As we roll into the peak foliage season of October it’s once again time to focus on budget development. This year our students and staff are diving into our new literacy program, excelling at co-curriculars, welcoming artists and authors, participating in cultural exchange, and embracing new cell phone restrictions intended to enhance learning.
Our current budget of $68 million was passed on its third try. Our homestead property taxes increased by 8.18%, the second lowest increase in Chittenden County, and significantly lower than the double-digit increases felt across the county and state. The major lever we had in our pocket was a $3.04 million budget surplus, which allowed us to keep tax rates down with only minimal staffing and programming cuts.
Fast-forward to today, not having a $3 million budget surplus at our disposal is essentially akin to starting off $3 million in the hole. What are the actual nuts-and-bolts impacts of these headwinds?
Even if we established a FY26 expense budget identical to the one approved by the voters in May (level funding of $68 million, 0% expense increase), and even with no adjustment to the real estate inflation factor, our FY26 homestead property taxes would increase by 7.18%. If the real estate inflation figure increased at the same pace as it did the previous year, this property tax increase, with no increase in spending, would be close to 25%.
Looking at this from a different angle, even assuming modest staff salary increases to compensate for inflation and rising health care costs, to provide level service (meaning we offer the same educational and extra-curricular programming as we do today), we would need to increase our expense budget by over $3.5 million.
This is where the trade-offs become real, especially when staff salary and benefits account for almost 80% of our overall budget. At a rough average of $100,000 per staff position (for salary plus benefits), funding a $3.5 increase in expenses would require the reduction of approximately 35 staff positions and/or programming options (such as co-curricular activities and athletics). Compensating for the absence of the $3 million surplus equates to an additional 30 staff positions/programming cuts.
Given the stark scenarios above, I am pleased that the School Board has formed the community-based Finance Committee to engage in a collaborative exercise with us to help educate our residents about the complex nuances of the Vermont education funding system and the tough choices we will need to make to present a FY26 budget that the voters will approve. This will be daunting work, but ultimately in the best interest of our community, and especially our students. We look forward to this engagement and ask for your support as we address this as a diverse community over the next five months before Town Meeting Day on March 4, 2025.
We also want to hear feedback from our community. If you’d take the time to fill out this Budget survey, it would be greatly appreciated. Please submit your feedback by November 13th.
Be sure to continue to visit the Budget FY26 page on our website as we will be updating information there over the coming months.
