$623,763 Budget Shortfall

For the last three years, Guilford residents voted on budgets that were calculated and presented incorrectly. The short of it, not enough money was raised (taxed) to cover the budgeted expenses.

"Error causes $623,763 worth of budget shortfalls over three years. $237,500 in FY24 / $140,163 in FY25 / $246,100 in FY2026

In 2024, Guilford's Town Administrator, Ericka Elder, neglected to properly inform the Selectboard that she and the new town Treasurer authorized the removal of $189,146.47 from Guilford’s reserve fund to cover the first shortfall.

This created two problems. First, the SB never legally authorized the transaction.

Guilford’s Reserve Fund Policy was voted on and established by Vermont law. Guilford’s policy was revised in October of 2024 (around the time of this transaction) and states, “that any expenditure of the fund by the selectboard shall require approval of a majority of selectboard members at a duly warned selectboard meeting.”

Since the Town Administrator never told the SB that she made the transaction, there was no warning of a meeting or a vote approving the transaction.

Second, since the SB wasn't aware of the transfer, there was no opportunity to fix the problem.

The SB claims to be “mostly” unaware of this transaction until their meeting on 9/08/25. By that time, the 2026 budget had already been voted on. There was no opportunity to catch the error for the third time, which created an avalanche effect beyond the $623,763 worth of budget shortfalls.

For instance, Guilford residents voted to allocate up to $68,000 to law enforcement services through the Windham Sheriff’s office. Those funds were not used for several good reasons. In order to keep that money assigned to law enforcement, the professional auditor had recommended to the Town Administrator that the SB assign those funds.

The SB eventually attempted to assigned those funds however, they had to rescind their vote when the auditor later informed them that "funds can not be assign that don’t exist.” Since those funds were not specifically assigned, they were drawn out of the general fund due to the shortfall.

For those funds to be legally allocated for anything other than Sherriff services, it must be voted on at Town meeting or a special Town meeting. How can that money no longer exist you ask, well, because it was spent to fix the Town Administrators neglect.

Sheila Morse then had the audacity to tell the residents of Guilford that, even after the shortfall, there was a surplus, but neglected to mention it was only because they drained the law enforcement fund to 0.