Editor’s note: This article is by Rob Wolfe, of the Valley News, in which it was first published Aug. 18, 2015.
[N]ORWICH — School Board members are weighing the advantages of school district consolidation under Vermont Act 46, which offers some enticing tax breaks and might prompt the district to simplify its organizational structure.
As part of an interstate school district, Norwich is largely exempt from the mergers, but ignoring the potential benefits of consolidation would be akin to “sticking our heads in the sand,” Norwich School Board Chairman Neil Odell said at an Aug. 5 board meeting.
By merging with a small nearby district — administrators raised Thetford as a possibility — Norwich could claim tax incentives under Act 46.
If the district merged between July 2017 and July 2019, that would trigger an 8-cent discount on the equalized homestead rate for school property taxes, according to Act 46. That benefit would decrease by 2 cents each fiscal year until it disappeared.
Act 46, the new school district merger law, aims to equalize educational opportunities in Vermont and find a solution to worsening economies of scale in the state’s smaller districts.
Though Norwich school officials are meeting with their colleagues in other towns and are considering applying for a consolidation study grant from the state, Odell cautioned at the meeting that administrators were merely considering their options for the moment. It would be “extremely premature” to predict now what the district may do, he said.
One course of action could be to merge the four representative bodies that currently serve Hanover and Norwich schools: the districts of Dresden, SAU 70, Hanover and Norwich, each of which has its own school board and its own responsibilities.
“I think the idea that we’re four separate legal entities is really counterproductive, and I’ve said that for 15 years,” John Aubin, SAU 70’s assistant superintendent for business, said at the meeting.
Though administrators earlier this month speculated that Act 46 could offer tax breaks for an intra-district merger, Odell said on Monday that state officials had since indicated that it would not.
Regardless, the school board chairman said, consolidating Hanover-Norwich schools’ administration could spell educational benefits, though he did not say precisely what those could be.
Aubin said he hoped to compare notes with the Rivendell Interstate School District, which serves Fairlee, West Fairlee, Vershire and Orford, to see how Dresden could function as a single organization in both states.
But to take advantage of the benefits offered for merging schools, officials will have to navigate complexities in both Dresden and Thetford’s structures as they mesh with the diverse requirements of Act 46.
For its part, the Thetford School District has applied for a state grant to investigate the possibility of a merger including such districts as Rivendell, the East Orange Supervisory Union and the Blue Mountain Union School District.
Aubin noted a final twist to the potential ramifications of the law for Norwich: Last month, the Vermont ACLU threatened to sue the state over a per-pupil spending cap included in Act 46.
The cap varies for each district based on its past spending; in Norwich, the maximum increase the district may make is now about 2 percent, according to Aubin. If the district overspends, it must pay a double tax rate — an unconstitutional limitation, the ACLU contends.
Allen Gilbert, executive director of the Vermont ACLU, said last month that his group would “entertain the requests of any school districts who want to be represented.”
