Hartland’s annual School District Meeting will be held on Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. Town Meeting takes place on March 7 at 9 a.m., with the polls open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The meetings and voting will take place in Damon Hall.
Hartland
Bob Stacey figures the latter article will account for most of the discussion at the March 7 meeting. Part way into his 20th, and last, year as Town Manager, he should know.
Stacey aims to retire in June, when he turns 65, ending a run that’s included expanding the recreation department and, if everything goes according to plan, upgrading a long-bemoaned intersection; work on Three Corners is expected to start this spring.
Working with Stacey has been “wonderful,” said Gordon Richardson, a 24-year veteran of the Selectboard and its current chairman.
He’s made the Selectboard’s job easy, Richardson said. “He’s just very capable. He takes his manager job seriously and does what is in the law that a manager can do. He doesn’t go overboard with anything.”
Hartland’s recreation programs have blossomed under Stacey’s lead. The town had no formal recreation department when he came on board, but by combining user fees with town and school funds, he was able to create the department and hire the first recreation director. Offerings now include a busy afterschool program, ski learners’ programs, summer camps and a variety of sports. The growth spurt also included acquiring former farmland behind the recreation center.
“We were very, very fortunate to be able to buy that property,” which now includes soccer fields, Richardson said. “That has enabled us to do a lot in town that we would have not been able to do.”
Also during Stacey’s tenure, Hartland has done very well maintaining a fairly level budget each year, he said.
Last week, Stacey reflected on his tenure during an interview in his office in Damon Hall. Unusually, his sidekick Chloe was not with him, but a tennis ball sat in wait on a folding table; the golden retriever likes a good game of fetch.
Perennial challenges have included balancing competing goals, such as containing budget growth while ensuring employees get a decent raise and funding necessary projects, all in the shadow of ever-rising insurance costs.
“You always want more money than you have … but you’ve got to set that priority list and peck away at it and be patient,” said Stacey, a Windsor native. “It’s always a struggle for every town manager.”
But the work has suited him.
“It’s been a great job,” he said. “I think my abilities matched what the selectpersons wanted.”
His retirement plans include “pet projects,” such as woodworking and spending more time visiting his daughters, who live in Georgia and Florida.
Regarding article six, which asks to authorize the purchase of a half-acre property at 21 Route 12, Stacey said it’s not clear yet what the site would be used for. But “we would not be prudent if we didn’t at least ask the voters, ‘Is this a piece of property we should control?’ ”
The town has negotiated a price of $180,000 for the property, which borders the Recreation Center and includes a three-bedroom home.
A petitioned article asks to designate Hartland as a sanctuary town, meaning undocumented immigrants would be safe from deportation and may look for jobs there without being asked for proof of citizenship, at least as far as town officials would be concerned.
“It goes along with everything we are hearing in the news,” Richardson said, referring to President Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigration. “I’m afraid it’s probably mostly symbolic. But it does send a good message to people who need to have that message received.”
The proposed $2.5 million town budget represents a 2.4 percent bump over the previous year, in part due to increased health insurance costs. The amount to be raised by taxes would be $1.9 million, an increase of 1.5 percent. The resulting tax rate increase, a fraction of a penny, would translate to an additional $12.50 for a home appraised at $250,000.
Richardson and his fellow Selectman Matt Peeler are running unopposed for two- and three-year seats on the board, respectively.
The proposed $8.2 million school budget is lower than last year’s by $638,000, or 7.25 percent. The decrease is due to a change in accounting practices by the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union; some special education costs and revenues are now reflected in the Supervisory Union budget, instead of the school districts’.
The Hartland Elementary School budget reflects increases in several areas, including contractual obligations, insurance and high school tuition.
Unfortunately, the tax rate is up, Bettina Read, school board chairwoman, said in a phone interview. That’s due to a “slight drop” in the number of equalized pupils at the school, a small decrease in the common level of appraisal and a change in the way special education funding is calculated within the supervisory union.
Rather than assessing the cost of education for “intensive needs special education students” to the town where they attend school, that cost will be shared across the supervisory union.
That change should prevent some of the five- and six-figure fluctuations Hartland has seen in past budgets, Read said in the school board’s annual report.
A $295,000 budget surplus from fiscal year 2015 was applied to help reduce the effect on taxpayers. Under the proposed spending plan, Hartland’s homestead tax rate would increase by 3.9 cents, which translates to an increase of $98 in school taxes on a home valued at $250,000.
One article on the school warning asks voters to withdraw up to $60,000 from the capital reserve fund to replace half of the school’s classroom ventilation systems, with the remaining half to be replaced at a later date. The work is part of a five-year building plan.
Read and School Board member Nicole Buck will run unopposed for two- and three-year seats on the board, respectively. Buck was appointed to succeed Nancy Gabriel after Gabriel moved out of town.
Aimee Caruso can be reached at acaruso@vnews.com or 603-727-3210.