Name: Green Mountain Unified School District- Informational Hearing 5/5
Uploaded: 2026-05-07T00:00:00Z
Duration: 55 min 34 s
Description: Your tax rate, the tax rate will come down, where your property value is going to come up, where you shouldn't pay in the same amount of money.

[1:35] All right,

[1:47] six PM, we're following the name of the order.

[1:50] for businesses to, sorry, comparing a form.

[1:55] We have in person, Penny Vanilley,

[1:57] Dana Gnominski, and Fensha,

[2:00] Caitlin Miller, like Ripley, Jerry UC,

[2:04] and myself, Donna Dizzykels, we have anyone online.

[2:08] I do not see the board.

[2:12] So that is a form of six,

[2:19] the review and approval of agenda,

[2:20] 30 additional certifications, so we'll be looking for a motion to approve it.

[2:27] So moved.

[2:28] Second.

[2:29] All in favor.

[2:30] Right.

[2:31] Opposed.

[2:32] All right.

[2:32] Most of them passes.

[2:37] And then so I get a translation of the proposed pool budget.

[2:41] Plank.

[2:43] That's not so fast.

[2:45] Peter can't catch up.

[2:56] There we go.

[2:57] All right.

[2:57] And this is some.

[2:58] Especially there are a couple of folks online, if there are questions as we're talking about things here, just speak up because we're not going to be able to see all the presentation is up on the board.

[3:10] And it's important as we go through if there's questions from anyone just don't don't be afraid to interrupt.

[3:16] Because the purpose of this meeting is to get as much information out about the budget that's going up for review of on May 12th is awesome.

[3:25] To start a little bit of perspective kind of where I always begin the conversation here is about the idea about how much local control that we actually have over what people's tax rates are.

[3:40] Your taxes while what we do locally has a very small impact on what your tax rates are.

[3:48] Your taxes are really based upon the total spending of education in the state of Vermont.

[3:54] All the districts around the state, they move in their budgets.

[3:57] That amount goes to the state.

[3:59] The state adds that up.

[4:01] They go to total dollar amount.

[4:03] They subtract off whatever revenues that they're going to use.

[4:07] It's usually like taxes on meals and hotels and things like that.

[4:11] So they subtract some money out of there.

[4:13] That's already covered in the remainder.

[4:15] It just split up amongst all the tax payers and the state.

[4:18] So in the old days before Act 60, when you were voting out of school budget,

[4:24] your taxes were paying for your school.

[4:27] In the current state of affairs right now, you were paying for the education of everyone across the state of Vermont when you're paying the tax.

[4:34] Now, just to do a little kind of basic logic math here.

[4:38] So, this is intended to give a magnitude,

[4:42] a feeling of the magnitude of things.

[4:44] Cost of education, right?

[4:46] Education, funding, for months, about $2.7 billion.

[4:50] That's what the taxpayers are paying for.

[4:52] And that's what your tax rates are based upon.

[4:56] GM budget, this current year,

[4:58] 2825, 26 is 18.6 million.

[5:01] So we're about seven tenths of a percent of the overall cost of education in Vermont, and so to put things in perspective 99.3% of what happens in terms of determining your tax rate is out of your control.

[5:17] Lane, how do we estimate what our taxes will be if that's the case?

[5:22] So I'm going to show you that, and if the share wants to explain the formula to you again.

[5:27] Okay.

[5:27] less than you're more than welcome to you. I used to when I first got back to Vermont, I

[5:34] actually would spend a couple of hours over your kind of review and the math and it

[5:39] does make sense, but it takes some time. Yeah, just like the predictive nature of it.

[5:43] Downing. So level service budget is what the district is shooting for with this

[5:48] revote on May 12th. And so what that means is we're trying to provide the same programs and

[5:54] services next year. As we are this year, we are not asking for additions

[5:59] to the program to staff, we're not asking for cuts, we're just trying to keep things

[6:03] steady state. Unfortunately, with contractual obligations and

[6:07] because of inflation, from year to year, there is a cost increase, just to keep

[6:12] things level, terms. Level service budget that we are asking the motors

[6:19] on May 12th is 19.3 million. The current budget that we are existing within this current

[6:26] school year is 18.6 million. So it's an increase of 3.8 percent from 714,000 dollars.

[6:34] The bullets there are where most of that increase is coming from. Special education,

[6:40] we actually don't have a lot of new students that are costing the district a lot of money this year.

[6:45] What is happening is the cost of providing the services from the providers has gone up.

[6:53] So, special education is that the biggest cost increase in terms of driving that 714,000.

[7:00] You also have a subsidy cliff that you're dealing with.

[7:04] So, in other words, last year you had one-time money that was applied towards this year to subsidize people's taxes.

[7:10] You don't have that money each, right? It was a one-time thing. So you used your coupon, you don't have it.

[7:16] So to keep operations at the same level with that loss, we've got to make up that subsidy book.

[7:22] And I worry about what's going to happen with the state because, you know, they've put anywhere in the last couple years between 50 and 100 million.

[7:31] And so at some point in time, if they don't have the money to do that, they'd be a click that we're all going to have to have to manage.

[7:39] Year to year, right? Based on the contracts, we staff at the district, salaries, bill a lot, so that's another source of the increase.

[7:48] The cost of benefits, especially health insurance, actually it wasn't quite as bad this year.

[7:53] This has been in three years, but it's usually available in the increase.

[7:57] So that's an expense, and then food services, food has gotten more expensive.

[8:05] And so instead of paying about $30,000 a year to subsidize the meals within the district,

[8:10] ruptured about 111,000.

[8:13] And so this is where these increases are coming from.

