Charlestown 2024/2025 Budget Approved With Only 254 People Voting

Only 254 People Voted – Thank You To Everyone Who Did Vote!

• Charlestown’s 2025 Budget passed with 183 in favor of the budget and 71 against.
• The number of voters was down by over 1,000 from previous years’ numbers.
• The tax rate is estimated to be $5.78 per thousand dollars of valuation

Why Was Voter Turnout So Low?

• In previous years the town sent a mail ballot via the U.S. Postal Service to each of the town’s registered voters to make voting on the budget easier and also to raise awareness of the budget vote. This year the Town Council discontinued this citizen outreach, resulting in a significant reduction in participation.
• The town did not send the May “Pipeline” newsletter in time to arrive in advance of the vote. Most voters did not receive the “Pipeline,” with information about the budget, until Monday, June 3 – the day of the vote. The announcement of the time and where to vote does not appear until page three. Voters would have had to open and carefully read the “Pipeline” to know that the polls were closing at 8 p.m. on the day they received the newsletter.

Charlestown Citizens Alliance did create a detailed post about the vote at our website and sent that to our newsletter, Facebook, and Twitter (X) subscribers. The Town Council majority’s political website and Facebook had no notice of the vote.

The Town Council majority claims full transparency because everything is available somewhere on the Town’s website. It is true the information is there. If you listen to hundreds of hours of meeting video, you can find a discussion or vote on an important topic. But few people in town have that amount of time or are that engaged, and without a stronger effort at outreach, budgets and other important votes will continue to pass with very few people participating.