Harwood voters pass school budget, fill five board seats
Career center results expected Friday
March 2, 2022 | By Lisa Scagliotti
With schools on their last day of winter break on Tuesday, Waterbury’s election polls set up inside the gym at Brookside Primary School. Although there was no in-person town meeting, voters filled out long ballots to decide many town and school budget items and elections. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
After a resounding “no” vote in November to a nearly $60 million school construction bond, voters of the Harwood Unified Union School District on Tuesday handily passed the $42.6 million school budget for next year.
The proposed budget of $42,655,858 for the fiscal year 2022-23 that begins July 1 won approval 1,573 to 1,065, according to vote totals reported by town and school district clerks.
“Shall the voters of the Harwood Unified Union School District authorize the Board of School Directors to expend $42,655,858, which is the amount the Board of School Directors has determined to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year commencing July 1, 2022?”
Voters also gave the district approval to allocate $1,524,424 - all of the 2021 budget surplus - to the Maintenance Reserve fund. That item passed by an even larger margin, 2,039 to 574.
“Shall the voters of the Harwood Unified Union School District authorize the Board of School Directors to allocate its FY2021 unassigned audited fund balance as follows: assign $1,524,424 to the school district’s Maintenance Reserve Fund per 24 VSA §2804?”
For the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, results from school ballots were tabulated in each town instead of being combined and counted together. The usual cominging step was skipped to omit an additional in-person gathering of election officials. Ballots were tallied by counting machines in each municipal polling place with town clerks forwarding the results on to school district officials.
Those town-by-town results show that while the maintenance fund question passed in all of the six communities, the budget did not. Duxbury voters rejected the budget by a vote of 180 against to 165 in favor, according to Duxbury town election results. The budget won approval in the other five towns. (see tables)
School board still has openings
Seven of the school district’s school 14 board seats were on the ballot this Town Meeting Day. Waterbury and Duxbury had two seats to be decided; Fayston, Waitsfield and Warren each had one on the ballot. Moretown was the only town where neither of its two members were up for election this cycle.
Two open seats failed to attract any candidates, one each in Fayston and Duxbury. The board may fill those with appointments that would last through Town Meeting Day 2023.
For the other five spots, the Warren seat was the only one with competition and that came from two write-in candidates. Ashley Woods won that seat 91-56 over Ellen Kucera.
In Waterbury, Victoria Taravella was the lone candidate on the ballot for a full three-year term. She received 822 votes. A second school director position was up to be filled for the remaining two years of a term. Although no candidates filed for that seat by the deadline to be on the ballot, write-in Jacqueline Kelleher stepped up to win it with 103 votes, according to town results .
The seat representing Duxbury with one year remaining in the term went to Cindy Senning who was appointed last summer to serve until now. She was unopposed. And in Waitsfield, Roberta “Bobbi” Rood was the lone candidate for a three-year term; she received 407 votes.
The school board is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. on March 9 when it will select its officers.
Central Vermont Career Center vote
In another school-related election, ballots were not expected to be completely counted with results announced until Friday for the Central Vermont Career Center governance question.
Voters in 18 communities in the region that comprise six school districts voted on whether to form a separate school district to run the technical and vocational school. That includes the Harwood district.
Election officials have 10 days to report those results. The plan was for ballots to be delivered to the Barre City Clerk's office to be comingled and counted by Friday.