[8:17] And again, we're not changing anything.

[8:19] We're not adding anything.

[8:20] We're just trying to keep ourselves where we are fighting.

[8:25] questions on any of the books of Houston?

[8:29] Actually, I have a question.

[8:30] Yep.

[8:31] We're not following how the local tax money goes to the state,

[8:40] and then the state says, OK, setting it back out to you.

[8:45] Wouldn't that mean the state is saying,

[8:47] yours, your service budget?

[8:50] Thank you.

[8:51] So there's an argument that I have and it may help kind of answer the question.

[8:58] So in the state of Vermont after Act 60, so what Act 60 said was, hey, if you've got districts around the state of Vermont that do not, the towns just don't have the wealth of something like an S-Extunction, when I had the S-Extunction defined, and that's inequitable, that's unfair.

[9:14] So what we're going to do is we're going to set up a system where we're kind of redistricting wealth so that there's a quality across the distance.

[9:22] And the way that they did that is your local control change, where you're voting on your school budget,

[9:29] but you're effect on your local taxes is very minimal.

[9:33] Your local control is voting what your school budget is that in our case, you know, this current year is 18.6 million.

[9:40] What happens when districts, the 52 districts all across the state, they vote on their budgets?

[9:45] When the budgets pass, those dollar amounts go to the state.

[9:49] It adds up the total cost for all those districts.

[9:53] That gets divided equally for equalization for those amongst all the taxpayers in the state of a month.

[9:59] So when you're paying your taxes, you are paying from the education of all the students across the state.

[10:06] In the old days, what used to happen was when you voted on the school budget, the money that you were voting on came directly from you as the taxpayers.

[10:17] So you had a significant loss.

[10:19] Yeah, it's complicated.

[10:21] There was a point to it, and that was to ensure that it followed.

[10:26] But it's one of the reasons.

[10:27] You're still saying we only want this to be our budget locally.

[10:32] And so that the issue becomes is that you can add a lot to your budget as long as you don't go over what they call the excess spending threshold and you can take a lot away from it

[10:44] The change in your tax rates is minimal because of that, right?

[10:48] Because if we increase our budget everybody across the state of Vermont is helping us pay for that increase

[10:53] If we decrease our budget we don't see much locally because everybody across the state is benefiting from that decrease that we did

[11:00] so it gets very diluted. Yeah. Yeah. I'll save my other question.

[11:07] Well, that's okay. This is good stuff. And again, they set up a system that's incredibly complicated.

[11:13] Let's say something. If we get a question, could you repeat it? Because your voice is longer than up for anybody.

[11:21] Yeah, the question was around kind of what we were talking about. The impact that we can or cannot have on our local taxes based on that.

[11:30] how we change our local school budget.

[11:33] Then the point you're going to see in the tax rate numbers,

[11:36] they put them in that you're going to see how much we really

[11:39] can affect this.

[11:41] I'm going to show you.

[11:42] Yeah, it's not even so much about what our tax rate is,

[11:46] but it seems like if the state is just

[11:49] read it, yeah, like it's negligible.

[11:52] But no matter what you're doing, well, you don't

[11:55] know where the access is spending for us.

[11:57] I'm going to ask another question.

[11:59] It's how to have a referendum plan to that, if somebody locally, like if a local area wants to have a referendum about something specific.

[12:12] In terms of adding something you're moving above the budget.

[12:15] You have a community with means and it wants to face any schools.

[12:20] So, what they do, again, the idea, the question is, is what happens if a district wants to

[12:32] spend more?

[12:34] And so what the state has said is because all the taxpayers across the state are contributing

[12:41] to all the schools in terms of the resources that it has, it's not fair for one district

[12:49] to seriously outspending another, and they controlled that by what's called an excess spending threshold.

[12:56] So it's related to how much you're spending for student, and I think this year it's about

[13:02] 16,400 if I recall. So as long as a district when it puts its budget together,

[13:10] spending less than $16,400 for student, right? This is the making complicated.

[13:16] You're okay, there's no penalties, you're fine, the system works just the way we describe it.

[13:22] If, however, you decide you want to spend more, and you push things over that excess spending threshold, now you get a penalty.

[13:31] Because they're saying, hey, that's not fair to the other districts, because everybody else is paying for this and you're spending an extreme of what things should cost.

[13:39] And so the penalty is like this.

[13:41] So if I decide that I'm on a million dollars more,

[13:44] and it's going to be over the excess spending threshold,

[13:48] then I got to be $2 million to get it.

[13:50] And that comes directly from local taxpayers.

[13:52] That does not come from the other people.

[13:54] So anything about that excess spending

[13:56] threshold becomes straight from here,

[13:58] and you pay a double penalty on it.

[14:00] You got to pay for it twice.

[14:01] So the penalty at any overish comes just from that.

[14:05] Just what's above the excess spending.

[14:06] Yeah, that's a good question.

[14:12] How you're hitting, let's say.

[14:14] So school tax rates.

[14:18] And so what we're looking at is we're looking at the level service budget.

[14:22] Again, this may be what we're currently doing.

[14:25] And we're comparing those tax rates to what we're paying right now in this current

[14:28] school year that we're in.

[14:30] And so to talk a little bit about what this means.

[14:33] I'm going to use Baltimore, right?

[14:35] it's a nice low number, so hopefully it makes people feel a little warm and buzzing and happy

[14:38] about things. So what these tax rate rates mean is they're based upon a hundred dollars to the

[14:45] test of value. So if my property were worth a hundred dollars the taxes I would pay in bulk for more

[14:51] would be a dollar twenty-eight, right? If my property were a two hundred dollars it would be worth

[14:57] I would have to pay twice this amount.

