Lamoille North stands ground on budget

The roughly $15.9 million budget represents the district administration and the school board showing support for their budget as originally presented and the cuts they’ve already made. The cursory $50 cut was done to satisfy a legal requirement that failed budgets must reflect some kind of reduction before they can be warned again, according to school administrators.

The original $16.4 million budget to fund the four elementary schools in Hyde Park, Johnson, Eden and Waterville failed on March Town Meeting Day by just 37 votes.

After cutting several assistant technology positions and supply and infrastructure costs and moving the Waterville pre-kindergarten program from the Belvidere Central School to Waterville Elementary School, the school board cut its first proposal by more than $350,000.

The second budget failed last week by 48 votes, with a turnout of less than 800 voters among five towns.

Though the budget still represents a double digit increase from last year, it is expected to raise property taxes by about 2 percent due to changes in education funding policy that allowed the district to draw on more state funding while spreading the potential tax increase over several years.

Still, due to an increase in property value partially brought on by a post-pandemic home-buying surge and changes statewide to education funding, property taxes are set to rise across Vermont, leading voters to reject multiple budget proposals, including in the neighboring Morristown-Elmore school district.

The decision to put forth a budget with no major spending reductions for a third time was made after the board and the administration decided to stand firm on their assertion that the original budget was conservative and student-focused, and an assertion that there was nothing left to cut.

“It was easy for the board to make this decision because they have stood by a responsible budget and continue to affirm that this is a responsible budget,” superintendent Catherine Gallagher said.

She also pointed out that, due to a recent collective bargaining agreement with district educators, it was impossible to make meaningful personnel reductions, even if the board wanted to take that path.

Now it’s up to district officials to convince voters to approve this third budget and to warn them of the implications of voting it down. If the budget doesn’t pass in May and no local budget is approved, the school could see deep cuts in educational programs, they said.

“The school budget is the school budget,” Gallagher said. “If we are forced to start the year without a budget, and we have fewer resources, what could be impacted would be things like our after-school programs, transportation. The voters can say, ‘This is what we stand to lose if we go into the next year without a budget.’”

Voter frustration

At the informational meeting prior to the first budget vote, business manager Deb Clark said people voiced their concerns about spending.

At a similar meeting prior to the second vote, those in attendance were clear: They were happy with the cuts in the budget, but wanted to send a message to lawmakers in Montpelier that rising property taxes were something they simply cannot afford.

“The people encouraging a no vote said that this has nothing to do with the school district. They said, ‘We like our board, we love the work the board is doing. This has to do with sending a message to the Legislature and the governor, and that nobody will pay attention until you vote no,’” Clark said.

While there has been a mix of proposals from the governor’s office and the Legislature to address double-digit property tax increases and how education funding policy helped fuel that rise, there appears to be little chance a major policy overhaul will happen before lawmakers wrap up the session this spring.

Rep. Melanie Carpenter, D-Hyde Park, represents most of the towns voting on the Lamoille North elementary schools’ budget along with Dan Noyes, D-Wolcott, and had a previous career as a teacher at Peoples Academy in Morristown and was a Stowe school principal.

She said she understands concerns about affordability but worries about Lamoille North schools potentially entering a dire situation should a budget fail to pass.

“I’m saddened when school budgets go down to send a message to Montpelier, because so much of what happens in a local school budget is not controlled by the local leaders, it’s actually through the responsibility of the Legislature, the governor’s office, the administration,” she said. “Everything is interconnected, and I truly believe that we need to look for solutions as a state. I think we all have a level of responsibility.”

Carpenter said she tried to get further cost containment measures in a bill meant to slightly limit property taxes increases during a Tuesday House vote but didn’t succeed. She’s hopeful that the Legislature can continue to address these issues going forward.

“Something has to be done,” she said. “It’s untenable, and it can’t keep going this way, so the next biennium is going to be, I think, where we do the majority of our work.”

Sen. Rich Westman, R-Cambridge, began ringing alarm bells about the gaps in spending left by receding pandemic-era federal funding well before schools like Lamoille North announced increased spending was needed to cover support positions previously funded by that money.

Westman has watched state spending put tremendous pressure on property taxes and efforts to limit those increases is influencing every decision made in the Statehouse this session, and he’s also frustrated at recent last-minute attempts to find quick solutions in the House, emphasizing that for education funding, there is no easy way out.

“I’m of the camp that after 25 years, yes, the education funding formula needs to change,” Westman said. “What will come up in this is, when you say that you want to put pressure on Montpelier, what is going to happen is people are going to say that we need to put some restrictions on local spending, because the spending decisions are made at the local level.”

Westman would like to see broader changes to how property taxes are raised, but also pointed out that Vermont’s per-pupil spending ranks among the highest in the country while its schools have the smallest teacher-to-student ratios in the country.

“I think my local area has done a lot better job with their budgets than some other areas, but that still doesn’t take away the fear of someone who’s worried about paying their property taxes,” he said.