HARDWICK AREA – Draft school district budgets in the Mountainview Union School District, Craftsbury and Wolcott are all up over 10%, with Stannard, having no school of its own, lower.
In the second draft of a proposed budget, the Mountainview Union Elementary School District (MVUESD) board looked at a decrease of $446k over the first draft, but still up 12.49%, an increase of more than $1M from the current school year. That board spent an hour and 23 minutes in executive session to discuss personnel related to the budget, but took no action prior to adjourning the meeting.
In Craftsbury, a second budget draft reviewed at the December 10 school board meeting showed expenses up $12.34%, resulting in a per pupil cost $351.89 over the state’s excess spending threshold. That would require a cut of $125,000 to meet the threshold, according to Houston’s presentation.
The Wolcott School District’s second budget draft was reviewed with revised revenue projections showing the expense budget with an 11.61% increase over the current budget year. The per pupil cost, at approximately $15,545 is below the FY27 excess spending threshold.
As with last year, there is a large allocated expense from OSSU, this time $1.8M, that the district has no control over.
Minutes of the November 5 Stannard School Board meeting show the budget reviewed at that meeting showed staff health insurance rates up by 7.4%. Notes call that, “high, but lower than last year due to changes voted by the legislature.”
A discussion on the projected OSSU budget indicates that “school reps want [a] lower rate of increase.”
The projected “expenditure increase is modest at 4.2%” A lack of funds in the tuition reserve account is compensated for by a prior year surplus of $23,564 and it’s noted that Houston “will provide more info at the December meeting.
Similar to Wolcott, minutes of the December 17 meeting weren’t posted as this was written five days after that meeting as required by the Vermont Open Meeting Law.
In working to get a budget completed, the Craftsbury school board planned a special meeting for December 30.
