New Champlain Valley School District budget plan cuts $4 million, 42 positions

After its first budget failed on Town Meeting Day, the Champlain Valley School District is now moving forward with a $101.8 million budget that would reduce spending by $4 million and cut 42 full-time positions.

The district’s original $105.8 million budget was voted down by nearly 2,000 votes. The new budget eliminates 17 support staff positions, previously funded through federal dollars that board members hoped to fund on their own, as well as $1.5 million in one-time spending for various school infrastructure.

Tax rate hikes expected for the district’s five member towns would be reduced by several points but would still remain in the double digits. A revote is now set for April 16.

Champlain Valley Superintendent Rene Sanchez, during the board’s emergency March 12 meeting, said that the district “took the message to heart about reducing the tax impact that largely led to the March failed vote and the community feedback that we received in town meetings and in town halls and other venues.”

During the meeting, district board members debated three options. The first option would have retained funding for those 17 support positions, previously funded by the federal government, and would have only cut the $1.5 million in one-time facilities spending from the budget, bringing the total down to $104.3 million. This option was hardly considered by board members.

The second option — which was eventually approved by a 7-4-1 vote — reduced expenditures by $4 million. On top of cutting the $1.5 million, the district also cut an additional $2.5 million in various full-time and part-time positions.

Under the revised budget, 42 full-time positions would be removed, including seven central administration positions, 19 paraprofessional positions — including the 17 positions previously funded through federal COVID-19 funds — and 16 teaching positions.

The district’s chief operating officer, Gary Marckres, said this would result in “no major structural changes to our schools,” meaning schools would not have to completely restructure how it organizes classrooms and student-teacher ratios.

Cuts would be made according to weighted student counts, Sanchez and Marckres said, and would be equitably distributed across the district’s schools.

A breakdown of the reductions provided by the district show that administrative operations would see $776,000 in cuts and Champlain Valley Union High School would face $612,000 in cuts.

Cuts at Williston Central School total $413,000, while Shelburne Community School would see cuts totaling $317,000, Hinesburg Community School faces $226,000 in cuts and Charlotte Central School will be cut by $144,000.

If the budget is approved by voters, the administration will have to decide which positions to cut. In making those decisions, Sanchez said the district would consider cutting positions that were currently open or unfilled, as well as by taking “advantage of the known retirements and leaves of absence so that that way we could have alternate approaches.”

A third option that was presented to the board would have cut an additional $500,000 from the budget. District officials said they had yet to identify where those cuts would be made but noted that it would likely translate into more cuts to faculty. One board member estimated it would amount to an additional four to six positions.

“When we get to that point, within that $500,000, there will likely have to be structural change either within the district or at campus level,” Sanchez said. “We would have to find different ways to be able to serve the kids at the same level without positions that could be paraprofessionals or teachers or even administrators.”

The district would likely, he said, not be able to provide education at the same level.

Under options two and three, respectively, Charlotte would see a 17 and 15 percent tax rate hike; Hinesburg would see an 18 and 16 percent hike; and Shelburne would see a 14 and 13 percent hike.

During its meeting, the board motioned to consider the second option and ultimately approved it, with four members voting no and one member abstaining.

Board member Brendan McMahon said he would have considered voting for the third option had the impacts to education been more clearly defined.

But other members, like Keith Roberts from Hinesburg, said that the cuts proposed in the second option were “not enough,” adding it still results in an anticipated 18 percent increase in Hinesburg.

The former board chair, Angela Arsenault, was among those who felt the board should have considered the third option: “I feel worried, as I did two weeks ago, about what happens if we don’t show voters in the strongest sense that we’ve received their message.”

Board members and speakers at the meeting urged the district to consider making as little impact to faculty as possible.

“Please remember there are humans behind these decisions,” Peter Langella, CVU’s librarian, said.

One significant factor in the board’s decision was the use of fund balance, or undesignated or surplus funds, in the board’s second and third budget options.

The approved budget used $1 million of the district’s fund balance, while the third option would have used an additional $500,000. Marckres noted that there is a risk of depleting those funds. The board has typically either retained these funds and applied them to future budgets or allocated them to capital reserve funds or other infrastructure funds.

The board’s current fund balance of $3.2 million “has been built over several years, “Marckres said. “We do have risk of unforeseen expense that fund balance must be applied to. I won’t editorialize, but fund balance is an important risk mitigation factor for unforeseen tax impacts for the community.”

The Champlain Valley School District is among the hardest hit by the Legislature’s newest state education formula, and more than a third of the state’s school districts were voted down earlier this month while almost half of the state’s district’s currently do not have a passed budget, board chair Meghan Metzler said.

It reflects a growing concern in the state around education spending, and the hikes in property tax rates needed to pay for it.

“The system is broken,” Roberts said, “and it needs to be fixed.”

Sanchez, at the start of the meeting, said that he and other superintendents across the state are “continuing to lobby the Legislature to make sure that we have a cohesive education financing program that helps our school districts and our students be successful.”