BRADFORD, Vt. — Voters in the Oxbow Unified Union School District will weigh in at the end of the month on a budget proposal that district officials have pared back and on a proposal to add two more members to the district’s four-person board of directors.
The budget of slightly less than $17.3 million is about $953,000 higher than the current year’s budget, an increase of 5.8%. At one point in its discussions, School Board members made deeper cuts, but opted to add back $195,000 to the budget to pay for a universal school meals program, School Board Chairwoman Danielle Corti said in an interview.
“Food insecurity is a pretty big issue in our area,” Corti said. Each year, cafeteria debt builds up and principals have to try to collect the bills from families, a burden the board doesn’t want administrators to have to bear.
“We don’t want them calling families to try to get money from them,” Corti said, adding that the conversation between educators and parents should remain focused on education.
At the moment, the district is able to provide meals to all children ages 1 to 18 using federal funds, but those funds aren’t available during a typical school year. A universal meals program would “give families some sense of security and consistency,” Corti said.
Other drivers of higher costs in the proposed budget are a substantial increase in health care costs, and new math and literacy programs, said Emilie Knisely, superintendent of the Orange East Supervisory Union. The Oxbow district comprises the elementary schools in Bradford and Newbury, Oxbow Union High School and River Bend Career and Technical Center.
The budget also carries a 3% increase in salaries for faculty and staff, who are in the process of negotiating a contract with the district. That’s down from a 4% increase in the district’s initial budget proposal, which has been reworked since the district’s April 14 annual meeting was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supervisory union costs also have increased, with the addition to Orange East of the Blue Mountain Union School District and the supervisory union’s move from cramped offices to a more suitable location in downtown Bradford.
The higher costs and a projected decline in enrollment are responsible for tax increases in the district’s two towns.
In Bradford, the projected education tax rate of $1.71 per $100 of assessed value is nearly 14 cents higher than the current year’s rate.
That would raise the taxes on a home assessed at $250,000 by $347.
In Newbury, the tax rate is projected to increase by 9.5 cents, to $1.65 per $100.
That would raise the bill on a $250,000 home by $238.
The increase in Bradford’s tax rate is also influenced by the common level of appraisal, or CLA, which the state uses to equalize tax burdens among towns. Bradford’s CLA of 97.9% pushes its school tax rate up slightly.
The higher tax rates won’t affect all taxpayers, as many residents will pay a percentage of income if they make under a threshold set by the state.
Two three-year seats on the School Board, one from each town, are up for grabs. Incumbents Angela Colbeth, of Bradford, and Timothy “Timm” Judas, of Newbury, are running again.
In addition, the meeting warning asks voters to add two more seats on the board, one from each town. When it created the district, the state Board of Education furnished it with a four-member board, and the board feels that it needs more people to handle the work of overseeing the district, Knisely said.
If the measure passes, voters would also choose two new board members, and Chelsey Perry of Bradford and Carol Cottrell, John Fogarty and Hannah Leland in Newbury filed to run by Monday’s deadline.
The district will hold an informational meeting via Zoom at 6 p.m. on June 23, and the board plans to send a packet of information to voters this week. The polls will be open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 30 but the vote will also take place by mail-home ballot, Corti said.
Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.
Correction
The proposed budget for Oxbow Unified Union School District contains a 3% raise for the district’s teachers. The percentage was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.
