It took three votes, but the final one on May 30 yielded a FY2025 budget for the Harwood Unified Union School District last week. The $47,892,873 budget was 2,429 yes and 1,567 no, or 61% to 39% with voter turnout at 35% throughout the district.
Voters rejected a $50.8 million budget at Town Meeting in March and a $48.8 million budget on April 30. This final budget reduced 27.5 positions including cutting foreign language instruction for elementary school students across the district. In addition to four positions in the World Language program, the budget that passed moves four interventionists to open positions and removes an administrative position.
After polls closed on May 30, ballots from each town were brought to Harwood where a hand count was conducted with results coming in at 9 p.m. and shared on social media and online.
In March at Town Meeting, voter turnout was 36%. It was 29% in April and last week voter turnout was 35%. In last week’s voting, Duxbury’s drive-thru voting format remained popular with voters. Duxbury saw 469 (40.4%) of its registered voters cast ballots. Waitsfield saw 39.3% of voters cast ballots, Moretown saw 37% of its voters cast ballots. Warren’s turnout was 35.5% and Fayston saw 34% voter turnout while Waterbury saw 32% turnout.
The newly-adopted budget, despite representing a year over year increase of 5.4% still yields double-digit increases across the district, based on each town’s Common Level of Appraisal (CLA).
Those anticipated increases range from a low of 10.5% for Duxbury property owners to 19.3% for Warren property owners. Those figures are subject to change once the state finalizes all the components of its funding formula, including the yield or the per share of stating funding school districts receive.
After the successful vote district superintendent Dr. Mike Leichliter and the board leadership team sent a message to the community and media.
“We are pleased to report that the Harwood Unified Union School District community voted in favor of the 2024-2025 school budget by a vote of 2,429 (61%) in favor and 1,567 (39%) opposed.
“The last few months have been challenging for our schools and our community. Going into this budget season the school board and administration had to make some difficult decisions regarding programs, services, and personnel knowing that, among other factors, our federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) money was expiring while the lingering academic, social, and emotional impacts from the pandemic are still a reality for many of our students. These difficult decisions only grew after the second vote failed on April 30.
“Additionally, with changes from Vermont Act 127 having a negative impact on our district finances we are aware that we still have challenging decisions ahead of us.
“In spite of these challenges, our community expressed strong support for our schools and the important job that all of our employees do each and every day for our students.
“The school board’s finance committee will continue to meet in order to explore thoughtful long-term solutions to reducing costs and operations while ensuring our core mission to provide a free and appropriate education for all students.
“With the successful passage of this budget, we are now able to focus our attention on bringing the 2023-2024 school year to a successful conclusion in just two short weeks.
“Thank you again for your ongoing support for our schools.
“Sincerely,
“Ashley Woods, board chair; Cindy Senning, board vice chair; Mike Leichliter, superintendent of schools.”
