School board fields questions as April 30 budget vote approaches
April 21, 2024 | By Lisa ScagliottiWith the second vote on a proposed 2024-25 budget less than two weeks away, the Harwood school board last week rolled out messages to the community and held a two-hour informational meeting to answer questions from local residents.
On April 30, the district’s six towns will hold a second election aiming to lock in a budget to run schools starting July 1 for the next year. Voters on Town Meeting Day last month rejected the first budget of $50.8 million. The school board and administration have since lowered their proposed budget by nearly $2 million. The one-question ballot asks voters to now approve a spending plan of $48,888,319.
To reach the new figure, school officials sidelined plans to add $1 million to the district’s Maintenance Reserve Fund for school building repairs and upgrades. That would have been in addition to the $535,000 voters approved for the fund on Town Meeting Day. That sum is a surplus left from the 2022-23 school budget year and it will go forward as planned.
While the first budget called for trimming 13.5 full-time-equivalent positions for next year, the new proposal cuts an additional three positions for a reduction of almost $333,000. It also relies on keeping a portion of vacant positions open in order to save another $400,000. A list of additional one-time spending cuts is then applied to get the new budget under $49 million. They include cuts in operations and maintenance, transportation, supplies and staff training.
Slide from the FY25 April 18 Revised Budget Presentation listing the school district positions to be cut with the budget on the April 30 ballot. Screenshot
In a slide presentation, school district Finance Director Lisa Estler lists the positions that would be cut under the budget voters are asked to approve on April 30 (see slide). She also walked through the other spending cuts.
While the first budget represented a spending increase of just under 12% over the 2023-24 budget, the revised version brings the increase down to 7.6%. The drivers for the increase remain the same as when school officials put the first budget together: wages and benefits for school staff are the lion’s share, particularly a health insurance increase of 16%.
School officials emphasize how the tax rate that the new budget calls for is just 2% over this year’s rate. That’s after applying an updated state education funding formula that uses a new calculation for weighting student enrollment. As a result, a discount is then factored in given that Harwood loses taxing capacity under the new state formula.
It’s when the final piece of the equation is finally calculated, however, that property tax rates can be figured for each town in the district. The current proposal uses a yield figure from the state —which is the state’s per-pupil contribution—that has the potential to change before the legislature adjourns next month. Multiple proposals are being discussed by lawmakers and the administration as they watch school districts struggle to get budgets in place after the wave of Town Meeting Day defeats.
The best estimates Harwood officials are working with now show that property taxpayers can expect to see their school tax bills increase from 13.4% in Duxbury to 22.4% in Warren; Waterbury falls in between at 17%. Estler offers examples in her presentation such as a residential property assessed at $350,000 under the revised school budget would see a tax increase of $889 in Duxbury, $1,537 in Warren and $1,133 in Waterbury.
A respectful but skeptical debate
At Thursday’s budget presentation and informational meeting, a handful of local residents attended in person and via Zoom. They asked many questions and shared their opinions with school leaders.
“I just don’t understand something. If the budget is going up 7 percent, why are the taxes going up 13 to 22 percent?” asked Michael Duell of Fayston. “How is that happening?”
A discussion followed of the evolution of statewide school funding to make it equitable across towns regardless of their property values. The issue is “extremely complex,” said Superintendent Mike Leichliter, who said it’s taken him since he joined the district a year and a half ago to understand it.
To get the final tax increases in the Harwood district down to a minimal level would require cutting approximately $6 million from the budget, he explained. “We would not be able to provide education …to meet our legal obligations,” he said. Still, deeper cuts for future years’ budgets are ahead, Leichliter said, and the School Board’s newly formed Finance Committee will work on looking at “how we can cut expenses without sacrificing the education of our children.”
Both Leichliter and board Chair Ashley Woods joined a call earlier that day with state education leaders and several administrators and school board members from districts around the state where budgets have failed. Leichliter said state leaders are acknowledging that significant change may be required. “But this is not going to be fixed between now and July 1.”
Woods said a common theme from the school officials on the call was that “in every town, people are saying the same thing: that what they’re trying to accomplish is sending a message to Montpelier,” she said. And while decisions are being made at the highest levels of government, Woods continued, “It’s landing on school boards by failed budgets. This is the place where communities can strike. It’s where people can say, hey I’m mad at they can vote no, right at the bottom level of government which is where we are. That does not change the fact that we have to educate our students.”
Tom Gloor of Waterbury called the proposed tax increases “a big ask” of voters and said he’s concerned that the budget that gets passed will become the base for next year’s higher budget. Estler said that trend needs to change to bring the district’s per-pupil spending of $15,696 down below the state average of $13,396.
“I would love to support this budget, but there’s a part of me that wants to message the state,” Gloor replied. “Never waste a good crisis.”
Nonetheless, he urged the board to seek out feedback from all voters after the April 30 vote. “If the school budget passes, look at the number that votes no and don’t dismiss it,” he said. “It’ll be just as important as those who vote yes.”
Board member Bobby Rood reminded those listening and in the audience that there is a state program for property tax relief for taxpayers whose income falls under $128,000 and there is time to file for the program this year with the state Tax Department.
Steven Martin of Waterbury lamented the complexity of the state formula and the difficulty in understanding school costs relative to enrollment. He suggested there are more areas within local control than school officials claim, offering as examples lunch program funding and scheduled salary increases. Although he said he appreciates the position school leaders are in, Martin said he thinks it’s possible for them to bring a lower budget to voters. “I hope this one fails,” he said.
