School leaders share budget details at community sessions
February 9, 2025 | By Lisa Scagliotti Harwood school district officials have begun community meetings to share details of the proposed $49.2 million 2025-26 school budget that voters will be asked to approve on Town Meeting Day.
The first session was held via Zoom last week with about two dozen community members logging in. A recording of the session has so far been viewed over 60 times. This Tuesday, Feb. 11, school officials will hold their second session with an in-person presentation in Waitsfield at the Joslin Memorial Library from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Another is planned for 4 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 25, at Black Cap Coffee and Bakery at the Waterbury train station.
The final opportunity will be at the district’s annual meeting at 6 p.m. on March 3, the night before Town Meeting Day. That meeting involves some in-person district housekeeping business approved by voters in attendance. It also includes a budget presentation by school officials.
The first community budget information session was held via zoom with Harwood Finance Manager Lisa Estler (center left), Superintendent Mike Leichiter (center) and board members (clockwise from top left) Ben Clarke and Steve Rosenberg, both of Moretown, Chair Ashley Woods of Warren, Bobbi Rood of Waitsfield, and Vice Chair Cindy Senning of Duxbury. Screenshot
For the presentation, Superintendent Mike Leichliter and Finance Manager Lisa Estler reviewed budget history and background and an overview of the spending plan on the March ballot. The information includes comparisons to the current year’s budget, details on factors driving cost increases, and breakdowns of budget categories.
District officials emphasize that the proposed budget represents cuts to the district’s current level of services. To continue at the present level which is funded with a budget of $47.9 million, that spending would have grown by 7% due to increases in essential fixed costs.
Heeding a call from Gov. Phil Scott in the fall for school districts to limit their spending increases this year, school officials agreed that the 2025-26 budget should not grow by more than 2.75%. In walking through the presentation, Estler notes that the budget sticks to that goal. She also points out that the district receives funding from sources other than the state education fund which is comprised from property and other tax revenue. As a result, the Harwood district is asking for only a 2% increase in its funding from the state, she noted.
To meet that goal, however, school officials share a list of spending cuts, the majority of which will come from cutting some 15-20 full-time-equivalent staff positions.
Administration leaders are working with union representatives, Leichliter said, to determine those specific position cuts. For example, staff members have been asked to share plans if they intend to retire or resign at the end of this school year.
So far, the presentation only lists general areas where staff cuts will likely come from: classroom teachers, central office staff, student support, nursing, library and art positions, and eliminating some vacant positions. Leichliter said the list of specific positions affected will not be finalized until after the Town Meeting Day vote when the district has a deadline to notify staff of whether their position will continue for next school year.
A budget presentation slide shows the preliminary outlook for local property tax rate changes with the proposed FY26 school budget. Screenshot
The presentation also reviews the impact school officials think the proposed budget will have on local tax rates – although Estler cautions that parts of the complex formula that determine those figures will not be set for certain until later in the spring. Unlike last year when tax rates grew by double digits across all of the district’s communities, ranging from 12 to 21%, this year’s forecast is less volatile. Last year’s budget took three public votes to win approval on May 30.
Based on the proposed FY26 budget, several district communities – Waterbury, Waitsfield and Warren – are expected to see slight drops in their school property tax rates this year; Moretown and Duxbury should see significant reductions. Meanwhile Fayston remains an outlier with an expected 10% increase in its school tax rate due to fluctuations in its overall property values.
Questions and comments
Attendees at the Feb. 4 informational session asked a variety of questions about the budget process overall and the draft budget specifically. Asked about the process the state uses to “weight” student counts, Leichliter explained that new criteria implemented in 2024 have had a negative impact on the Harwood district. “We have fewer students in weighted categories, so our share of ed spending dropped,” he explained.
Parent Ashley Olinger asked about whether student outcomes are considered as school officials look to make spending cuts. Is Vermont looking at states that spend less per pupil but whose students may perform better on tests, she asked.
Leichliter said Vermont’s state education system is primarily regulatory rather than providing training and support for districts. The state also has moved to new testing methods in recent years, making comparisons of results difficult. He pointed to recent rankings by U.S. News and World Reports that found several of the Harwood district schools ranked near the top of their categories in the state.
In addition to the budget question on Town Meeting Day, local voters will be asked to approve putting $500,000 into the district’s Maintenance Reserve Fund. The district each year allocates surplus funds from the prior year to the fund that pays for building repairs and upgrades. For the current 2024-25 school year for example, the district added $530,000. This year’s allocation will be the lowest made since the district formed in 2017. Estler noted that building maintenance projects are now estimated at $20 million and the fund’s balance before the new allocation is less than $2 million.
Asked whether a recent proposal by Gov. Phil Scott’s administration to reform Vermont’s education system addresses facility needs, Leichliter said no. “The state has not shared school [construction] costs since 2007,” he said. And although the state had a task force take stock of school facility renovation needs, “It’s not addressed in the governor’s plan,” he said.
Some of the discussion served to clarify details for attendees. “Are you cutting the middle school sports?” asked Margaret Williams, a parent of three children currently in school.
School leaders acknowledged that the school board’s finance committee is reviewing all athletics programs to look for future financial savings, but no changes are planned for the 2025-26 school year. “We are not cutting any sports at this time,” Estler assured Williams.
Middle school basketball and gymnastics programs may lend themselves to be outsourced to programs in the community, Estler said, any steps in that direction need “a deep dive, more research.”
Several participants asked about proposed cuts to school nursing staff. Brenda Hartshorn, who works as an administrative assistant at Moretown Elementary School, said she sees firsthand the vital role school nurses play. She said she worries that staff such as herself who lack medical training will be left to determine if students, for example, should go home from school when they aren’t feeling well. “I don’t think that’s a prudent use of our cuts knowing what our nurses do,” she said. “I do believe very strongly that children need access to healthcare and sometimes our schools are the only places they have access to health care.”
The superintendent explained that the reason for the nursing cuts is to align with new state guidelines that go into effect this year that say schools should be staffed with one nurse for every 500 students. The district currently has nine full-time-equivalent nursing positions for seven schools, he said. The reduction would cut 1.5 or 2 of those positions, he said, putting the district at the level it was at prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
School leaders briefly discussed the proposal the governor and state education secretary recently shared with the state legislature that calls for dramatic “transformative” changes to both Vermont education funding and structure. Both Leichliter and Harwood School Board Chair Ashley Woods said they are following presentations being made to lawmakers in Montpelier. They said they would like to see discussion at the local level once more details become clear.
Woods said is particularly concerned about the proposed consolidation of the state’s more than 100 school districts into just five large districts. “I don’t have a lot of faith in that as a major cost saver,” she said.
See the Harwood budget presentation slides here. Find more information from the Harwood school district on the proposed budget on the HUUSD.org website here. Details about Gov. Scott’s Transformative Education Plan can be found online here.