Voters in the tiny Northeast Kingdom town of East Haven will decide Tuesday whether to approve an education budget that would raise their taxes. The town closed its school four years ago, but it’s turning out to be more expensive to educate East Haven children elsewhere than it was to keep the school doors open.

Audio from this story will be posted at approximately 11 a.m. on Monday, March 2.

Most of us who work for a business appreciate some openness about how the company is doing and how decisions are made.

But how would you feel if everything in the workplace was out in the open – including your salary and those of your co-workers?

Audio for this story will be posted at approximately 11 a.m. on Monday, March 2

One Vermont business says that approach leads to a more engaged and productive workforce.

Gov. Peter Shumlin wants to raise $90 million in state revenues to pay for a wide ranging health care reform agenda. And while a key House committee is backing his push for new taxes, the House Committee on Health Care looks to be leaning toward a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages to raise the money, not the payroll tax preferred by Shumlin.

The proposal from the House Committee on Health Care doesn’t go quite as far as Shumlin would like. And the plan would fall short of the $90 million annually in state revenue that the Democratic governor wants to generate.

We think of Town Meeting as a hallowed institution and a hallmark of local democracy in action, but the fact is fewer of us are participating.

Town meeting attendance continues to decline despite efforts to boost participation. 

What else can we do?

We talk with Susan Clark and Frank Bryan whose revised edition of All Those In Favor, a study of Vermont's Town Meeting tradition, has just been released.

Post your questions or comments here or email vermontedition@vpr.net.