To The Editor:
As a member of the Harwood Union Unified School District (HUUSD) school board, I would like to make sure our communities are aware of the voting process for the school budget this year, especially since it will look different for some towns. The biggest change for some is voting by Australian ballot. The Australian ballot system is an official ballot printed at public expense on which the names of all the candidates and proposals appear and which is distributed only at the polling place and marked in secret. Citizens vote privately and do not discuss it at Town Meeting. This March, all citizens in our district will vote for the school district budget in this way.
Waterbury, Duxbury and Moretown have voted by Australian ballot for years and for people in these communities this part of the process will not seem different. However, Fayston, Waitsfield and Warren have voted on school budgets and engaged in discussion at the same time, all “on the floor” at Town Meeting.
This leads us to the second major change that will be seen by all communities: school budget meetings. There will be ONE budget meeting covering the entire district on the evening before voting day (Monday, March 6, 2017, 6 p.m. at Harwood Union High School). This is the place where discussion can take place and questions can be answered. We are hopeful to see people from all of our communities at this meeting and engaging to understand the budget proposal we will put before the community.
As always, we encourage you to engage with the HUUSD Board to ensure that our work is done in the context of community values. There are four ways to do this: 1) Participate in future surveys or requests for information/engagement sent by the board; 2) Attend full board and/or work group meetings; 3) Check out the HUUSD Board web page at www.wwsu.org/huusd-board.php for meeting schedule, notes and attachments (click on the various committee/work group links), as well as a link to MRVTV website that includes video recordings for meetings; 4) Contact a board member with a specific request or question (names and contact information found at www.wwsu.org/huusd-board.php).
Maureen McCracken
Waterbury
