LETTER: Reasons for one voter’s ‘no’ to the revised school budget
April 26, 2024To the Community:
Some reasons to feel justified in rejecting the HUUSD revised budget on April 30:
The revised budget is still asking for the highest increase (7.63%) in the last seven budget years and would add $3.46 million to last year's budget.
Vermonters are under the same economic pressures as our schools. I am unable to find a general wage increase for Vermonters in 2023, but as a retiree, I know that the Social Security increase entering 2024 was 3.2%. The ask for the school budget increase of 7.63% is more than 2.3 times the increase Vermonters on fixed incomes are receiving.
The Waterbury Roundabout recently reported on the recent contract agreement with the support staff. The contract is public information on the HUUSD website. There was a fact finder used in the negotiations. The fact finder examined 12 regional school districts for FY23 year. The conclusion was that HUUSD support staff were the highest paid of the 12 and were more than 50% higher than the lowest paid group. Yet, the administration then agreed to pay staff while they are at lunch beginning in FY25 (equivalent to a 6.66% pay increase). Plus, the wage increases on top of that were agreed to at 6% FY24, 5% FY25, and 5% FY26. Over three years, including the wage growth from paid lunch, this will compound to a total 24.6% pay increase by the final year of the three year contract in FY26. Remember, they were already the highest paid of 12 regional districts before this. The administration has reported that wages and benefits amount to about 72% of the entire budget, yet they agreed to this escalation, while also knowing and reporting that health care costs were increasing 16.4% for FY25. You may, or may not, wish to compare this agreement to your own income changes.
Also as part of the support staff contract, full time staff sick days were approved to go from 12 in FY24 to 14 in FY25 to 16 in FY26. When added to vacation, holidays & personal time, FY25 provides a total number of paid days off for full time staff of 39 to 54 days, depending on their length of service. This will increase by another 2 days for FY26. My intent here is only to provide an open look at cost controls, or lack thereof, so that the public might assess whether they believe paying double digit property tax increases seems appropriate to support the increased pay, paid time off, and health care costs provided to school system employees, when compared to the same factors the taxpayers are realizing in their own situations. To use a word popular in modern discussions, does this seem “equitable”?
Act 127 upended the pupil weighting and property taxing system in Vermont. The results, for the HUUSD district, were significant tax increases, even with a “discount” that will be phased out over five years. What we are seeing for estimated district property tax increases if the revised budget passes are 13.4% to 22.4% and do not represent the full tax burden once the discount expires. I say estimated increases because the actual impact on taxes is currently unknown due to the complexity of the education funding/property tax system in Vermont. More than two-thirds of homeowners are eligible for some amount of property tax relief. This says to me that the state concedes that two out of three Vermonters can't afford their full property taxes without help from the state. Other taxes, and/or taxpayers, must make up the difference elsewhere.
Act 127 is not transparent or understandable to the average Vermonter. The HUUSD had an actual pupil count of 1,823 students on October 1, 2023. In requested revised budget, according to the finance director's presentation, Act 127 leaves us with a weighted pupil count of 2,647 and a cost per weighted pupil of $15,626. But the revised budget requests total actual spending of $48,888,319 and there are 1,823 actual pupils in the district. When I do the math, we are being asked to approve actual spending of $26,817 per actual pupil. So, is Act 127 transparent? Or misleading?
Our legislature has not received the message that voters sent when 30 school budgets failed on town meeting day. A few days ago, on April 25, the Vermont House passed H.887 in response to the spending/funding crisis. H.887 originally included some cost containment measures, but before passing the House, these measures were stripped out, leaving a new tax formula that (if passed by the Senate) includes a 15% increase in property taxes, adding a new $20.4 million tax on cloud-base software (internet), and creates a new $6.5 million tax on short term rentals.
Vote as you wish, but please vote.
Steve Martin
Waterbury