Balloted voting for Oxbow Union High School District #30 will take place from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 28, at the Bradford Academy building and the Newbury Town Office. The annual school meeting is scheduled for the same day at 8 p.m. in the Oxbow High auditorium.
Bradford, Vt.
The proposed $7.06 million budget to support the grades 7-12 school is down about $45,000, according to interim Principal Jean Wheeler, but per-pupil spending is up about 3 percent.
Wheeler said Oxbow’s enrollment had declined steadily over the past few years, from about 345 students two years ago to 325 this year and an expected 307 next year.
“How that factors in is we have to divide our spending by fewer and fewer students,” Wheeler said.
Although changes in equalized per-pupil spending usually correspond to changes to the tax rate under Vermont’s educational finance system, the Oxbow homestead rate rate actually is expected to decrease by nearly a penny per $100 of valuation.
That’s because the overall education-based property tax yield is up about 3.9 percent, Wheeler said.
Under the anticipated rate, therefore, the owner of a $250,000 property could expect to pay about $20.50 less.
Wheeler said school administrators had found savings in next year’s proposed budget by cutting the equivalent of 3½ teachers and staff.
One such cut was the position of dean of students, which was replaced by a behavior coach who carries out restorative justice and works with the guidance department to draw up holistic behavioral and aspirational plans for students, she said.
“It was primarily reductions in staff that made the biggest impact there,” Wheeler said of the cuts to Oxbow’s budget. “Not only reduction in staff, but we’ve made reductions in administration and created ways to develop programs for students that also meet needs for the school.”
Those student programs include a class in which students learn web design and social media curation, using their new skills to help maintain Oxbow High’s webpage and social media presence.
The most significant added expense is a schoolwide repair project of about $123,000 to bring Oxbow into compliance with safety deficiencies found during a review last year. That will be a one-time expense, Wheeler said.
In addition to the Oxbow budget, Bradford and Newbury residents on Tuesday will vote on a $2.1 million spending plan to support the River Bend Career and Technical Center for the coming year. State grants and tuition revenues, not local taxes, fund that budget.
School Board elections will take place in May.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.