OSSU AREA — The supervisory union budget assessment is up significantly this year,” wrote Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union Superintendent Dr. David Baker in a January 3 newsletter addressed to parents, guardians, staff and community.
This “will put pressure on local boards and voters to support their budgets,” he said. “We will all work together to ensure that our local boards and the supervisory union (SU) can provide all the services and programs our children need in the most affordable way possible.”
Baker said the supervisory union was entering the final phase of budget development for the SU and local districts, noting, “Each of our member districts, Craftsbury, Hazen, Mountain View, and Wolcott, pays an assessment each year for all the services provided by the SU. Over the years, many services have been centralized at the SU. All support services, including special education, transportation, food service, maintenance and most/all business services including payroll, HR, accounting and technology. We take great pride in our excellent staff and the services we provide to our member districts.”
Baker identified a funding challenge in the SU revenue. “The budget for the current school year (2024-25) included a significant revenue amount that we carried forward, over a million dollars, which helped keep assessments low for the member districts. However, this budget season we do not have the same level of revenue to carry into next year. In fact, there is nearly an $800,000 drop in available revenue. Therefore assessments will increase significantly to compensate for this revenue shortfall.”
Baker’s explanation pointed out, “If a local district, such as Hazen, experiences an unusual revenue windfall, we typically would not apply the entire revenue to reduce taxes. Instead, we would ask voters to allocate some of the excess revenue to a capital improvement account. This strategy helps prevent a large tax increase the following year due to a revenue shortfall. However, the challenge we face at the SU is that we cannot place excess revenue into a capital reserve account; we are required to apply the entire amount to assessments.”
The central office team cut almost $600,000 from the expense side of the budget, said Baker, “but these reductions barely put a dent in the assessment increases.
“We informed the SU board that any further cuts to SU expenses would seriously jeopardize services to our local schools.”
“The revenue shortfall and the increase in the assessments will put pressure on local boards and voters to support their budgets,” said Baker.
Informational and school district meetings will be held to explain the budgeting process in more detail, said Baker.
The Mountain View Union Elementary School District Annual Meeting is at 6 p.m. February 25. A public informational hearing on the FY26 Budget follows at 6:30 p.m.
The Hazen Union School District holds a public informational hearing on the FY26 Budget at 7 p.m., February 26, followed by the annual school district meeting at 7:30 p.m.
The Wolcott Town School District will hold its public informational hearing on the FY26 Budget at 6 p.m., February 27. That annual school district meeting is on March 4, fifteen minutes following the adjournment of town meeting.
Craftsbury Town School District and Stannard Town School District hold their annual school district meetings March 4, 9 a.m.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
