School Board sets budget revote for June 16

May 16, 2020  |  By The HUUSD Board

Dear HUUSD Community,

The HUUSD school board met remotely on Wednesday evening, May 13, and made several big decisions that we’d like to share with you.

1. The Board will present a budget for voter approval on June 16th.

Although there had been some conversation in the VT Legislature over the last several weeks that would allow school districts to adopt a default budget without a public vote, it appears that such initiatives have stalled, probably through the summer. The HUUSD Board decided to hold an election on June 16, in accordance with the COVID guidelines published by the Secretary of State’s office. We will be strongly encouraging early voting (requesting ballots by mail) and will be sharing more specifics about how to safely access your ballots in the coming weeks.

2. The Board approved a budget for FY21 (the coming 2020-21 school year) of $39,772,342 to put before voters.

In budget conversations in the last couple weeks, the Board sought to balance the enormous financial pressure caused by COVID with the need to preserve core programming in the schools, and to do so without significant changes to our current service delivery model. This budget results in a lower increase in total expenditures over FY20 than the current statewide average and will allow us to provide essential education opportunities to our district’s students next year. The Board is developing a budget fact sheet and list of frequently asked questions to share in the coming weeks.

3. The school board approved issuing annual letters of employment to all support and licensed teaching staff for the 2020-21 school year. 

When the first budget vote failed at Town Meeting Day, the district issued Reduction In Force (RIF) notices to all employees in accordance with the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Typically these would remain in place until a budget is passed. COVID has slowed the district’s ability to pass a budget even as it has asked more of our staff. Issuing these letters of employment now allows our schools to begin planning for next year -- to bring some level of certainty to these uncertain times.

We encourage you to share your thoughts with the Board via email to the full Board at cen-huusdboard@huusd.org. We also welcome public comments at the beginning of each meeting (but sometimes there is not time to hear from everyone).

The Board’s next meeting is Wednesday, May 20 at 6 p.m. online. Please visit https://huusd.org/huusd-board to confirm time and place of meetings and to find all board meeting agendas, packets and minutes.

Thank you for your continued support and engagement.

Respectfully,

The HUUSD Board