Results from the third vote on a budget for the Harwood Unified Union School District will be posted at valleyreporter.com and on Twitter and Facebook as soon as they become available after polls close at 7 p.m. on May 30.
Voters throughout the district cast ballots on the $47,892,873 budget in district-wide voting today.
This third budget represents cuts of $2,951,830 from the original $50.8 million budget that voters rejected on Town Meeting Day and achieves further cuts over the $48.8 million budget that was rejected on April 30 by 166 votes. The proposed budget now cuts a total of 27.5 administrative, teaching and support positions through RIFs, retirement, and attrition. Programming, including foreign languages in elementary schools, has been cut across all schools in the district.
Four FTEs in the elementary world language program will be cut along with four intervention FTEs, one administrator, one 504 coordinator and one non-union staff member for an additional savings of $945,446.
At the board’s last meeting on May 22, board members rejected calls to keep the elementary world language program and find somewhere else to cut the $357,000 which the world language represents. Board members questioned whether it made sense to swap out budget items after the vote had been warned with specific lists of cuts. Board member Steve Rosenburg, Moretown, made a motion calling for district superintendent Dr. Mike Leichliter and finance director Lisa Estler to revisit the budget and come up with other cuts, but the board did not approve that.
A petition urging the board to keep the world language program had over 350 signatures earlier this week, ahead of the May 30 vote.
If passed this third budget will result in a district tax rate of $1.435, slightly less than the current tax rate of $1.44. It drops equalized per pupil spending to $14,250, compared to the state average of $13,396 and represents a 5.44% in spending over last year’s budget of $45,422,241.
At the May 22 meeting the board also rejected a call from former school board members via an op/ed piece, to put an advisory vote, pledging to close district schools on the ballot in November, during the presidential general election. The board approved a letter in response to the op/ed which appeared online at valleyreporter.com and waterburyroundabout.org.
After a meeting in executive session at that meeting, the board came back into open session to offer Leichliter a new three-year contract to be negotiated in August. Leichliter told the board he would like to continue in his position. He was hired in 2022 with a three-year contract that ends in 2025. Per the contract he needs to be notified by August 31, 2024, about the board’s intentions.
