UNITY — At the Unity School District’s annual meeting on Saturday, voters approved a budget and other spending measures designed to address a substantial deficit.
As in Claremont, the other member of SAU 6, Unity officials learned last summer that accounting mistakes had led to a funding gap. The deficit of $603,000 led to cuts in the current year’s spending, including not filling two jobs at Unity Elementary School, for a media specialist and an arts and music teacher.
Those cuts are expected to lead to a $110,000 surplus, and the budget approved for next year is $83,000 lower than the current year’s, despite increases in health insurance and high school tuition costs. The voters who turned out at the elementary school gym voted 45-26 to approve the budget in a paper ballot vote. About 6.9% of the town’s 1,028 registered voters turned out for the meeting.
“Between the School Board, myself and our staff, we looked at this budget line by line to figure out how we could (make cuts) without affecting the high quality education we have here in Unity,” Susan Schroeter, principal of Unity Elementary School, told the meeting on Saturday.
The town’s preK-8 elementary school will go without a media specialist and an art and music teacher for another year, to help the district reduce the deficit. Other school staff will provide library access and art and music instruction, Schroeter said.
In addition to the budget cut and the current year surplus, school officials also plan to use $125,000 from the special education fund and $216,000 from the high school tuition fund to reduce the deficit.
And voters also approved on Saturday an article authorizing the district to raise up to $150,000 during the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, to retire the deficit.
Before approving the budget, voters rejected by voice vote two proposed amendments, one that would have cut $400,000 and a second that would have cut $200,000, both offered by resident Gordon Brann.
It costs about $100,000 in salary and benefits to employ a teacher, so a $400,000 cut would mean having to cut four of them, Schroeter said.
The district pays tuition to send students to area high schools, and that figure is non-negotiable, resident Bob Trabka pointed out. “So this 10% cut comes out of this school,” he said.
“I totally understand that this tax situation is horrendous to deal with,” he said of the smaller proposed cut, “but they came to us with a budget that’s $80,000 less.”
The tax impact is painful for retirees, said Brann, who’s a retired engineer. “I’m getting into the realm of selling my house,” he said in a brief interview.
Judy Huff, who attended Unity Elementary and put her three sons through it, pointed out that she’d paid for kindergarten, and that maybe the district should cut back on pre-K. But the district already is required to offer special education services to everyone from ages 3 to 22 who needs them, so it makes sense to offer pre-K, school officials said.
The estimated tax rate to support the budget is $11.07 per $1,000 of assessed value, and another 60 cents per $1,000 for the $150,000 deficit reduction article.
That would put the total education tax rate at $11.67 per $1,000, which is 2 cents lower than the rate approved by the state Department of Revenue Administration for 2025. The estimated lower rate is attributable to the cuts district officials made and the application of reserve funds to reduce the deficit.
The deficit is attributable primarily to over-estimations in years past of the district’s available fund balance to put toward tax reduction, Matt Angell, interim business administrator of SAU 6, said. This resulted in the district setting tax rates that were too low to cover expenses.
Paying down the deficit through cuts, reserve funds and a one-time tax increase will allow the district to put this episode behind it, school officials said. As a percentage of the annual budget, Unity’s deficit was deeper than Claremont’s.
In addition to the teaching positions, the budget reductions include cutting the school’s summer camp program and reducing sports to just soccer and basketball. After-school clubs are reduced, and Schroeter, who has been principal for six years and taught at Unity for 15 years prior to that, will not take a pay raise from the $104,750 in the current year’s budget. School Board members will waive their annual stipend, and the town government, which already took on mowing at the school, will also pick up snow removal.
Schroeter also revealed that she’s in the habit of taking the school’s trash to the transfer station.
“I do a lot of things that aren’t in my job description,” she said in response to a comment from the audience. “Every year since I’ve been here we have not spent all the money that we’ve budgeted,” said Schroeter, who lives in Unity.
Last March, the district voted to leave SAU 6, and as of July 1 will become SAU 109, which also is projected to save money for the district.
Although the district is taking steps to right its financial ship, the sense of crisis runs deeper. The district is receiving less federal title funding each year, even as the school’s enrollment is increasing, Schroeter said. Enrollment is at 105 pupils this year, and Schroeter said she’d like to see it get to 120 or 125.
Comments at the meeting from residents such as Brann and Huff suggest older residents are feeling squeezed by property taxes, while others noted that property values have risen steeply since the coronavirus pandemic, making it hard for young families to find homes.
“I’m going to be making less money next year because of higher health care costs,” Jennifer Thompson, a special education teacher and case manager at Charlestown Primary School, told the meeting.
If small towns can’t attract all different kinds of families, instead of second homeowners and investors, the state is going to be in trouble, Patience Lowe, who moved to Unity from Western Massachusetts, said in an interview. Her daughter Sara Valli is a former Unity School Board member.
“It’s not just schools,” Lowe said. “Schools are the Geiger counter.”