[14:59] Okay, if I...

[15:00] Our property were worth a thousand dollars. There's ten sets of a hundred and a thousand, so it would be ten times this, so I would pay a twelve dollars and eighty cents for my property taxes.

[15:12] So they're based upon a hundred dollars of the set that you're holding.

[15:17] And so what would happen?

[15:20] And we're going to leave the end over out of this for a minute, because they're golden right now, because they reassessed.

[15:25] In Baltimore, if we go with a level service budget for next year, they're currently paying $1.28 per

[15:33] hundred dollars of assessed value, they would go to $1.39 on 11 cent increase.

[15:40] What is that?

[15:41] Translate too.

[15:42] I'll show you on the next page in terms of the average home order.

[15:46] But what's interesting and one of the things that we're going to talk about is that 11 cent

[15:51] increase for Baltimore, five senses due to the increase cost of education across the state, right?

[15:58] Cost of education goes up because of inflation even if people are trying to keep things

[16:02] little level of service. Five senses of it is due to the changes in the cost of education across the

[16:08] state, six senses of it is due to changes in local property values. And this is the piece that people

[16:15] get a little confused about and we'll talk about common level of appraisal and what it means.

[16:19] But if you take a look at Cavendish and Chester,

[16:23] Cavendish is looking at a huge tax increase, right?

[16:27] 34 cents.

[16:28] Only five cents of it is due to what's happening in education.

[16:31] 29 cents of it is due to changes in local property values.

[16:36] Okay, so the state has kind of

[16:38] conglomerated two things in together.

[16:40] One, which we have a little bit of control over.

[16:43] That's what the state is spending on education.

[16:45] And one, we have no control over.

[16:47] how your property values changed from year to year.

[16:52] Sorry.

[16:53] I mean, you need a different amount.

[16:54] Don't do this.

[16:56] It's possible for the.

[16:58] So you got.

[17:00] I got I got a slide for that.

[17:04] Good to second the switch over here.

[17:06] All right.

[17:07] So you have a local assessment.

[17:10] The town goes out and they assesses your product.

[17:14] They do that occasionally.

[17:16] I don't know when the last time Chester was done, it's probably done quite a while.

[17:22] Okay.

[17:23] So you have a local assessment.

[17:26] That local assessment is used to pay your municipal taxes.

[17:29] Very big.

[17:30] Found taxes do.

[17:31] We're talking about some taxes.

[17:33] The problem is with school taxes is the state doesn't want you paying that assessed value that the town has come up with.

[17:41] they want you paying taxes on the fair market value of your property each and every year.

[17:47] And so they do a survey every year and they go out and they take a look in each town at what houses are selling for,

[17:54] and they use that to decide what the total value of the town is.

[17:57] Right? This is what it's assessed at. Is it really the fair market value here or is the fair market value down here?

[18:05] Now, in most cases because the towns have not reassessed recently, and actually they're kind

[18:12] of hindered in doing that because I think there's only two or three assessors in the

[18:15] state of Vermont.

[18:16] Yeah, that's the delay.

[18:18] That's the delay.

[18:19] I'm you end up in a situation like Mount Holly here.

[18:23] Sorry, common level of appraisal.

[18:24] It's basically a little mathematical adjustment.

[18:28] It adjusts the town's assessed property value to fair market value because the state wants

[18:32] make sure you're paying property taxes on the current market value of your home. What it's worth this year.

[18:39] Not what the town assessed that 10 years ago, but what it's worth this year.

[18:44] So they put a little number there, so they'll say, oh, the CLA amount Holly is 56%.

[18:50] What that means is that you're only paying taxes amount Holly on 56% of what your property is worth.

[18:57] And the state says, no, we expect you to pay on 100% of that.

[19:01] So we're going to adjust your tax rates. We're going to increase them to make sure that your paying

[19:07] taxes on that other 44%. Right? Nice and easy and simple. That's a real challenge for those

[19:15] of us who live in Kavendish because when COVID hit a lot of second home owners, now I think we're about

[19:21] Mike, you can help me with those 50, 50 with the homeowners who have children that grew up there.

[19:27] while we're there, not at fair adults.

[19:30] So to pay this fair market value is becoming,

[19:36] oh, not impossible, but very challenging

[19:39] for those of us who live and work here.

[19:42] So I don't even know what to say.

[19:46] That's the only thing that this is,

[19:49] you have no control over this, unless the state changes

[19:52] how they calculate property taxes.

[19:55] This is a legislative change that would have

[19:57] happen nothing change. Now to make matters more complicated, if this makes a little bit of sense,

[20:05] we're talking about this in terms of your property. What the state really does is it looks at the

[20:10] total value of all the properties in a town. When it does this assessment, it kind of means the

[20:16] same thing we talk about your property, but there's a nuance here, right? If they're taking a look at

[20:21] what the average value of the properties in a town are, some properties are high, some

[20:26] properties are low, right? Some properties have increased in value over the last 10 years,

[20:31] some have stayed the same, and some in the town have gone down. The problem is because

[20:36] they're doing the calculation at a town level. If enough properties went up, the tax rates

[20:43] are going to go up, even though your property or someone else's property value may have actually

[20:47] gone down. And in today's day and age with computers, they should not have to do that.

[20:53] They should be able to calculate everybody's house and property individually and be able to tell you

[20:59] what your tax rate is based upon on that.

[21:02] But there's an issue.

[21:03] This happens a lot and not hauling and love because they have that situation.

[21:07] They have, you know, 30% of the houses in there, the properties of the values are going through the roof, all the rest are staying

[21:14] the same or going down.

