HARDWICK – With just a month to go before the deadline to set school budgets before Town Meeting Day, the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union (OSSU) budget and its five school district budgets remain far from final approval.
In the face of rising health care costs, general inflation, contracted salary increases and reduced state funding to bring down school budgets, preliminary school budgets have been showing significant increases.
As word circulated that seven student-facing positions at Hazen Union School are being proposed for cuts, members of the school’s teacher’s union suggested the board look to cut Hazen and OSSU administrative costs.
A letter presented by Orleans Southwest Education Association (OSEA) member Kay Freedy at the OSSU school board meeting December 22, read in part, “The intent behind Act 73 is rooted in the consideration of administrative costs, and we encourage you to look closely at that side of our school and district budgets, and the proportions [of cuts] between administration and student-facing staff.”
Chief Financial Officer Annie Houston has been attending school board meetings to present draft budgets and, along with other administrators, hear recommendations for adjustments, mostly in executive sessions closed to the public.
The Hazen Union School Board, however, offered a public look at its recommendations with a motion at the end of its December 15 meeting. That motion, approved unanimously following an executive session to discuss personnel, directed “the administration to present a budget that results in per pupil spending at or below the state per pupil excess spending threshold and moves Hazen toward compliance with Act 73 class size minimums.
At that meeting, Principal Jason DiGiulio provided an overview of the second FY27 draft budget, showing expenses up 7.84% from the current year’s budget. That resulted in a per-pupil cost of $17,271.88, which is $801.88 over the state’s per pupil spending threshold of $16,470.
There was discussion about reducing the budget by approximately $350,000 to bring it below the threshold.
Minutes note DiGiulio “stated that this is likely going to involve reduction in staff.”
In towns where school districts exceed the per pupil threshold, the primary penalty is an additional local property tax on the overage, essentially double-counting that excess spending in tax rate calculations, which significantly raises taxes for local homeowners.
“We have about 20 fewer students and the money that Governor Scott put in last year to lower the tax rate is not there this year,” said DiGuilio. “These two factors, combined with the pressures of inflation, rise in health care costs, and our raises, put the equalized homestead tax rate for that proposed budget at 29 cents.”
DiGuilio said Hazen currently offers about 100 courses, with just seven meeting Act 73’s minimum class size.
“I met with those that are being considered for reduction,” said DiGuilio.
“I told the faculty about the situation, and about the process moving forward. It was important to us that folks know what was being considered.
“This budget, when ready, will be presented in January. If adopted, then we would follow our processes to notify those persons in accordance with our collective bargaining agreements.”
Discussion following Diguilio’s conversations reached outside school faculty, to community members and even some students.
The OSEA letter read to the OSSU board by Freedy cited “Reductions in Force agreed upon by the Hazen School Board at its most recent (December 15, 2025) meeting.” That language suggested the decisions had already been made.
“To be clear, no proposed budget reflecting reduced staffing has been presented publicly at this time, and no final decisions have been made about specific positions,” DiGuilio said earlier that day.
The Hazen members of OSEA identified proposed staff reductions in their letter, suggesting the harm they would cause.
“The proposed cuts of a math teacher, an English teacher, a global citizenship teacher, a science teacher, a French teacher, a technology integrationist and a work-based learning driver would dramatically harm Hazen’s culture and learning environment.”
Those comments, and others by some attending the board meeting online, focused primarily on a need for the Hazen and OSSU school boards to gain a better understanding of how and what classroom teachers spend their time doing, and how smaller classes are important for personal attention and positive student outcomes.
“As budget drafts are finalized, we urge you to look closely at expenses other than the adults who spend their days directly interfacing with students, both in the individual school budgets and in OSSU’s,” said the union members.
As school boards throughout OSSU are contending with possible cuts to programs and staffing, the OSEA letter said of the proposed cuts at Hazen, “. . . the proposed cuts to instructional staff would shake Hazen’s foundation, making our community more vulnerable to losing its school entirely in the years ahead. We need to fortify our schools against pending legislation by preserving robust, diverse, and academically rigorous learning experiences for our students, scaffolded by lean, efficient administrative support.”
Later, during a public comment before the OSSU board’s executive session, long-time Hazen Union English teacher Kelly Robinson said larger class sizes won’t allow the individual teaching that can happen with smaller class sizes. She extended an invitation for OSSU Board members to visit any of her classes at any time to find out what happens there.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
Adminstration always gets & takes the $$$, because administration deals with politicians & politicians appoint them.
Like lobbying, it’s institutionalized bribery. This is why health insurance is such a con: it pays its own administration and hospitals’ administrations & executives & lawyers to help them not pay for your health care. Charities do this too– wasn’t there a big scandal about the Red Cross a while back? And colleges and universities. The reason they spend so much on football foolishness is to stimulate the loyalty of rich alumni. And so on.