Harwood sets second budget vote for April 30

April 5, 2024 | By Lisa Scagliotti 

Voters in the Harwood Unified Union School District will vote on April 30 on a revised budget proposal for the 2024-25 school year. 

The HUUSD School Board held a special meeting on Wednesday and voted unanimously to put a new budget of $48,888,319 on the ballot.  

Waterbury voters cast ballots on Town Meeting Day, March 5, in the gym at Brookside Primary School. Voters across the Harwood school district rejected the $50.8 million school budget on the ballot by a margin of 64% to 35%. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

This second budget represents a 7.63% increase over the current school year’s budget of $45.4 million. It’s also $1.9 million less than the $50,844,703 million proposal that voters rejected on Town Meeting Day last month. The Harwood district was one of 30 school districts around Vermont where voters turned down budgets on March 5.

The reductions to reach the $48.8 million figure include eliminating a $1 million addition to the district’s Maintenance Reserve Fund, $332,000 from cutting three full-time equivalent positions through attrition, and saving $400,000 by leaving 20% of vacant positions unfilled next year. The remainder of the cuts are one-time reductions including shaving nearly $300,000 from next year’s operations budget, trimming $165,000 from technology expenses, and making smaller cuts in line items for supplies, transportation, conferences and workshops, and athletics. 

The school board is forming a finance committee to look at overall budgeting and potential efficiencies for financial planning beyond the 2024-25 fiscal year. Finance Director Lisa Estler has cautioned the board that many of the reductions for the revised budget proposal are one-time cuts and simply delay those expenses by a year. 

Based on current data available, the revised version would result in school property tax increases that are lower than those expected from the first budget proposal in March, but still represent double-digit changes from last year’s tax bills. 

The new increases would range from 13.4% in Duxbury to 22.4% in Warren; Waterbury’s increase would be 17%, according to Estler. Those figures may change when a key factor in the complex state education funding formula – the state’s share per pupil called the “yield” – is finalized later this spring, a piece expected after the April 30 vote, she said. 

A slide presentation shared with the school board on Wednesday contains more details including anticipated tax increases per town broken down by various home values. Those increases range from $254 for each $100,000 of assessed property value in Duxbury to $439 in Warren. Waterbury’s increase would be $324 for every $100,000 of home value so a home valued at $300,000 would see a tax increase of $972.

Estler stressed to the board that using the state education formula that lawmakers revised in February, the lower budget now has a school district tax increase of 3 cents – $1.47 compared with $1.44 for the current 2023-24 school year. That’s up just 2% and it accounts for only $31 of the increases property owners will see per $100,000 of assessed value. The bulk of the expected increases is a result of the portion of the funding formula that factors in the Common Level of Appraisal. That measure accounts for real estate values over the past three years which have not kept pace with market increases, she explained. 

School officials underscore the significance of that part of the calculation. For comparison, Estler’s presentation includes several slides outlining a “Scenario 4” totaling $47,778,859 (down $3 million from the original failed budget) which could be the next level of cuts for the board to consider should voters not approve the budget on the April 30 ballot. 

That next breakdown would mean a slight drop (by 1 cent) in the school tax rate compared to 2023-24’s rate. That would work out to a decrease of $11 per $100,000 of property value assessments, according to the slides. But when the CLA is then factored into that scenario, tax bills per $100,000 of home values would still grow by $193 in Duxbury to $371 in Warren. Waterbury property tax bills would grow by $260 per $100,000 of assessed value (a home assessed at $300,000 would see a tax increase of $780). 

“There will definitely still be a tax increase even if there is no district tax increase,” Estler said. 

Board Chair Ashley Woods of Warren said that reality is important for voters to understand. “It’s important that people are starting to hear that fact more and more,” she said. 

The school board set two dates for informational meetings where members of the public can see a budget presentation and ask questions ahead of the April 30 vote: 

• Thursday, April 18, at 6 p.m. in person at Harwood Union High School and online via Zoom and YouTube. Links to join on Zoom or view the livestream on YouTube are on the meeting warning. 

• Thursday, April 25, at 6 p.m. online only via Zoom and YouTube. Links to join on Zoom or view the livestream on YouTube are on the meeting warning. 

On April 30, voting will be held in each of the district’s six communities from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voting in Waterbury will be in the Steele Community Room at the town offices. In Duxbury, voting will be held at the town office. See the warning for the other locations. 

The school board’s decision on the revised budget for the April 30 vote was unanimous with 10 of its 14 members in attendance. Fayston member Mike Bishop was absent due to a work conflict and three seats representing Waterbury on the 14-member board are vacant. The school board plans to interview applicants for those positions at its April 10 meeting to make appointments filling those seats until the March 2025 election.