[21:15] Yeah, these people are being impacted because this million dollar home is now worth $3 million.

[21:20] And there, you know, $385,000 on the home is still worth $385,000, but their tax rates are going to go on.

[21:28] It's an interesting kind of system.

[21:30] But the important piece of this is, and this has been kind of since COVID,

[21:34] the biggest thing that's impacting taxes for like the last five years since COVID,

[21:39] it's been changes in CLA.

[21:42] In Vermont, people were fleeing the cities like Boston and New York.

[21:46] You were getting a lot of remote workers that were coming here.

[21:48] So the property value started to increase, and so anywhere between 50 and probably 85 or 90% of the tax increases that you had been through in the last couple of years have been due to changes of property value, not due to what's happening in terms of districts and processes.

[22:06] So again, it doesn't make paying that gigantic tax bill feel any better, but I just, I think it's really important for people to understand that there is a very limited control that we have.

[22:20] You can add up in theory, once you're reassessed, and up a hundred percent.

[22:26] The facts rate is...

[22:28] That never works out.

[22:33] Your tax rate, the tax rate will come down, where your property value is going to come up, where you shouldn't pay in the same amount of money.

[22:39] You just, it's more probable that a lot of tax rate.

[22:42] Yeah.

[22:43] Yes, it looked like that when I see my bill.

[22:46] I can't go with this going down because they just did a recess.

[22:49] There are houses all very much so much more than that.

[22:53] Right.

[22:53] They don't live like that.

[22:54] They need $40 million.

[22:56] Everybody's health service goes up 10 percent.

[22:57] They have to have to go down because only a million dollars.

[23:00] So suppose, yeah, as a tax is supposed to leave, you're supposed to stay in the same

[23:04] from your year, so as the value of your home increase is supposed to leave your tax rate is supposed

[23:09] to go down in the comments.

[23:10] And say for it, they do this balancing act in the sea of life.

[23:13] But if there's some reason that never seems to work that right.

[23:15] It's just never balanced.

[23:16] It's going to be.

[23:17] And is that for specifically education, or is that for like whatever you pay?

[23:22] So you've got to get your two faxes and municipalist down.

[23:26] And so we don't want to confuse this with the town because ours is usually the

[23:31] the the the the margarandis one of the people people.

[23:33] You know this is just for school.

[23:35] Okay.

[23:37] Yeah.

[23:39] Just to put it in terms of percentages.

[23:43] To try to make this a little bit clear.

[23:47] In terms of the changes, if we have a level service budget, and it gets voted.

[23:52] put it in. These are the percentages of where the tax increase will come from. So in bulk

[23:59] the more it would be that 11 cent increase, it would be about a 50 50 split, right? Five cent

[24:03] six cents. But if you look at Cavendish and Chester, only about 15% of the tax increase is

[24:09] coming because it changes in the cost of education around the state of Vermont. 85, is 83,

[24:14] 3% of it is coming because of changes in the property values. And again, so the state kind of hides

[24:21] that CLA piece a little bit, they have different ways that, politically, they try to

[24:27] hide things to control the cost of education. CLA is one of the ways they do it. They

[24:32] did what was the call of the statewide adjustment last year. Yeah, I could know that later.

[24:36] Yeah, were they trying to try to make it so that we couldn't figure out what percentage of

[24:41] this was coming from CO. There was no reason being that change other than that. So this

[24:49] is what it means and it's a lot. So to put things in easier perspective, if we go with a level

[24:56] service budget,

[25:00] this is what you're looking at. For every $100,000 of property value, if you live

[25:05] in Baltimore, your taxes are going to go up by 110 bucks. So if you have a $300,000 property,

[25:11] you're looking at $330 in your annual taxes in terms of an increase. How much of it is coming from

[25:19] changes in education spending across the state, $50 for $100,000, $60 is coming from

[25:25] changes due to property values.

[25:27] Cavendish, $340 for $100,000 in property value.

[25:33] 50 of it is due to education costs, $290 of it is due to changes in property value.

[25:42] And then you see Chester there.

[25:43] And over is doing well, green means that's what they're getting back for $100,000.

[25:48] because they were reassessed.

[25:52] So questions on this. What I'm going to do is I'm going to compare

[25:55] this to if what the the changes for $100,000 would be if we kept the budget the same from this

[26:03] year to next and didn't do any increase. Yeah. The green 806 for and over.

[26:16] So that the green is what

[26:18] get back for $100,000. They're going to get $810,000 back for $100,000. They saw an increase of $50,000 in it.

[26:28] But then they'll call the other way. Well, I think I think about what it means. You got two opposite numbers.

[26:36] They saw an increase of 50 and a decrease of 860 when you put those two together. You get, yeah,

[26:48] So the change was actually 860.

[26:52] Yeah, but because 50 of that was increased to the,

[26:56] So isn't the, what do you say?

[26:58] Wouldn't it be an increase of 860?

[27:01] A reduction of 810, and an increase of 50,

[27:05] which gives you a reduction of 770.

[27:09] So it's a, it's a, it's a negative and a positive.

[27:12] You've got enough of them to have it.

[27:13] Yeah.

[27:14] Yeah, you're gaining your,

[27:15] you're gaining $860 due to the change in the CLA, you're taking $50 off of that, you can pay

[27:23] it a little bit higher taxes for you. Which results in my change?

[27:25] We've got a couple of the questions. I had to think throw it to and I think I screwed it up on it.

[27:31] The first round that we did this way back in January.

[27:36] Yes, this is a total change.

[27:39] CLA plus education costs.

[27:42] Yep.

[27:42] And then you got it.

