SALISBURY — Salisbury residents on Town Meeting Day will field their fiscal year 2027 town and highway budgets, a mosquito-control funding request and a petitioned resolution urging state lawmakers to pass healthcare reform legislation.

The proposed FY27 general fund request comes in at $435,350, which is an 8.5% increase compared to this year’s budget of $401,174.

The highway budget request comes in at $620,640, a 15% bump compared to the $537,370 spending plan OK’d by voters for the current year.

Article 9 will ask voters if they want to appropriate $17,588 for the Otter Creek Watershed Insect Control District to apply mosquito adulticide in select areas of town in 2026.

Article 11 is a non-binding resolution that, if passed, would ask the General Assembly to “discuss, take testimony, and vote on H.433 during this legislative session.” H.433 would establish publicly financed universal primary care, mental health services and substance use treatment as a first step in phasing in universal healthcare for all Vermont residents.

Other articles on the warning seek:

• Permission for the selectboard to apply any general budget surplus from the current fiscal year (that exceeds $30,000) to help lower FY27 property taxes.

• A total of $109,975 for an assortment of Addison County nonprofits that serve Salisbury residents.

• Authority for the town to rescind money allocated to the local Energy Program and apply it to the Buildings & Grounds fund.

Salisbury voters will also weigh in on a proposed fiscal year 2027 Addison Central School District budget of $53 million, to provide PreK-12 public education for children in Bridport, Cornwall, Middlebury, Ripton, Salisbury, Shoreham and Weybridge. If approved, the budget would result in a 3.58% increase in per-pupil education spending, for a total of $15,638 per child.

The proposed spending plan calls for a 2.15% bump (3 cents) in the district’s current education property tax rate of $1.62 per $100 in property value. But the actual education tax rates in the seven ACSD-member towns will vary, based largely on their common level of appraisal (CLA). CLAs — as determined by town-by-town analyses of their real estate sales by the state — compare towns’ property tax assessments to fair market value. If approved, the ACSD spending plan would result in an education property tax rate of $1.30 per $100 in property in Salisbury, based on the district’s latest projections. This would represent a 10 cents (9%) increase compared to the current rare.

Two-thirds of Vermonters pay at least a portion of their school taxes based on income.

There’s a referendum on the March 3 ballot asking ACSD residents if they’d like to officially close Ripton Elementary School. If that referendum passes, it paves the way for Ripton to reacquire the property.

Voters will be asked to fill four seats on the 13-member ACSD board — two from Middlebury, one from Salisbury and one from Bridport. There are no takers for the Salisbury seat and one of the Middlebury seats. Meanwhile, Middlebury incumbent Jason Chance and Bridport newcomer Robyn Stattel are on the ballot. All ACSD candidates run at-large in the seven-town district. The Independent found out at the last minute that Salisbury resident James Clark is offering himself as a write-in candidate for the Salisbury seat on the ACSD board. He told us, “I live in Salisbury with my wife and our three children. I’ve stepped forward as a write-in candidate for the open Salisbury seat because I believe healthy communities depend on steady participation from the people who rely on them.”

County residents will field a proposed fiscal year 2027 Patricia Hannaford Career Center budget of $6,271,915, representing a 9.95% increase compared to the current spending plan that delivers Career and Technical Education to students interested in the trades. The increase is largely associated with debt service on a major Career Center improvement project, negotiated wages, and health insurances increases.

Salisbury residents will decide all their Town Meeting Day business by Australian ballot, on Tuesday, March 3, between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the Salisbury town office. Residents will get a chance to become better informed about their town meeting warning at their annual gathering, set for Saturday, Feb. 28, at 3 p.m., at the Salisbury Community School.