Central Vermont Career Center annual meeting, budget presentation, election preview

February 24, 2024 | By Lisa Scagliotti 

The Central Vermont Career Center School District holds its annual meeting tonight including an informational presentation on the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget that voters in the member school districts will see on their Town Meeting Day ballots. 

Learn more about Central Vermont Career Center's programs in its 2024-25 annual report online. Screenshot

The career center serves students from six central Vermont high schools including Harwood Union High School. The others are the Cabot School, Montpelier High School, Spaulding, U-32 and Twinfield Union high schools. 

Tonight’s annual meeting is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. both in person at the Career Center at 155 Ayers Street in Barre and online via Google. The link to join virtually is on the meeting agenda. A recording of the meeting will be posted on the district’s website afterward. 

Those attending would vote on a number of housekeeping items tonight including annual compensation for district officers and board members and routine spending and borrowing authorities for district officials.

Compensation amounts approved at the 2024 annual meeting were: $500 each for the moderator and district clerk, $1,500 for the treasurer and for board members with the board chair receiving $2,500.

The main items of business, however, will be on the paper ballots voters across the district receive on Town Meeting Day, March 4, to vote from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or if they vote early/absentee now. The district encompasses 18 Central Vermont communities including all of the towns in the Harwood district. 

The district is asking voters to approve a budget of $5,103,189 for the 2025-26 budget year, up 10.8% over the current year. The district’s budget slide presentation that will be shared at tonight’s meeting reviews details of the budget proposal which reflects level services for next year. 

The center is funded through a variety of sources including state funding and tuition from the sending school districts. The presentation notes that the base rate the center receives from the state has dropped for next year while other costs are increasing including supplies, health insurance (up 11.9%), and staff compensation through collective bargaining agreements that are currently being negotiated. 

Career Center leaders report the school currently has 220 students enrolled in its 15 programs and co-ops. Currently 33 students are enrolled from the Harwood district, according to the annual report. 

Career center programs include instruction in the building and stone trades, culinary arts, emergency services, digital media, automotive work, cosmetology and more. So far, demand is up for next school year with 334 applicants in the first round looking ahead to the 2025-26 school year, according to Superintendent Jody Emerson. “Interest in our programs keeps growing and we do not have the capacity to meet the demand,” the annual report states. 

The center is looking to move to full-day programming and plans are in the works to build a new modern facility by 2029. Tonight’s annual meeting will be immediately followed by a regular meeting of the Career Center School Board tonight. That agenda includes action items related to a facilities agreement and programming for FY26.  

In addition to the district’s budget, voters will see four questions to elect at-large members to the district’s school board on the Career Center ballot. The positions represent specific school districts that send students to the Career Center. 

Only one position has a candidate listed on the ballot, incumbent board member J. Guy Isabelle, for a 3-year at-large seat representing the Barre district. 

Other openings without candidates listed but where voters can write in their choices are: 

• An at-large director from the Harwood Unified Union School District to serve a three-year term. • An at-large director from the Montpelier Roxbury School District to serve a one-year term

• An at-large director from the Washington Central Unified Union School District to serve a two-year term. 

Emerson said a write-in candidate needs 30 votes or 1% of the voters registered in the district — whichever is less—to win election. Given the size of the district, 30 votes is by far the lesser number. The write-in candidate would of course need the most votes in the race.

More information about the Central Vermont Career Center’s annual meeting, elections, etc. is online here including it’s 2025 annual report.