[27:45] So the first column is the total and the other two are the breakdown.

[27:49] Yeah.

[27:50] We just mentioned that this looks like such a wonderful thing for Andover.

[27:54] But three years ago, three or four years ago, just before they reappraise,

[28:00] it won't be opposite for Andover.

[28:03] It was so black with current property values that they were getting hammered in a much higher degree than the other town.

[28:11] And this is just a little bit of a capture of that scene.

[28:14] Yeah, and it's funny because it's right that we

[28:16] talk about that quality piece that they try to build in there.

[28:20] Typically, kind of what I've seen is when they reassess the next year

[28:25] after their reassess taxes go up and then then you're after that

[28:28] and they drop, I don't know what we're just seeing here.

[28:34] So just as a comparison, this is the kind of show,

[28:37] You know, our level of control, if we didn't increase the cost, so in other words, if we're spending next year,

[28:48] for asking the taxpayers the paying next year exactly what they're paying this year,

[28:52] but there's no change in terms of cost, right? It means the district is going to be losing things

[28:58] because the cost of things go up, right? But if we kept the budget the same from this year to next year,

[29:04] this is what your tax rates will be. And we'll talk a little bit about this. To get to

[29:10] no increase, we lose about nine staff members, probably a little bit more. We lose a little bit

[29:15] of programming. What you would see happen is taxes per 100,000 and Baltimore, right? You're still

[29:22] paying $50 more per 100,000 in cabinets. You're still paying $250 more per 100,000 in

[29:34] is the tax rate if it's level service, what we're asking for, this is what it would be if

[29:40] we kept things exactly the same, so you would save and Baltimore about success overall on

[29:46] your tax rate. 9 cents in Cavendish, 7 cents in Chester. So again, there's a difference there,

[29:53] but it's not as much as you'd hope. If I thought, if I thought I could cut your tax in half and

[29:59] I'll just show you the stores.

[30:00] I'd be working with you. Pretty hard, but is that including any increases that lead me? And this year was the

[30:10] well, we are on with special ed and food and all the other stuff. So this would be a, this is if the budget that we would be asking for would be exactly the same as over spending.

[30:21] That's right. But typically, they probably would call up in cost.

[30:26] What like budget is actually not all set.

[30:29] Yeah.

[30:29] It would be what we budgeted for this year.

[30:32] Not what we spoke about last year.

[30:35] This year.

[30:36] Not what we spent.

[30:36] We don't have that in action.

[30:39] Yeah.

[30:43] Hmm.

[30:45] This is hard.

[30:46] More and more.

[30:47] Go ahead.

[30:49] Go ahead.

[30:49] Maybe if we get into this slide.

[30:50] If there's something with help people who are

[30:53] reason, let's get into it.

[30:55] Yeah, no, you kind of have to declare it anyway

[30:59] when you did your taxes.

[31:01] So there's the homestead, there's the homestead declaration.

[31:06] So basically, if your household income is 115,000 or less,

[31:11] the household income is complicated.

[31:13] It doesn't mean you use the taxpayers income.

[31:16] It means everybody that's living in your house

[31:17] what the total income is.

[31:19] If it's $115,000 or less,

[31:22] You do your home-stead declaration when you do your taxes, and what that will do is it can

[31:28] reduce your school taxes by up to $5,600, and it can reduce your town taxes by somewhere around $2400.

[31:37] It's a sliding scale, so the lower your household income is below that 115,000,

[31:43] the more they'll come off your taxes in terms of what you're going to have to pay. That makes sense.

[31:49] But it's kind of an automatic process and we're about when you're filling out the state platforms that require you to get your resident for a year.

[31:56] Okay.

[31:58] Yep.

[32:00] So good.

[32:02] Other than that, there's not much more of a story to tell the less of questions about anything.

[32:08] You only want to see the breakdown of the calculation.

[32:15] Thank you.

[32:16] Thank you.

[32:17] Yeah.

[32:17] It's.

[32:17] How smartboard and raw machine to figure it through.

[32:24] Does it matter how many school budgets have passed so far?

[32:28] Because if we're talking about one date number in the end,

[32:32] how do we know?

[32:33] Because we have to submit our budgets within, well,

[32:36] by June 1st is one that I want them.

[32:38] This one won't go in June 1st.

[32:39] We've definitely played 30 days after classes.

[32:42] It's very well done.

[32:43] Yes.

[32:44] Two to submit it.

[32:45] But then they take all that information,

[32:47] and then they like what that is.

[32:48] So how do they come up with the estimate? Yes, is what I'm asking? So that's done by the Department of Defense Department.

[32:56] They do the calculations. They look at what the grandmas are, what the anticipated revenues are from the things that are going to offset.

[33:03] What money is going to be contributed? They surveyed the school districts to try to figure out what they think they're going to be asking for for a budget.

[33:10] Okay, I guess that's what I'm asking. So it's based on kind of what budgets are out for.

[33:15] What people would plan to do?

[33:17] So that's like the worst number of workers in the world.

[33:19] I see a number of the last things of that.

[33:22] That makes sense.

[33:23] But your calculations last year, back in love, I think, your calculations were within like

[33:29] a 10 to 10.

[33:30] No, not the summer first letter.

[33:32] Oh, yeah, no.

[33:34] Okay, that makes sense.

[33:35] We don't even know yet if the governor, if the legislature is going to actually

[33:39] do a subsidy at this point.

[33:42] Or how much it's going to be.

[33:43] And we took these are based on the highest budget, like these are based on what we know right now.

[33:51] And the CLI didn't yield has not been decided yet.

[33:55] And so that could change.

[33:57] Yeah, kind of like that.

