Long time and well honored Town Manager Mike Welch will be resigning tonight at 7 p.m at the St. Johnsbury select board meeting. His dedication to the town as well as his hard work has payed off, and the next future town manager has some big shoes to fill.

Mike Welch has been serving the St. Johnsbury community for the past ten years, and was chosen by the select board to be Town Manager in June of 2000. He continues to make an impact on improving the town of St. Johnsbury.  In the past, he has helped fix the 100 year-old water infrastructure that was failing, adding cost to town water bills. Welch has also focused on the revamp of the St. Johnsbury Welcome Center, making it more accessible to the town, state, and tourists in Vermont.

Recently a lot of "change" has been put into place since the failed town budget last month due to high costs. Along with that, many new faces have joined the select board, such as Bernard Timson and Rodney Lamotte who favored cutting the department of economic development as well as reducing many department heads pay. Welch took a 6% pay cut, but the biggest budget cutting resulted in the elimination of the economic development position held by Joel Schwartz. Voters will be able to decide upon the next version of the town and school budgets during a special budget vote to be held on May 18th.