CVCC budget approved, bond vote looms

March 7, 2025  |  By David Delcore  |  Times Argus

BARRE — Ballots cast on Town Meeting Day in the 18-town school district that operates the Central Vermont Career Center were finally tabulated Thursday, and its regional board now has a budget and three vacant seats to fill, even as it weighs when to ask voters to approve a bond for a new, state-of-the-art facility.

Though turnout was underwhelming, voters who did cast ballots in the sprawling district on Tuesday, left no doubt about where they stood on its $5.1 million spending request. The budget was handily approved, 7,944-2,079, in what was the district's third-ever election.

It may not be its last this year, according to Superintendent Jody Emerson.

Emerson, who welcomed the results, which, for the first time in the district's brief history, didn't take two days to tabulate, said a November bond vote isn't out of the question as her board pursues plans to construct a new state-of-the-art facility by 2029.

Emerson said the board is in the process of finalizing an option to purchase 27 acres of land in Graniteville that could serve as the future home for a new regional center.

Heartened by the budget vote, and pleased it passed by a near four-to-one margin, Emerson hinted a bigger question is coming, and momentum will be important.

“I'm just grateful, and hoping that when we go out for a bond vote for our new center in the future, we also see that level of support,” she said.

Barring a change of heart on a 10-member board that has three seats to fill, Emerson predicted some form of that question will be answered by this time next year.

Emerson said scheduling an off-cycle special election in November is one option, and waiting for Town Meeting Day next year to seek bonding authority for a new facility is another. Any additional delay would jeopardize the board's timeline for constructing a new center that would provide expanded programming, and also meet their academic needs.

According to Emerson, the land in Graniteville has popped to the top of the list of likely sites, and the board has blessed an option she said she hopes will soon be executed.

Emerson said the board hasn't completely ditched the idea of constructing a new facility on the East Montpelier campus of U-32 Middle and High School, but indicated that option isn't currently viewed as a “backup plan” for a now-autonomous district that is literally six districts in one.

Once operated under the auspices of what is now the Barre Unified Union School District, the career center district's boundaries includes that district, as well as the Montpelier Roxbury Public School District, the five-town Washington Central Unified Union School District, the six-town Harwood Unified Union School District, the two-town Twinfield Union School District, and the Cabot School District.

The 18 communities range from Barre, Barre Town, and Berlin to Waitsfield, Warren, Waterbury, and Worcester.

Since it opened under a different name in 1969, the center has operated out of a wing of Spaulding High School in Barre.

A year ago, Emerson recalled anxiously waiting for votes to be tabulated after budgets in four of the center's multi-town member-districts — Barre, Montpelier Roxbury, Washington Central and Harwood — were rejected on Town Meeting Day and a fifth — Twinfield — passed by just three votes. Not long after the polls closed Tuesday night, all of those budgets passed easily and, in some cases, overwhelmingly.

Those favorable results made Emerson's two-day wait a little easier.

“I was feeling pretty good going into it,” she said.

“It went very smooth,” she said, of a tabulation process that started and ended on Thursday, instead of stretching into Friday, as it has in each of the last two elections.

With some simple addition the results could have been available Tuesday night, but because the district commingles its ballots, they need to be transported to a central location and processed. Town clerks, who are all running their own local elections on Town Meeting Day, don't have time to do that after the polls close and agreed to a still-evolving process that is getting more efficient.

Ballots were all tabulated at Alumni Hall in Barre, those cast in the district's largest communities — Barre, Barre Town, Montpelier and Waterbury — were all fed into voting machines during daylong voting on Tuesday. The machines — and the ballots inside of them — were all transported to Barre on Thursday where ballots from the remaining 14 towns were fed in to each of them. With many, if not most, of the career center ballots cast on Tuesday already in the machines when the process started Thursday morning, Emerson said the final results were available by mid-afternoon.

In addition to the budget, there were four at-large board seats on this year's ballot, though Emerson said three remain vacant.

Only one candidate's name — School Director Guy Isabelle — appeared on the ballot. Isabelle, who represents the Barre district on the career center board, was reelected.

Emerson said the remaining three seats will have to be filled by appointment. One should be easy, she said.

Former board member Lyman Castle resigned as the Montpelier Roxbury district's at-large representative when he thought he was going to be moving out of state. Those plans changed after the ballots were printed with no named candidates for the one-year remaining on Castle's three-year term.

Emerson said Castle has expressed interest in rejoining the board, and expected he would be appointed to fill that vacancy.

There are two others. One is a two-year term representing the Washington Central district, on the board. The seat was previously held by Terri Steele and any resident of Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester is eligible to be appointed.

The three-year board seat, which was held, until Tuesday, by John Halavonich, is also vacant. Residents of Duxbury, Fayston, Moretown, Waitsfield, Warren and Waterbury can seek appointment to a board, Emerson said he's in the process of reviewing concept designs for a new facility and preparing for the yet-to-be-scheduled bond vote.