[33:59] Don't permit those.

[34:05] I'm still a little confused because this is, you know, I forget that.

[34:09] So when people don't know on our local budget, if they don't know, they might be saying no to the way they deal with things around the state rather than just our green mountain budget.

[34:22] And then we end up having no control over our budget, right?

[34:28] because they're saying no, we don't like the way this is, but even if you said I'm going to cut nine jobs, they still might say no, because I'm not going to say you $50 and your taxes anyway by doing it.

[34:42] Right, so I'm going to have a seat.

[34:45] So this is what Jerry has said in the past and a phone number, Scott Kendall said, if you have a problem with this,

[34:52] Yeah, so you all with the board or the board in the

[34:55] way, you know, Sheryl.

[34:56] Coincidentally, graphs in it, like this is a state that

[34:59] you got are it's not an architectural.

[35:01] Yeah, and let your neighbors know this well, because one of the things

[35:05] that happens in Montpire is schools are demonized that we're the

[35:09] reasons that it's costing so much, but you can see in reality,

[35:14] very, very little of the tax impact is due to the schools.

[35:19] I can give you a really good example.

[35:21] if I can, if I can stay be clearly, what I, I went up in a testifying on X73, which is what the state is trying to do to control

[35:30] the cost of education, which probably is not going to control the cost of education.

[35:35] I made the comment to in front of the house educational committee chair that, you know, this is going to

[35:47] acquiring customers to staff. And I look back at them and I said, yes, I've done the calculations.

[35:53] Your enrollment requirements that are a part of that 70, three-year-old,

[35:58] going to require at least a cut of 1400 teachers. So again, they do not want to own it.

[36:05] And so the odds of the legislature changing anything is very slim.

[36:11] Until they feel that they're going to get more votes by changing things than by not,

[36:16] nothing's going to happen. And right now the way that they're approaching things in terms of, you know,

[36:22] potential enforcement solidations and voters and enrollment requirements has a very negative

[36:27] field to people. So they know the backlash that's going to come from it and so they're backing off of

[36:33] a many change. So again, until things get bad enough that they think they're going to get more

[36:39] Well, it's by changing stuff, it's not a change, that's why people got to get divorced to show you.

[36:45] Thank you.

[36:53] Okay, not a sleep, that's good.

[36:58] Thanks, Ian.

[37:11] I'm not kidding.

[37:12] Look, we're in there.

[37:13] Here's a hand out.

[37:15] Good evening.

[37:17] Hi.

[37:18] Thank you, people, hear me?

[37:20] Yeah.

[37:21] My name is Steve Maycuseup.

[37:24] I'm a Chester resident and maybe some of you guys.

[37:34] If we have a decline in the student population, why do we need the same number of teachers?

[37:53] There's a mandate in the country as well as the state of you need to be certified to teach

[37:57] to be a teach certain students, so if I'm a science teacher, I can't teach math or English,

[38:05] I can only teach science and it's also work with it by great, so I can't teach middle school

[38:10] or elementary, I can only teach high school.

[38:13] So depending on what you have, you need so many teachers to teach science and high school,

[38:17] So I'm going to teach science and middle school.

[38:20] You need so many English teachers and the English teachers

[38:22] can't teach history and math.

[38:23] Once they had the certification, which means they

[38:26] went to school almost twice as long and get that.

[38:29] So we're kind of stuck because of what the state and the federal

[38:31] government set up years ago.

[38:35] The piece that I can add is well in coming from Massachusetts.

[38:43] You know, high school of 14 to 1600 kids.

[38:47] I had two students that were on IEPs for emotional disturbance.

[38:54] I had probably maybe 10% were on an IEP for a minimal academic IEP.

[39:02] In the state of Vermont, and I'm going to express my own opinion here,

[39:06] and I don't expect anybody to agree with it.

[39:09] The lack of standards from the agency of education, the lack of guidance.

[39:15] Peter Sange's idea of every system produces exactly what it's designed to produce, even if that design is unintentional, is working its way through mobile.

[39:26] The performance of students in the state aren't because the teachers are failing.

[39:31] It's because the state hasn't been explicit on what it expects people to learn and they got slapped by the federal government.

[39:37] Not too long ago, and it's one of the reasons they're scrambling around looking at doing a gigantic study on special education and state of Vermont and recommendations on how to fix it as well as having to put graduation requirements.

[39:52] So one of the reasons in Vermont why there is such a low student to teach a ratio is because of the increase need that students have.

[40:02] that does not exist in other states.

[40:06] It would be very difficult, you know,

[40:08] come in from Massachusetts, you know,

[40:10] 23 kids in a classroom was the door,

[40:12] but there's different kids.

[40:15] And I don't mean that as being a rockator

[40:17] and all they are different kids.

[40:19] I cannot imagine 18 to 23 students

[40:22] in some of the classes here in Vermont,

[40:26] with the needs that they have.

[40:28] And the, in a lot of ways, the lack of preparation because the lack of standards of the state has.

[40:36] Yep.

[40:36] Yep. And I'd like to second what Mike said as well.

[40:40] I used to teach high school work science.

[40:42] I could never have taught high school history.

[40:46] When you get certified, you were certified in that subject.

[40:49] I mean, you really know what you're talking about.

[40:52] And you're certified in how to teach that to students.

[40:55] And you can't just switch people around.

[40:56] state of UT gels run now. You're going to teach history and then you're going to teach science

[41:01] if you have all those subjects. You have to have teachers certified in them and you cannot just

[41:07] simply juggle teachers. They're very good. And even even with the smaller schools which we don't

[41:14] fight half and I'm talking elementary schools with with with funny kids and they are

[41:19] existing and around the state of Vermont. There is a skeleton crew of staff that you have to

[41:25] even though having them exceeds the needs of the students, because by law you have to have them.

