Plan for school governance consolidation

The Joint Sudbury/Whiting School Board held a community forum Oct. 21, 2015, at the Sudbury Meeting House to discuss the planned "side-by-side" operation of the Otter Valley and Barstow school districts within a single supervisory union.

Under the plan, the Pre K to Grade 12 Otter Valley Unified District (including the six towns of Brandon, Pittsford, Goshen, Leicester, Sudbury and Whiting) and the Pre K to Grade 8 Barstow District (Mendon and Chittenden-Barstow) would share centralized services, a single education budget and a single overseeing board.

A study committee of eighteen people, formed in June, is working on the specifics of the side-by-side model. It meets the first and third Tuesdays of each month through December at Otter Valley Union High School in Brandon. The committee is due to report its recommendations in December. Articles prepared by the study committee would be presented to member towns for vote on Town Meeting Day in March.

The merger is planned in order to meet goals set in Act 46 (see below), which provides tax incentives for standardizing and combining smaller school districts. According to planners, the Otter Valley region would experience a 5 percent or $.08 decrease in the homestead tax rate as a result of the planned merger. (Reduction of $80 on every $100,000 of homestead value.) The tax benefit would decrease $.02 each year through the first four years of the merger.

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Act 46

The state government noted a number of problems contributing to escalating school tax burdens:

• The grade K through 12 student population in Vermont has decreased by about 24 percent (from 103,000 to 78,300) from 1997 to 2015, and the number of school-employed personnel has not decreased in the same proportion.
• Most of state schools have lower student populations than the optimum level, as established by national educational literature. A significant number of schools have very low student populations. (Sixty-four of 300 public schools have total enrollments of 100 or less students. Sixteen of those have enrollments of 50 or less.)
• Vermont's numerous school districts include only four with enrollment over the 2,000 students deemed optimal in national educational literature.
• Vermont has thirteen different styles of school district governance structures, preventing them from achieving economies of scale and limiting their sharing of resources with other districts.
• A 1999 law designed to protect small school districts from abrupt changes in school enrollment resulted in artifically low tax rates in those communities.

While seeking to retain the state's small community schools, the legislature sought to resolve some of the problems by encouraging the combination of school districts and the establishment of standard governance structures. Deadlines for tax incentive eligibility were put in place.

Annual Town Meeting is March 3

Town Meeting Day is March 3, 2015. Whiting's Annual School Meeting will open at 7:15 p.m. at the Whiting Town Hall, with the Annual Town Meeting following immediately afterward. Budget proposals for the school district and the town will be presented and voted on.

Meeting attendees also will elect a Select Board member, Lister, Auditor and Library Trustee for three-year terms, as well as a Collector of Delinquent Taxes, Road Commissioner, First and Second Constable, Town Juror and Town Agent.

The school meeting will consider a $664,735 spending plan for the Whiting Town School District. Voters approved $612,360 (including a floor amendment addition of $26,800 for a pre-kindergarten program) for the schools at the 2014 meeting. So the current plan would include a spending increase of $52,375 or 8.55%. This is the second-highest percentage jump for any town in the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union. Only the Town of Goshen would see its spending increase by a greater percentage, 28.9%. (The average spending increase for union towns would be 1.48%.)

The resulting homestead education tax rate for Whiting would be 1.50, an increase of 12.9% over the current 1.3281. The owner of a homestead property valued at $200,000, for example, would see education taxes rise $343.80 this year, from a level of $2,656.20 to $3,000.00, under the proposed spending plan. No town in the union district would experience a higher percentage increase or a higher tax rate. (The Town of Pittsford's tax rate would also be 1.50, after a jump of just 5.24%.)

The town meeting will consider a $300,252 proposed spending plan for the town, of which $179,321 would come from taxes. Last year's meeting approved a $290,591 budget with $158,026.21 from taxes. The budget proposal contains a $9,661 or 3.32% spending increase and an increase of $21,294.79 or 13.47% in the amount to come from taxes.

Also on the agenda for the town meeting is a proposal for the town to appropriate funds for the creation of a wall or plaque acknowledging the military veterans of Whiting.

OVUHS district meeting Feb. 26, 2014

A meeting of the Otter Valley Union High School District No. 8 will be held 7 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014, at the OVUHS auditorium. At the meeting, the Board of School Directors will present an estimate of district expenses for the year beginning July 1, 2014. A budget of $10.52 million has been proposed. That amount is $16,351 less than the current year's budget, but still requires a tax increase over the current year.

In the district's annual report (click here to access the full report), OVUHS Board Chair James Rademacher explained the belt-tightening process, "We felt that a budget that would maintain the status quo would be too much for the voters to accept. Three retiring senior teachers being replaced with new hired much lower on the pay scale was a significant help but not enough. All areas of staffing were carefully reviewed. After consultation with administration, faculty, and students the Board has decided to discontinue the Dean of Students position."

Aside from the staffing adjustments, Mr. Rademacher said, "We are proposing to basically level fund our budget while dealing with the same inflationary pressures you are all facing."

Voting on the budget will be conducted in the usual polling places on Tuesday, March 4.

The agenda for the Feb. 26 meeting includes the following articles:

1. To elect the following officers: a. A Moderator for one year; b. A Clerk for one year; c. A Treasurer for one year; d. An Auditor for three years.
2. To act upon the reports of the Union High School District Officers.
3. To fix the compensation of the District Officers.
4. To have presented by the Board of School Directors of the Union High School District its estimate of expenses for the ensuing year.
5. To authorize the Board of School Directors of the Union High School District to borrow money pending the receipt of payments from the member districts by the issuance of its notes or orders payable not later than one year from date of issue for the purpose of paying sums appropriated by the Union High School District.
6. To transact any other business proper to be done when met.

The meeting will be recessed to March 4 for balloting on the final agenda item:
"Shall the voters of the Otter Valley Union High School District No. 8 adopt a budget of Ten Million Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Seven Hundred Seventeen Dollars ($10,525,717) necessary for the support of its schools for the year beginning July 1, 2014. The amount of such sum to be raised by taxes to be offset by special education revenues, state aid and other incomes."

Under the proposed spending plan, the estimated homestead base tax rate districtwide would increase by almost 7.6% from $1.45 to $1.56. Member towns would experience different tax impacts. All member towns except Leicester would experience tax increases for the year. The towns of Whiting, Goshen and Pittsford would experience increases of 10% or more. The estimated increases for member towns are shown below:

Brandon +04.6% to $0.68
Goshen +10.2% to $0.97
Leicester -02.5% to $0.78
Pittsford +10.0% to $0.77
Sudbury +03.9% to $0.76
Whiting +10.0% to $0.66