WOLCOTT – Town voters will soon have the opportunity to weigh in on a revised Wolcott Town School budget for FY26. It reduces the property tax rate to 25.5 cents from the 30 cents that would have resulted from the budget rejected by voters on town meeting day,185 to 95, almost a two to one margin.
Polls will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the vote, April 29.
An informational meeting is scheduled before the vote, Wednesday, April 16, 6 p.m., at the elementary school.
The new budget, approved at the March 19 Wolcott Town School Board meeting, cuts $155,000 in expenses, though still results in an increase of 20.11% over the current budget.
Discussions about this year’s budget have identified two areas that the board has no control over. At the meeting, those areas again received attention. The Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union (OSSU) budget required $8,250,481 to be raised through assessments to member districts. Wolcott’s assessment came to 19.5% of that total, being $1,609,064.
In addition, Wolcott only has an elementary school and pays other schools to educate students after sixth grade. A state decision to raise the tuition cap to $25,000 increased expenditures by 60%. With that increase, rates for the district will go up by an estimated $4,000 to $6,000 per student.
Two proposed budgets were offered to board members on the March 19. The first corrected errors, reducing the overall budget by $132,406.69. Further reductions to the elementary school budget totaling $26,788.36 were made to reduce funding for tech supplies by $6,000; facilities by $4,788.36, staff training by $10,000, athletic transportation by $2,000, student fees for field trips by $2,000 and uniforms by $2,000.
The revised carved out a savings of $159,195.05 to yield a budget of $6,142,021.54. It’s an of $837,409.96 over the current budget.
With OSSU and tuition increases totaling $845,398.44, the K-6 building will operate with fewer funds than budgeted and approved by voters in FY25. Board member Keith Cochran wanted to reiterate that he feels the budget should be cut from the OSSU level and not the elementary level. He was told the other towns in the supervisory union are not willing to reopen the OSSU budget.
Board member Roger LaChance suggested exploring the possibility of preselecting secondary schools. He was told it’s not possible to make any proposal this late in the budgeting process, but it will be looked into as a cost-cutting measure for next year.
After an executive session for a reason that was not stated in the minutes. Board member Melissa Morin moved to adopt the $6,142,021.54 budget. Laura Kaiser, seconded it and the motion passed unanimously.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
