By Guy Page
Bucking the trend of No votes in the wake of the proposed 20% statewide property tax increase, three eastern Vermont school districts approved their 2024-25 school budgets yesterday.
The Blue Mountain Union budget was approved 182-163 Monday, April 15 during Australian ballot voting in Groton, Ryegate, and Wells River, the Journal-Opinion reports today.
The $10,594,007 budget for 2024-2025 is a 9.84% increase over the current year.There is an estimated 19.05% increase in education spending.
Projections show the local homestead tax rate will increase 5.52% for Ryegate; 11.10% for Groton; and 3.87% for Wells River.
Also, Hartford – AKA White River Junction – approved its school budget 728-622 yesterday. And, the First Branch School District, covering Chelsea and Tunbridge in Orange County, also saw its budget approved.
All three districts were voting on the proposed school budget for the first time this year.
Today, April 16, Milton, the Champlain Valley Union SD, Fairfax, Springfield, Mount Abraham Union Middle/High School, Northfield schools, and the Elmore-Morristown school district will revote budgets turned down at Town Meeting on March 5.
Five of the six failed March 5 school budget revotes have also failed: Georgia, South Burlington, St. Johnsbury, NEK East, and Slate Valley. Alburgh approved its revote.
Districts without an approved school budget by July 1 will be allowed to borrow up to 87% of current school funding.
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Categories: Education
you don’t force change by acquiescing. I hope the revotes today all fail. then the legislators may actually start to do their jobs. first thing on the agenda should be looking at replacing BCBS as the employee insurer. from what I’ve learned Medi-Share is a very good choice for about half the cost or more.
I agree we need more competition in the healthcare insurance marketplace, while the supermajority likes one-payer so everyone shares the costs under “equity.” “Equity” is allowing twenty-somethings to move in from out-of-state so they can go on Vermont Medicaid. We can all afford that, right?
More money equals a better education only in a Bizarro world.
No voters won’t come out enough. We’re doomed
Why don’t these districts avoid the time and expense and simply cut their budgets by 13% just as all of us have had to cut our budget spending to get by.
They can start by eliminating all the positions and programs previously funded be one-time grants. Then they could trim the top-heavy “administration” salaries.
Lamoille North Supervisory Union warned us just days before today’s election , leaving voters who use absentee ballot by mail out in the dark, unable to revote the school budget by mail today!
In Hyde Park over 100 voters vote by absentee ballot every election. I do not know how many do so in the rest of the district towns. Several hundred votes in any district could change the outcome of the vote all over the state! The same issue could be happening all over Vermont, disenfranchising many voters. Unfortunately what they did is legal. The law needs to be changed so all are able to vote in and election!
I saw the warning only on Front Porch Forum Thursday morning! That means other voters may not have even heard about today’s election if they do not read it often.
I have a great Town Clerk who made sure she found two people to bring me a ballot to vote Friday! I had contacted her before they set the date and we had a plan in place. I also contacted the school Union administration in advance to remind them we need time for absentee ballots but they only gave a few days warning of the vote today, knowing absentee ballots did not have time to get mailed out and returned in time!
And yet, in the 2020 presidential election, ballots were mailed to everyone on the voter check list, verified or otherwise. The window for accepting ballots covered several days, if not weeks. And Mark Zuckerberg’s NGO provided town clerks with more than $1 per registered voter to facilitate the process.
But when it comes to school budget voting… well, you get the idea.
You can be sure, however, that those who work for your school district as employees or as independent service providers, and everyone related to them, were well organized and voted en masse. And that every time a school budget must be revoted, the process is even more restrictive.
In the final analysis, however, this is how our system works and you must learn to function accordingly if you want your voice to be heard, or counted, as the case may be.
So, the Blue Mountain Union $10,594,007 budget for 2024-2025 is a 9.84% increase over the current year.
FYI – According to the most recent ADM enrollments for Blue Mountain, there are 386 PK-12 students in its schools. For anyone interested, the new budget amounts to $27,445 per student.
For perspective, local students can attend the VT State University, just up the road, for a full year of standard undergraduate college programs, for $22,882. And that includes college room and board.
No worries, Zoie is on the job and she’s going to face those pesky “challenges” and bring equity and inclusion for all! Pay no mind to maladjusted, barely passing, barely capable students set up to fail in the real world. All is going brilliantly according to their Master. Budget smudgets – Operation Tincup is here to stay!
Unfortunately, the town I live passed this ridiculous budget. I do question why more people aren’t curious as to what they are buying with the budget increase. Many students can’t read cursive writing because it is not taught. So some students can’t read early documents from our country’s origin. They have to trust what they are told is true, (many times it’s only a portion of what was actually written). Some can’t tell time on an analog clock. Many can’t add, subtract, multiply, and divide without a calculator. Are we paying for educational skills ( called reading, writing and arithmetic ) or are we paying for DEI indoctrination ? What is their added curriculum this money will pay for ?
No surprise. The residents of Ryegate just love to piss away money