In crafting a budget for next year, members of the White River Unified District School Board considered two scenarios for limiting the preK-12 district’s spending.
One scenario proposed cutting two full-time teachers from the district’s high school; the other proposed cutting four teachers.
Each position represented a cut of around $100,000.
The aim was two-fold: To save money, but also to get the high school closer to minimum class sizes under discussion in Montpelier, board Chairwoman Nancy Pejouhy said in a phone interview.
In the end, the board opted not to make the cuts. Parents, students and teachers turned out at the budget hearing to advocate for keeping teachers. And school officials also understood that cutting teachers threatened to undermine programs that appeal to tuition students, a key source of revenue for the district, which operates elementary schools in Bethel and Royalton, a middle school in Bethel and a high school in Royalton.
“Having to let these very talented people go was not something we wanted to see,” Pejouhy said.
The proposed $16.4 million budget that voters will consider on March 2 carries an increase of around 8%.
The rise in spending of a little over $1.1 million is attributable largely to health insurance cost increases, which are set at the state level, and to wage increases for faculty and staff under collective bargaining agreements.
The costs the board controls are up by only 1.6%, Pejouhy said.
If the board had opted for the deeper faculty cuts, it would have saved about four cents on the education property tax rate, she said.
But the district has budgeted about $1.3 million in revenue from tuition students, many of whom have said in surveys that the high school’s performing arts programs attracted them to the school. Fewer teachers means fewer sections of core classes, which would create conflicts between courses in English, math and social studies and the band and chorus classes that help bring in tuition students.
The proposed teacher cuts “just seemed like one of those things where you’d be cutting off your nose to spite your face,” Pejouhy said.
Because the state’s education property tax system is based on town property tax assessments, Bethel and Royalton residents are projected to experience different tax impacts next year.
Bethel’s education property tax rate is projected to increase by a little less than 3 cents per $100 of assessed value. That would raise taxes on a $250,000 home by around $72.
In Royalton, however, a decline in the common level of appraisal, a mechanism the state uses to equalize property tax burdens between communities, means the residential education tax rate would rise by nearly 20 cents per $100.
That would spell a $495 tax increase on a $250,000 home.
Royalton is due to complete a property reappraisal by June, which could have an effect on how tax bills are calculated.
Vermont resident households with income below $115,000 qualify for tax credits that limit the education tax burden to a percentage of household income, and households earning under $47,000 qualify for further credits.
About two-thirds of Vermont households receive such credits.
Since the district was formed by the merger of the Bethel and Royalton school districts in 2017, tax increases have been relatively modest, Pejouhy said.
“Our increases have been way below what the state average has been, so the merger has worked for us,” she said.
The budget will be up for a vote at the annual meeting on Monday, March 2 at 6 p.m. at the Bethel campus. Elections for School Board will be held the following day by ballot in voters’ respective towns.
CLARIFICATION: Health insurance rates for Vermont educators are set at the state level. Where the rates are set was unclear in a previous version of this story.