Moretown board member Ben Clark said he understands people’s frustration. “It’s a broken system. It’s certainly not something we created,” he said, noting that Harwood leaders are participating in discussions around a solution. “We are one school district, we can only do so much.”
But he challenged the view that rejecting the revised budget is the answer. “I feel like that message has already been given… the state’s already heard us,” he said. “I feel like the state is scrambling to find a new system.”
Clark said he’s urging his constituents to support the second budget proposal. “I’m not sure the answer to this is to keep cutting funding of our children,” he said. “We have to ask ourselves at what point are we just sort of flogging ourselves hoping that the state is going to do something different?”
Getting the word out
At its regular meeting on Wednesday, April 17, the school board discussed and voted to approve messaging regarding the budget vote. It was the first meeting where the board has had all of its seats filled since the March election after vacant positions representing Waterbury were filled the week before. Despite that, however, only 10 of the 14 members were in attendance.
The group approved a flier to be mailed to voters designed by a committee working on communications. It also edited a draft letter to send to families with children in school and the community at large. The letter and flier won the support of nine board members. Fayston member Mike Bishop opposed the messages in each, saying they were too vague. “I think we should be putting out information about the budget—what this means, what it’s going to mean” should it fail, he said. “We don’t list any consequences besides making a veiled threat of cutting more positions.”
The board approved the flier and letter, emailing the latter to families in the district on Friday, and signing it from the “HUUSD board.”
At the start of Wednesday’s regular board meeting, the school board heard from several Harwood staff members during public comment. They thanked the school board for its work on the revised budget and took the opportunity to address the audience potentially watching the meeting.
Teacher Jane Regan said she hopes the community will come out to vote on April 30. “I just hope they show up. That’s democracy,” she said, adding that she also hopes voters will support the lower budget proposal. “Any vote ‘no’ will only impact the students,” she said.
High school special educator Lynda Cummings called the revised budget “fair” in a difficult time. “I hope that we come out in support of our students and not in opposition to the state,” she said.
Harwood history and civics teacher Matt Henchen, who also serves as co-president of the Harwood Unified Education Association teachers union, summed up the district’s challenge: “The task is difficult to create great public schools at an affordable cost.”
Henchen said teachers understood the first vote against the budget in March and they also appreciate the administration’s efforts to reduce staffing through attrition rather than layoffs with the second proposal.
“That’s important to the climate of our school,” he said and then listed each position on the list of 16 to be trimmed in the new budget on the ballot. He acknowledged that given statewide trends, more cuts will be on the horizon. “There’s going to be many more years of cuts,” he said. “The union is more than willing to work with the community and the school board to do that in a way that has the least impact on our students. We understand your frustration—we are taxpayers, too.”
Henchen said he hopes voters understand that the challenge is more complex than costs just going up. “There are many things out of our control,” he said. “We’re really pleading with everyone in the community to show up and vote yes on the budget on April 30.”
On Town Meeting Day, Harwood was one of 30 districts around Vermont where voters rejected budgets. Other districts since already have begun holding votes on their revised budgets. Estler ticked off a list of recent revotes, many of which have failed for a second time.
Waterbury board member Dan Roscioli asked how soon Harwood could hold another vote should the budget not pass on April 30. Woods said the administration and board would need to revise further but could announce a revote with as little as a week’s notice. “Hopefully that’s not going to happen,” she said.
Estler reminded the group that should the new fiscal year begin on July 1 without an approved budget, the district would be allowed to borrow up to 87% of the current year’s budget, which would amount to $39.2 million. That would be temporary, however. “We keep voting until we adopt a budget,” Estler said.
Woods urged board members to encourage community members to vote. “It’s going to get rough and ready if this budget doesn’t pass,” she said. “Please talk to your neighbors, your families, voters … talk to the people.”
Don’t overlook young voters including current students who are of voting age, Woods continued. “It is that crucial right now. Every vote in every town is going to count.”
Other business
At Wednesday’s board meeting, the superintendent told the board that he has applied to the state Agency of Education for a waiver for several unscheduled days off so far this school year due to non-snow emergencies including power failures and the December flooding. The response will determine scheduling the final day of the school year, he said, adding that his hope would be for classes to wrap up before the third week of June.
The board heard a presentation from Harwood Internship Coordinator Rachael Potts, Guidance Counselor Maggie Weintraub and Math Teacher Tara Kelley about the Aspirations Program. Working with the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation, the program focuses on supporting students who are the first generation in their families to look to attend and graduate from college.
The board also agreed to send a letter to state lawmakers in support of legislation calling for the state Agency of Education to resume assisting school districts with financing school construction projects.
Voting & more information
The vote on the HUUSD revised 2024-25 school budget proposal of $48,888,319 takes place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 30. Ballots to vote early are now available through April 29 at each town clerk’s office in the school district’s six communities: Duxbury, Fayston, Moretown, Waitsfield, Warren and Waterbury.
A final public information meeting will be held this Thursday, April 25, at 6 p.m. via Zoom only and will be recorded. Find the link to join the meeting here.
The information session held last Thursday, April 18, was recorded and can be viewed on YouTube here. The April 17 School Board meeting recording is also on the district’s YouTube channel here. The School Board letter is posted here.