ORFORD — As they prepare for a year of substantial change, voters in the four-town Rivendell Interstate School District approved a budget Saturday morning that funds current programs.
The $16.6 million spending plan for the fiscal year starting July 1, won approval by a vote of 135-83 with two blanks. Also approved Saturday was a $450,000 allocation from unreserved funds to reduce taxes and an open enrollment measure that would allow up to 10 students in grades K-12 to attend Rivendell schools, but permit no Rivendell students to depart for other districts.
Rivendell, which comprises the towns of Fairlee, Orford, Vershire and West Fairlee, is in the process of determining whether and how to reconfigure its schools. Approving a budget, school officials and residents alike said, was a key first step on that path.
“It’s the biggest decision in RISD history,” Orford resident John Bronson said during the meeting. The district was formed by a 1998 vote and it opened for its first year in 2020, with two elementary schools, Westshire in West Fairlee and Samuel Morey in Fairlee, and Rivendell Academy middle and high schools in Orford, the same structure that exists today.
A survey for district residents to gauge their views about the district’s configuration is open until Wednesday and is available at the district’s website, rivendellschool.org. The district’s plan is to bring five potential reconfiguration proposals to a vote in September, School Board Chairman Charles Newton, of Orford, said.
Rivendell has considered school reconfiguration since at least 2023 in an effort to save money amid declining enrollment. A few residents who spoke up were discontented with the pace of change.
“I left here last year with the impression that we were going to be told Samuel Morey (Elementary School in Fairlee) was going to be closing,” West Fairlee resident Maurice Austin said. “You’re kicking the can down the road again. There’s not much left of that can.”
School officials said they expect to have a plan to put into action soon.
“I 100% agree with you that the can needs to stop being kicked down the road,” Newton said in response to Austin’s comments.
The Rivendell board voted to close Morey in December 2023, but walked back that plan a year later amid leadership turnover. Morey has had three principals over the past three years, and the district had three superintendents over three years. The current superintendent, Randall Gawel, started work in July.
Like other districts in the Twin States, Rivendell has experienced huge increases in health insurance costs over the past four years. From fiscal year 2024 to the FY2027 budget, the increase has been 48.2%, according to the School Board’s budget presentation.
Even without major changes in programming, the district’s budget is up by 4.9%, due mainly to health care, wages and special education costs.
But because voters approved allocating $450,000 in unreserved funds toward tax relief, the amount to be raised by taxes will decrease slightly, by around $35,000.
Even so, the district’s three Vermont towns will see tax increases, which are partly attributable to those towns’ shares of the student population, which is going up. Other factors related to how Vermont calculates education tax rates, such as the common level of appraisal, which is designed to equalize tax burdens across the state, are also at work.
This means Orford residents are projected to see a slight tax decrease. The owners of a $400,000 property will see $44 less on their tax bill.
A home of similar value is projected to see an increase of $832 in Fairlee, $940 in West Fairlee, and $316 in Vershire.
Vermont households earning less than $115,000 a year pay their education taxes as a share of income, which is projected to increase from 2.38% this year to 2.51% next year.
Voters adopted the open enrollment article even though it isn’t clear how it would affect the district’s two schools in Vermont. New Hampshire’s open enrollment law requires school districts to designate a percentage of its student population that it would accept from other districts and a percentage it would allow to depart.
Nearly all New Hampshire districts in the Upper Valley have elected to allow a small percentage to come into its schools, but none to leave. That’s because a sending district has to pay 80% of the tuition cost to the receiving district, along with any special education and transportation costs.
Fairlee resident Doug Tifft pointed out that the principles laid out in Rivendell’s articles of agreement includes language that says, “As necessary, Rivendell should assert its unique standing as an interstate school district to challenge and seek exemption from laws or policies of either state that would compromise” its self-determination.
The 220 voters present in the Rivendell Academy gym on Saturday constituted around 7.7% of the district’s checklist.
A smaller number, 200, voted in School Board elections. Lillian “Gay-C” Gahagan, of Fairlee, who was appointed to an at-large seat on the board, won re-election over Cassia Smith, of Orford, by a vote of 117-51.
Edward A. Bouquillon, of Fairlee; Mark Adamczyk, of Orford; and write-in candidate George Osgood, of Vershire, were elected to open seats for their towns.
The district also thanked longtime board members Kathy Hooke, of Vershire, and David Ricker, of Orford, who opted not to run again this year.
“It’s great to wrap up this part,” Hooke said of the budget’s approval, “… and then move on to the work ahead.”