Harwood’s $49.2 million budget to cut 15-20 jobs, lower taxes for many

January 28, 2025 | By Lisa Scagliotti 

Harwood’s school board has decided to put a 2025-26 school budget to the voters in March that increases spending slightly, is likely to lower school taxes for many, but relies on cutting some 15-20 full-time jobs across the district. 

See the latest budget slide presentation on the HUUSD.org website.

The board voted on Jan. 22 to approve a budget of $49,209,927 for the Town Meeting Day ballot. That represents an increase of 2.75% over this year’s $47.9 million budget that voters approved last May on the third vote. 

When revenue sources other than tax dollars are considered, school leaders emphasize that this spending plan relies on an increase of just 2.1% in the funding requested from the state: $41,188,115.

“We believe this is a very responsible budget to put forward to the board,” Finance Manager Lisa Estler told the board during her budget presentation.

Given increases in operational costs, providing the same services in 2025-26 as this school year would have resulted in a budget of just under $51.4 million -- a 7% increase. So the proposal reflects cuts to provide fewer services than the current school year as school administrators and board members sought to build a budget that would not grow by more than 3%, as recommended by Gov. Phil Scott late last year. Recent years' school budgets have grown by about 5.5% to 6.5%, based on school district data presented during budget discussions. 

Some of the key cost drivers this year are special education and its associated transportation and employee health insurance, up nearly 12%. To accommodate those increases, administrators are looking to trim some 15-20 full-time equivalent jobs from across the district’s seven schools and central offices. Decisions as to exactly which positions will be eliminated will not be made until after the March 4 vote. 

Administrators are meeting with teachers and staff union leaders and encouraging employees who may be planning to retire or resign to make their plans known soon. For the purposes of budget discussions recently, Superintendent Mike Leichliter and Estler said personnel cuts are likely to be made by not filling some vacant positions and then making reductions in the number of classroom teachers, student support positions, and central office administrators. They listed specific areas they are looking at including cuts to nurses, librarians and art teachers. Those reductions will amount to about $2 million, school officials said. 

Other smaller cuts will come from trimming budgets for supplies, library and technology resources. Eliminating summer academies will save $325,000, Eslter noted. Consolidating bus routes and other operational changes will bring another $135,000 in savings. 

Despite the austerity goals, the state’s formula for calculating student enrollment using weighting to reflect the true costs of educating students with special circumstances such as English language learners and children in poverty shows the district’s per-pupil spending will rise slightly in 2025-26. That figure stands at $15,250 this year and would increase by 1.55% to $15,485 next year. 

Before the board voted to adopt the budget, member Life LeGeros from Duxbury asked that the group to pause to consider increasing spending to a 3% increase in order to add in funding that could potentially prevent cutting a school nurse position. He reminded the group that the 2.75% spending increase target the board gave the administration was arrived at by consensus before any details were reviewed. “We are cutting to the absolute bone and beyond,” he said, remarking on how cutting school nurses further reduces providers for children given recent cuts to local health care services in the district. 

Estler cautioned that the district needs to continue to bring down its spending per pupil in years to come, so adding funds back into the budget would contradict that goal. 

Several board members commended LeGeros’ suggestion including fellow Duxbury member and board Vice Chair Cindy Senning. She reminded the group that her career included stints as a school nurse at Harwood and a principal in Duxbury, so her perspective is to provide the best services for children. Still, the choices reflected in the budget sting, she said. 

“I have been battling for 50 years for what you just talked about Life. This business of us giving up our essential, critical social services for kids and old people both… having to make these stupid decisions that will bring me to ears quite frankly. And I’ve got to for 2.75% for the people who might not be able to manage their houses,” she said. “It’s not right and it’s not the way our society should be working.”

Ultimately, the group voted 8-3 in favor of proceeding with the budget draft in hand. LeGeros voted no along with Waterbury member Victoria Taravella and Jonathan Young of Warren; Waitsfield member J.B. Weir abstained; Corey Hackett of Waterbury and Danielle Duquette of Fayston were absent. In order for the vote to pass given weighted votes, Chair Ashley Woods cast a yes vote. 

“All of this is hard,” Woods said. “Someone is always going to lose in what we decide these days.” 

This slide from the 2025-26 budget presentation shows preliminary school property tax impacts by town. HUUSD chart

Fayston the outlier on taxes 

Community members no doubt will be looking to determine the impact next year’s budget will have on property taxes. In 2024, increases in school costs led to double-digit increases in school property taxes in the Harwood district. This year, the bottom line appears less dire for nearly all of the communities. 

“These are preliminary figures,” Estler cautioned when reviewing the slides outlining tax impacts. Some key figures are yet to be finalized from the state and variations could change the resulting tax rates, she explained. 

Still, the estimates Estler shared indicate school tax rate decreases in five of the Harwood district’s communities: Waterbury, Duxbury, Moretown, Waitsfield and Warren. The drops range from about 9% each in Moretown and Duxbury, to a fraction of 1% each in Waterbury, Warren and Waitsfield. Meanwhile, Fayston is the outlier with an anticipated tax increase of 10.5% which Estler explains is due to a large drop in the town’s combined grand list of assessed property values as they compare with fair market values. 

The result for a homeowner with a property valued at $350,000 in Waterbury would see a $38 drop in their school tax bill while the owner of a similar home in Fayston will see an increase of $753. 

Asked about the wide range of looming tax impacts, Estler pointed to the funding formula and how it accounts for real estate value fluctuations in an effort to be equitable. “It is what it is,” she said. “I have no control over it.” 

Public Comments

At last week’s meeting to finalize the budget, the board heard from several members of the public who urged the board not to cut school nursing positions and to preserve athletics programs. 

Steve Martin of Waterbury questioned the school district having approved wage increases for teachers in the latest three-year union contract that average 6.5% annually. He said those increases, the current year’s budget, and the proposed budget for 2025-26 far exceed the increases Vermont seniors on fixed incomes receive. He urged the board to revise the budget further before approving it for the March ballot. “I submit there is a problem in both spending and funding,” he said. “I will not be supporting the current budget.”

Harwood Middle and High School gymnastics coach Anissa Davis and several of her middle school gymnasts made an appeal for the board to not cut their program for 2025-26. School board members said the Finance Committee is reviewing athletics programs for potential future cuts, but no school sports would be cut for next school year. 

Waterbury resident Robert Dabrowski urged the board not to cut school nursing positions. As a parent of twin kindergartners and a first grader, Dabrowski spoke highly of the care and attention Brookside Primary School nurses have given his children, particularly around managing care for a serious injury one experienced but managed to remain in school with the nurses’ help. 

The nurses are “healers and counselors to our children,” Dabrowski said. “These nurses significantly contribute to the positive and supportive culture at BPS and we want to make sure their unwavering support and compassion doesn’t go unnoticed. With all the health care cuts that are happening in our communities, especially with cuts in psychiatric care, we need these nurses more than ever.” 

Dabrowski on Monday filed with the Waterbury town clerk’s office to run in March for election to the Harwood school board.

Community meetings in February

The school board plans several public meetings in February for community members to learn more about budget details and ask questions. The first session will be remote via Zoom only next Tuesday, Feb. 4, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The next will be in person at the Jocelyn Library in Waitsfield on Tuesday, Feb. 11, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. The third will be in Waterbury at Black Cap cafe at the train station, on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 4-5 p.m.

The very last opportunity for the community to learn about the budget will be at the district’s annual meeting which is held the night before Town Meeting Day: Monday, March 3, starting at 6 p.m. in the Harwood Union Middle/High School library and via Zoom. 

More information is posted on the school district’s website at huusd.org/budget.