[41:32] And so, you know, that's kind of a kind of a conundrum.

[41:34] You mean teaching staff or support staff, support staff, special education, certain number of hours

[41:40] of guidance, administration, or required by magnetic field.

[41:46] Can you talk about the per people increase and why it's so much more than the budget

[41:54] And I'm just going to say, because there's a waiting or not to see what I want to see my sheet now.

[41:59] I don't see all the because there's lower enrollment, but there's it also have to do with changes in the waiting.

[42:06] All right, not changes in the waiting, but changes in the qualifications that the students had.

[42:11] There was a big come out of COVID, a lot of people fall by for free reduced lunch and, you know, state subsidies and whatnot and they cut that those thresholds.

[42:21] and that a lot of people did ball-fi.

[42:23] So we had like the 30 people weighted count rock.

[42:29] It was like a half a million dollar cut.

[42:31] It's higher than five recalls.

[42:33] So again, the waiting for the frame reduced students

[42:38] got as this much extra money.

[42:41] They changed the threshold for students to qualify,

[42:44] fewer students qualified, so the amount of money

[42:46] we got for that made it drop.

[42:48] And it was significant.

[42:49] So that was last year.

[42:50] line 11, which is our long-terminated membership last year. We were at a 1,184 in this year. We've dropped

[42:58] 21,154. Make sure you're willing to do that.

[43:03] Oh, yeah, yeah. Steve, did we touch at least a little bit on the things that you're interested in?

[43:12] Oh, yes, she did. Lane, can I ask another question here?

[43:18] Sure. Maybe you can outfuzz me. You seem to be up on 73.

[43:21] And on one hand, we're saying that the state requires certified teachers here in which I understand.

[43:37] On the other hand, 73 is requiring cuts and those cuts are going to come regardless of how we vote.

[43:48] If legislature changes nothing, right now, at least unless somebody heard something I haven't,

[43:58] the last three weeks there has been no motion in terms of consolidating districts, there

[44:05] are still provisions of the law that are in place like the middle of the enrollments.

[44:11] Those are part of the law right now, but the question is, is will they follow for one?

[44:15] They are the law.

[44:16] So, you know, we're, we're, we're, are gearing up so that when we go into the budget planning season in the fall that we are taking that into consideration, but I couldn't tell you what the legislature's going to do, they could do 180, they could leave things the way that they are, it's completely unclear.

[44:35] And the certification piece is critically important, that's that you touched on, that's actually at the federal level.

[44:43] Teachers have to be highly qualified.

[44:45] They have to have that certification for us to be able to go to the point of view.

[44:50] So good.

[44:51] That's right, my touched on all the parts and pieces, but it's unclear what's going to come out of X-73.

[44:57] There are pieces like I said that are long right now.

[45:00] So we have to plan for them, but whether they stay or not who knows.

[45:04] Thank you.

[45:05] Yep.

[45:07] And thank you for the questions.

[45:12] Well, the other thing that happened this year in terms of the average weighted membership.

[45:18] So that's a number of students that were considered to have that we get funding from the state for.

[45:23] is their members didn't match anybody else's. There was a lot of of common around the states and

[45:31] accuracies and the state did admit that in a lot of its data collections, the way that they

[45:39] have been running forward with those numbers and the numbering work. So the state has a lot of work

[45:44] to do to get its act together. And I'm not blame in the AOE. There are some incredibly hard workers.

[45:50] there are some of the best people I've ever interacted with and the most knowledgeable

[45:53] right there.

[45:54] They are just underfunded and understaffed.

[45:58] I mean, the blood them out, Holly is a perfect example.

[46:01] They were, as they're doing, they're restructuring conversations, they wanted to take a look

[46:05] at things like, you know, how much are we spending per pupil in terms of special education

[46:13] cost compared to other districts.

[46:15] That's the data that we're seeing is supposed to have and it's supposed to be published.

[46:18] When I was looking for it all the dashboards the last time they published it just $4.21.

[46:25] So they're getting slammed by the federal government too for not keeping up on their data and reporting requirements.

[46:31] Well, the Department of Education has been shedding staff and shoving their jobs on to the local districts too.

[46:40] Oh, yeah.

[46:40] It's for us.

[46:41] And of course, IDA is never extra than $4.21.

[46:46] I think they're like 13% or 15%.

[46:53] They were talking about, I don't know if they actually did it when they were having discussions at the federal level, the IDEA was going to be frozen.

[47:05] They were going to get rid of Title II when they were going to freeze.

[47:11] which the title too we've got our allocation for next year.

[47:14] And thank you for the notice.

[47:18] Are there

[47:26] anybody online with questions we can confuse you with?

[47:36] So tomorrow a lot of what we discussed,

[47:41] I summarize, I couldn't writing and I try to start getting that out to the community through a variety of means.

[47:46] For the folks here, when you receive that, the thing that we're kind of asking is that if you've got a social media presence, if you're willing, if you can piggyback that.

[47:56] And that seems to be the best way to get the information around it as many people as possible.

[48:03] And then May 12th is the vote.

[48:07] You want to talk a little bit about Saturday.

[48:11] family? Yeah, just as I don't make it. Yeah, so there will be several of us

[48:18] in England will actually be having, we're hosting a conversation. We're not doing that,

[48:22] y'all.

