WEST WINDSOR — Residents will decide whether or not to change the town’s budget year from a calendar year schedule to a fiscal year schedule during a Special Town Meeting on Saturday.

The in-person-only meeting will take place at 10 a.m. at Story Memorial Hall, located at 22 Brownsville-Hartland Road.

West Windsor currently operates on a budget schedule that runs from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31.

A switch to the fiscal year would mean moving to a budget that begins July 1 and runs through June 30 of the next calendar year.

Under the current system, “when the voters approve the budget in March, they’re approving funds that we have already been using,” West Windsor Town Administrator Matt Frederick said in a phone interview.

That’s something that doesn’t sit well with West Windsor Selectboard Chairman Mark Higgins, who began advocating for the change after the last Town Meeting.

“It always was a weird facet in the town, why do we vote on this budget after we’ve already put it into effect? Don’t we run the risk of voters rejecting it?” Higgins said in a phone interview.

While that hasn’t happened since Higgins was elected to the board in March 2022, it is a concern he has thought about.

“Under the current system, if the budget is rejected the town is obligated to slash spending to really low levels… until a new budget is approved,” Higgins said. “That sounds like a nightmare if there ever is an issue.”

The change also would put less pressure on the town to dip into its reserve funds to borrow from itself when waiting for tax payments to come in every October.

“The start of the fiscal year in July would be closer to the collection date in October which means that dip into reserves would be shorter and therefore less onerous,” Higgins said.

If West Windsor changes to a fiscal year, it also would put the town in line with the Mount Ascutney School District and the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union, both of which operate on a fiscal year schedule and to which West Windsor belongs. The town also would be on the same fiscal year schedule as the state of Vermont.

There are a number of reasons municipalities may change from a calendar year, such as aligning with school budget and state cycles, and making sure “expenses, such as winter highway maintenance are in a single-year budget cycle,” Abby Friedman, municipal assistance center director at the Vermont League of Cities & Towns, wrote in an email.

Each year, VLCT — the Montpelier-based nonprofit organization that supports town governments — conducts a survey of Vermont’s 252 municipalities. This year, 165 responded, said Friedman. Of those, 109 operate on a fiscal year schedule and 56 operate on a calendar year schedule.

If West Windsor voters approve the change to the fiscal year, there would be a transitional budget year. In March, the Selectboard would propose an 18-month budget that would start on Jan. 1, 2025 and end on June 30, 2026.

“At the end of the day it’s a fairly technical change that most people shouldn’t care about,” Higgins said. “This 18-month budget transition is where I would anticipate the most resistance.”

Along with that, the board proposes collecting taxes every six months until the transition is complete. The tax payments and collection schedule changes are the biggest obstacles to overcome, Frederick, the town administrator, said.

“When they understand the rationale … it makes a lot of sense for them to have a say in the funds before we spend them,” said Frederick, who lives in West Windsor. “As a private citizen, that’s a big driver for me.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.