Questions and answers ⢠During a pandemic that could likely stretch into the next fiscal year, or even the next calendar year, what are the townâs greatest challenges? Hall: Lack of child care. COVID challenged the workforce, especially mothers. This has economic consequences on working parents, businesses and taxpayers. This affects work productivity, causing demotions, reduced hours and poor job stability. Businesses could be burdened with extra hiring costs, losses in productivity and shorter employee tenure. This can cause a tax burden (loss of federal and state tax) for the taxpayers. Wyckoff: Keeping the town tax rate low to compensate for unsustainable state education tax increases. The state's inability to curb education spending is the greatest threat to a local governmentâs ability to provide services to its residents. The constant increase in the education tax has forced us to level spend, and sometimes cut, local spending for programs that our residents rely on. On a positive note: the pandemic encouraged the select board, and all of its town committees, to meet virtually through Zoom. We actually have greater participation than pre-pandemic times.