[48:24] We're having a conversation at Jester Town Hall at 1130. I'm sorry to where people

[48:30] can come and ask questions and we can dive deep into some of the things we discussed tonight

[48:35] and just kind of a chance to help people understand and make it as accessible as possible because we want people to know

[48:41] feel like they're understanding and being able to access this information.

[48:46] And also talking about where to go to vote, what it's like when you go to vote, if you've never voted before, answer your questions.

[48:54] I should talk about that person.

[48:55] I think that's just a really good one.

[48:58] That was a good question, so one of the question that you had about the per pupil increase.

[49:08] Why is that a higher percentage than the overall budget increase overall budget increases is 3.82%.

[49:16] The state purposely requires us to use that student number because they know it's going to be higher.

[49:23] So when I say the state manipulates things to try to control the cost of education,

[49:28] they use that number specifically because they know that's going to be the highest percentage

[49:33] increase out of everything that we generate. But I'll let you kind of talk about why that is.

[49:38] So I have to call, the two green columns are the same calculation. One is how the state wants us to

[49:44] calculate it. You'll make a CLA not the bad guy. And I go back to the old method as it's a

[49:53] So we start with our budget, the 19 million 341, we take out local revenues.

[50:01] So it's tuition we get, interest we get, the ELA, ELL grant that we get.

[50:08] Everything after that, we have to raise my taxes because we don't have that money.

[50:13] Then we take our long term weighted membership, which we've talked about that and what the different

[50:20] points me and the 1154 and then we get our cost per pupil.

[50:26] Then we divide our cost per pupil by the yield.

[50:32] So the way the state presents it is that 844 which is online 15 of column J, that's the

[50:39] yield that they present.

[50:41] I divided back by the 7033 which is the state average CLA, we get the larger number there.

[50:49] But as you go down through, you'll see that we come up with the same number, so that $277.6.

[50:54] That's where our five-cent increased comes over last year.

[50:59] But when you do it the states way, that comes to $1.85.

[51:03] Because I can see LA adjusted it prior to this.

[51:07] But then when you get down at the bottom, the 21, 22, 23, 24, 24, 4 of all the towns,

[51:12] if you look in both columns, that's the thing.

[51:16] So that if I were reading what you're saying correctly, the inclusion of the CLA in the

[51:25] per pupil calculation, this will cause the major difference.

[51:30] In the next, right?

[51:32] Yes.

[51:32] So going back to what the point I brought up.

[51:34] Which we don't have control over, has not been able to do an education.

[51:37] So up in column G, column H, line 5, I think it is.

[51:43] So the overall budget is a 3.853 increase.

[51:48] The cost per pupil increase because of our decline in long term weighted membership has got

[51:54] up 9.98%. So when the voters read that ballot, that it says at the end gives a full amount of

[52:02] the budget that gives our costs per pupil and that dollar amount of increase in like plain

[52:07] that and it's really there just. Yes, that's what I have people low enough. I mean that that language that we

[52:13] hear from those warnings is set by statute. We don't have a choice. Yes, and there's no purpose. Do that.

[52:21] Come on, I can talk.

[52:25] How many students at GM right now, 7 through 12?

[52:38] I don't know whether that's accurate right now.

[52:42] It's final little lower than that. My guess is it's probably around two, two, seventy, five,

[52:47] seventy, seventy, seventy.

[52:51] And how many in the district?

[52:52] You did?

[52:54] Oh, I will.

[53:00] Actually, I have the second.

[53:02] Find and actually have a purpose.

[53:06] District will do issue.

[53:09] I know.

[53:10] Yes.

[53:11] I think it's, I think there's a lot of Holly.

[53:13] There's a lot of Holly here.

[53:13] I think there's a lot of Holly here.

[53:15] There's a lot of Holly here.

[53:17] There's a lot of Holly there.

[53:19] I think there's a lot of Holly here.

[53:23] She'll be mentally sick.

[53:23] They're probably nothing.

[53:26] That's just six great here, six great between those two schools.

[53:30] Yeah, you're all going to end up in a problem.

[53:33] Probably a little less than double bug.

[53:36] I can't say something.

[53:37] If you include love love on Holly and stuff, that's where you get to stay.

[53:43] Oh, okay.

[53:45] This is this is Pam O'Neill.

[53:47] I just asked our registrar Green Mountain actually as 313 students on our

[53:53] Thank you.

[53:54] Thanks, fans.

[53:55] I got my new number.

[53:56] So it was 298, 2023, 310 last year, 315 now.

[54:01] So we're not in the least in recent years.

[54:04] This has been going up a little bit.

[54:05] Thank you, fans.

[54:06] Yep.

[54:06] You're welcome.

[54:08] That's it.

[54:08] You're welcome.

[54:09] So

[54:13] that's been increasing.

[54:15] So 315.

[54:17] Thank you.

[54:18] Thank you.

[54:29] For all the reasons you were talking about before.

[54:32] It's a difference between 290 and 315.

[54:34] doesn't mean you have to hire two more teachers. And when you go from 315 to 298, it doesn't mean

[54:41] you can get rid of two. Because in a way, things are distributed. Maybe that will be

[54:46] going to fall 15 of the increase, more of the same grade from the same, but it's never that way,

[54:55] it's always going to move. That's helpful information.

[55:07] Yes, so I think we're going to turn it into a second of Oliver.

[55:15] Hi.

[55:15] Thank you.

[55:17] Thank you.

[55:19] Thank you.

[55:22] All right.

[55:22] Two of you.

[55:24] You want them there.

[55:25] Hold on.

[55:25] I don't want to overshadow stuff.

[55:30] I'm there.

[55:31] I'll sit down.

[55:32] I'll sit down.

Green Mountain Unified School District- Informational Hearing 5/5

Transcript