Career Center School District budget hike to fund all-day programs
March 1, 2023 | By Buffy Boroughs | Community News ServiceA year into its creation as a standalone school district, the Central Vermont Career Center is asking voters in the 18 towns it serves to approve a 17.8% increase in its annual budget to expand its offerings.
The Central Vermont Career Center School District Annual Reports is online on its website cvtcc.org and paper copies are available at town offices in the participating school districts. Link to the report at the bottom of this post. Screenshot
Based in the city of Barre, the career center provides career and technical programs to 220 students in those 18 municipalities, would like to extend its teaching schedule to a full day and add more classroom space, said district Superintendent Jody Emerson. Those expenses, along with steep increases in health insurance and liability insurance costs, are part of a proposed $4.1 million budget for fiscal year 2024 that district residents will consider on Town Meeting Day.
The career center offers 13 technical education programs, including training in automotive technology, baking arts, emergency services, natural resources, and plumbing and heating. The goal of the career center is to give students vocational training that can lead directly to good-paying jobs. Many of those students will remain in Vermont, joining local workforces and apprenticeships, feeding the economies of the residents who support their education, Emerson said.
“Because they're from your communities, [they] come here, learn the trade that they're interested in, and then go back to their local communities and contribute that way,” she said.
For more than 50 years, the center was governed by the Barre School Unified Union School District, including Barre Town and Barre City. That district made all key decisions about its budget and programs, though five other school districts in 16 towns send students there — and contribute tax revenue toward the center’s budget.
“It didn't feel like we had everybody's voice having the same value and power,” Emerson said in a recent interview.
So on Town Meeting Day in 2022, voters in all of those municipalities approved a combined school district to oversee the center’s operation.
This year on Town Meeting Day, March 7, voters within the new Central Vermont Career Center School District will fill two at-large seats on its advisory board. On the ballot is Lyman Castle from the Montpelier-Roxbury district for a three-year term. Terri Steele from the Washington Central Unified Union School District is running for a one-year term. Both candidates are unopposed.
Out of 10 board members, six are appointed by the participating school districts: Harwood, Barre, Montpelier-Roxbury, Washington Central, Twinfield and Cabot. The remaining four at-large members come from the largest of the participating districts – Barre, Harwood, Montpelier-Roxbury and Washington Central.
The $4.1 million budget for the coming fiscal year covers a portion of students’ tuition, salaries and general operational costs. Federal grants and state funding pay for part of student tuition, and the rest amounts to $8,278 per student that the individual school districts pay.
Today, students arrive at the career center at Spaulding High School at 8:30 a.m. and take a full morning of classes before returning to their home districts by 1 p.m. for their academic schooling. With more funding, the career center district could add staff to extend to a full-day schedule and meet growing demand, Emerson said. For example, the popular automotive program only accepted 16 students among 67 applicants this year, she said.
As an independent school district, the Central Vermont Career Center will have the flexibility to consider moving to a location with more room, Emerson said.
“We don't have the space, nor is there the capacity to grow in this footprint that we're in,” she said. “I think there was probably some thought behind the idea that we could become more centrally located if we were to build a new building or take on a new space somewhere else, which might better serve our 18 towns than our current location.”
In the coming year, classroom expansion at Spaulding High School in Barre will open up space for a higher-level emergency services class to train students as paramedics and will allow the center to move its digital media arts program into a more appropriate spot, Emerson said.
The proposed 2024 budget also reflects a 12.6% increase in the district’s premiums for employee health insurance benefits and a projected jump of 7 to 9% in the coming year’s liability insurance costs.
The career center’s budget does not add to school taxes for its member towns’ residents. If voters approve the spending plan, the total is added to the overall budgets of their own school districts.
The CVCC budget “is not on top of what they’re spending for their local school district,” Emerson emphasized. “It’s not going to cost them more than whatever their school district is paying.”
In preparation for Town Meeting Day last week, a test run of the career center district’s ballots failed in Barre City when a tabulator misread some sample ballots. Emerson said election officials have determined that the tabulator caused the problem — not the ballots themselves — which will be corrected by Town Meeting Day.
The Central Vermont Career Center Annual Report is online on the CVCC website, cvtcc.org. Sample ballot language for Town Meeting Day is on the last page.
Community News Service is a collaboration with the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.