LETTER: Base your ‘no’ vote to the school budget on facts

May 17, 2024

To the Community: 

My name is Frank Provato, and I have been a resident of Waterbury Center for 24 years. You are being asked to vote again on a new school budget proposal. Please do not base your decision on wanting to “just get this over with.” And please do not base your decision on the unsubstantiated claims by school administration and staff that further budget reductions will somehow harm the future prospects of our students. They have put forth no objective evidence to support that claim.

Please base your decision on the facts as follows: 

The new proposal raises the school budget by 5.4%, nearly double the general rate of inflation, after similar higher than inflation increases in the past two years. It leaves us with a HUUSD per pupil cost of $15,250, 13.8% higher than the statewide average ($13,396). According to the Vermont Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office report in 2023, Vermont’s per pupil expense and the staff-to-student ratio are among the highest in the nation. But the data does not support the notion that Vermont’s student academic performance is proportionately better than the rest of the nation. The same report describes a 20-year history of failed attempts to rein in educational spending in Vermont.

The new budget proposal will raise educational property taxes as follows: Waterbury 14%, Duxbury 10.5%, Warren 19.3%, Waitsfield 18.7%, Moretown 10.3%, Fayston 13.3%. Those increases are three to five times the current rate of general inflation (about 3.5%). That is not OK.

Lastly, reducing the school budget further will further reduce taxes significantly. The new proposal before us reduced the proposed budget increase by about two percentage points (7.6% to 5.4%) resulting in a three percentage-point reduction in the tax rate in Waterbury (17% to 14%) from the budget the voters rejected on April 30 to the latest proposal.

Frank Provato

Waterbury