HARDWICK, WOLCOTT, GREENSBORO, WOODBURY – Voters in the Wolcott and Mountainview Union School Districts will have the opportunity to vote April 7, on the identical budgets they rejected Town Meeting Day, March 3.
A state infusion of $115 million to the Education Fund proposed in Governor Scott’s FY27 budget would lower property tax rates without requiring the school boards to cut their budgets.
Projected tax rates to cover Mountainview Union’s budget, rejected in a close 389 to 377 vote, will be reduced for property owners in all four of the district’s towns. The increase is now 6.05% higher in the current fiscal year.
On a house valued at $100,000 (using rounded figures to the nearest dollar) Greensboro’s projected $187 increase is now just $134, Hardwick’s falls from $85 to $46, Stannard’s is down to $59 from $106 and Woodbury’s projected increase is cut by more than half, from $138 down to $66.
Wolcott’s budget was rejected by voters in a vote of 143 to 108. The proposed tax rate there has decreased by 11 cents this time around, amounting to a reduction of $107.98, to $135.51 on a property valued at $100,000.
That leaves Wolcott’s projected school tax increase 7.21% higher than in the current year.
Tax rates to cover the cost of school budgets voted on Town Meeting Day were based on the state’s December 1 figures, which came out before Governor Scott had released his FY27 budget. Scott’s FY27 budget proposal now includes a one-time General Fund transfer, or “buydown.” The buydown takes money from the State’s General Fund and moves it to the Education Fund, offset expenses and lowering the impact on property taxpayers.
A buydown of roughly $75 million for the current school year, FY26, reduced taxes. With no buydown indicated in the December 1 letter, property taxes needed to increase to close the gap, which was made even bigger by the anticipated increase in spending statewide.
That gap would no longer need to be covered by property taxes with the $115 millionThe House’s tax-writing committee voted on a bill to spend $52 million in surplus funds on buying down increased education spending. buydown included in the Governor’s FY27 budget That would raise the Property Yield in financial forecasts, which lowers the projected impact to taxes.
That $110 million buydown is not yet final. As lawmakers reached the halfway point in this year’s legislative session, “The house’s tax writing committee voted on a bill to spend $52 million in surplus funds on buying down increased education spending,” said a WCAX story, March 20.”
Reducing the buydown would raise the tax savings projected by the area school boards.
The legal voters of the Wolcott Town School District are hereby notified and warned to meet at the
Informational hearing for discussion on the proposed FY27 School District budgets will be held in the coming days; for Wolcott Elementary School at the school, Tuesday, March 31, at 6 p.m., and for Mountainview Union at the Hardwick Elementary School on Thursday, April 2, at 6 p.m.
An Australian ballot vote at the Wolcott Town Office is scheduled Tuesday, April 7, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., to decide the fate of that school’s budget for the second time.
Australian ballot votes on the Mountainview Union budget will also happen April 7. Hardwick voters will visit the Town House from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Polls in Greensboro, Strannard and Woodbury will be open at each town hall from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
