Voters in South Burlington and Slate Valley, a school district that includes Castleton and Fair Haven, not only voted down big school bonds on Tuesday, they also rejected the budgets proposed by their local school boards.
Across the state, voters in nine school districts voted down proposed budgets, the highest number since 2017, when 17 budgets failed at the ballot box, although in a pre-merger landscape, there were also twice as many school districts as there are now.
Jeff Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association, said it was hard to point to any one reason why an above-average number of budgets might have failed. But he did say that districts appeared to be operating in a climate of growing pressure from rising costs, declining enrollments, and post-Act 46 consolidation pains.
“I think you could argue that things seem a little less stable,” he said.
The $209 million South Burlington bond and the $59.5 million Slate Valley Union School District bond both failed by overwhelming margins. And superintendents in those districts suspect the fate of the budgets might have been tied to the unpopular bond proposals.
“I think there was some confusion about whether there were costs associated with the bond in this year’s budget which there was not,” said Slate Valley Superintendent Brooke Farrell. “I also think it was to overall send a message that they felt the cost of the bond was too high.”
In South Burlington, voters rejected the school bond on their ballot, which would have paid to rebuild the city’s middle and high school, by vote of 6,514 to 1,712. The budget failed by a smaller margin — 4,711 to 3,561 — and South Burlington Superintendent David Young said it is possible that the no votes on the budget and the bond were related.
Young said the next step is for the school district to solicit feedback from the community about how to move forward.
Voters approved three smaller bonds — ranging from $1 million to $6 million — for repairs and new facilities in Canaan, Barre and the Champlain Valley School District. All three communities also saw their budgets pass this year.
Advocates for the bonds have pointed out that much of Vermont’s school infrastructure is old and in need of repairs. Another $280 million or so in school construction could come before local electorates between now and 2023, according to a VSA survey. School officials suspect that the capital investments needed in Vermont’s aging campuses are much higher.
Some districts struggle to pass budgets
On Town Meeting Day last year, three budgets were voted down. In 2018, there were five. This year, there were nine.
Harwood Unified Union School Board Chair Caitlin Hollister said her district’s budget failed to pass after decreasing support for school spending over the last several years.
“We know that our voters are concerned about taxes and the rising costs of educating our students,” she said.
Hollister suspects that the budget failed this year in part because of the school board’s decision to move all the district’s seventh graders to the Crossett Brook Middle School campus, along with more of the fifth and sixth graders. She said the budget and the reconfiguration had become conflated.
“I think there was confusion about whether a vote for the budget was a vote for that configuration and whether a vote against the budget could undo that configuration,” she said. “We’ve been clear that those configuration questions are still the purview of the board.”
The state tax commissioner in December predicted that a 5% rise in education spending would push education property taxes up by over 6%. Spending estimates have since been revised downward by half a percentage point, but the Agency of Education is still waiting on budget numbers from two dozen districts, according to agency finance manager Brad James.
The other rejected budgets were for Alburgh School District, First Branch Unified School District, Milton Town School District, Springfield School District, Strafford School District and Windham School District, according to Francis.
Rejected bonds send districts back to the drawing board
The Slate Valley bond would have funded adding wing to the middle school, allowed the district to repurpose the Castleton Village School and lease the space to Castleton University and build a gym and cafeteria space in Orwell, said Farrell
“The bond was intended to pay for renovations and repairs to the high school,” she said. “Some of our infrastructure has not been touched since the high school was built in 1957.”
Farrell said the proposed bond and related restructuring would have led to $1.5 million of annual savings in personnel costs to offset the price of the renovations — savings that are not guaranteed if the bond is restructured for another vote.
Farrell said that the School Board has received the message that taxpayers are concerned about cost and they plan to adjust. However, she said a bond will likely be necessary to make the needed repairs. She said ignoring the repairs is not an option.
Despite the uptick in school funding measures, legislators are not expected to reinstate a building aid program this year. The state program, which was placed under moratorium in 2007, once contributed about 30% to school construction costs.
Francis of the VSA said the fact that Tuesday’s largest bond proposals failed will likely take some of the pressure off conversations at the Statehouse about school construction aid.
“The General Assembly doesn’t have to contend in the short-term with projects of that scope and magnitude. But they should continue to turn into the issue,” he said.
Schools pass smaller bonds across the state
Canaan voters passed a $1 million bond with a majority vote at their Monday night town meeting. The school district plans to use the majority of the bond to bring their buildings into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to Superintendent Karen Conroy. This will include upgrading certain restrooms and moving classrooms out of inaccessible spaces such as the basement.
The rest of the money will go toward updating electrical and fire safety related repairs, and a roof repair at the local elementary school.
While the bond will raise the homestead tax rate, Conroy said that voters expressed concern about the safety of the school buildings before passing the bond.
In the Champlain Valley Unified School District, School Board Chair Lynne Jaunich said a $6 million bond will pay for repairs at five of the district’s six schools. The largest investment will be to improve the HVAC system at Charlotte Central School. The bond passed 6,879 to 2,733.
“This was the first time we put a bond out to the communities as a consolidated district so we weren’t sure, especially with the bulk of the funds going to one school with the biggest need.” Jaunich said.
Jaunich called the repairs “very necessary” and said the bond will cost the average homeowner in the district about $40 in taxes annually for 20 years.
The Barre Unified Union School District plans to use its $2.75 million bond, which passed with overwhelming support, to purchase eight acres of land and construct a building to move their alternative programming, including special education. It currently rents a space to house these programs, and Superintendent John Pandolfo said the new facility will allow the district to serve the needs of more students.
Pandolfo said he was concerned about the budget passing, along with the bond, since it was a bigger increase than normal.
“We made a real point of trying to communicate and educate our community on the value and why we were asking for the increase in the budget we were asking for and the bond,” he said.
The hope is that by building their new facility, the district can find enough savings to offset the cost of the bond, Pandolfo said.
“We don’t take a bond to our voters likely,” he said. “We know it was a big lift for our voters and our taxpayers. We truly believe that this is going to serve students better.”
Lola Duffort contributed reporting