & Ballots Hand Counted
Vote NO to permit the Town Clerk to continue to use the optical scanner to count ballots. The scanner is not connected to the internet and is not subject to tampering. The paper ballots themselves are available for hand recounts when necessary and experience shows that the machine is more accurate than hand counting. The Select Board does not support this article.
ARTICLE 7 & 8 – Adopt SB2 Ballot Voting for Mont Vernon Town Meeting (Identical - Will be combined into one vote at Town Meeting)
Vote NO to allow Mont Vernon to continue to use the traditional Town Meeting approach to fiscal decision-making. There are pros and cons to each form of management, but MVDems believe the cons of SB2 outweigh the advantages. MVDems believe - SB2 may have more voters, but potentially uninformed voters. Town Meeting may have fewer voters, but voters are able to have an open discussion about the issues, resulting in more informed voters. The only opportunity for person-to-person discussions in SB2 towns are “Deliberative sessions.” In other SB2 towns, and in our town for school matters, deliberative sessions are very poorly attended. Our school deliberative session this year had less than 10 attendees. This makes for a very small minority of residents deciding major fiscal changes. Also, and importantly, if we used SB2 ballot voting rather than Town Meeting for deciding our town budget, if SB2 voters voted down our town budget, a “default” budget” then goes into place. If this happens, changes often still need to be made to get the town through a fiscal year. These changes then are made by our 3 Select Board members - rather than the full body of our voters who can discuss these changes at Town Meeting. To illustrate more, SB2 voting has voters cast one vote on a town budget by ballot. Instead, at Town Meeting, the entire town budget is aired and each line item can be discussed and adjusted, by the persons attending Town Meeting, not our Select Board solely. The Select Board does not support this article.
ARTICLE 9 – Adoption of Local Tax Cap
Vote NO to prevent MV from being subject to an arbitrary 2% tax cap that prevents the Select Board from presenting a budget that considers the fiscal realities of any given year. For example, this year, the cap would prevent town employees from receiving the 3% COLA increases that are proposed in the budget. The Select Board does not support this article.
ARTICLES 10-15
These articles are routine articles. Listen to the discussion and use the power of your vote to help the town decide.