Waterbury-Duxbury vote is Thursday

Tomorrow is Election Day, as residents of Waterbury and Duxbury vote again on the Waterbury-Duxbury School District budget they rejected on Town Meeting Day.

Several residents had voted early in Duxbury this week, and a total of 119 had voted early in Waterbury by Tuesday afternoon, according to the town clerks in both towns.

The $11,584,574 budget proposal for 2015-16 is 2.1 percent higher than current spending. It covers costs for Thatcher Brook Primary School in Waterbury and Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury.

The budget lost last month by just 28 votes, 551-523.

On the same day, Waterbury and Duxbury residents — along with voters in Fayston, Moretown, Waitsfield and Warren — approved a $14,254,834 budget for the Harwood Union School District. That budget won by 166 votes, 1,196-1,030.

The Waterbury-Duxbury budget was one of only 20 school budgets rejected on Town Meeting Day this year, compared to 37 last year. Jeff Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Associa-tion, said most school boards proposed spending increases of less than 3 percent.

The Waterbury-Duxbury school board blamed the defeat on voter confusion after the Waterbury Record erroneously reported the budget increase as 6.4 percent, the amount voters approved last year. Instead, the actual budget increase is a relatively flat 2.1 percent, driven mostly by teacher contracts and federally mandated spending on special education, board members said.

“Just to refresh, the reason we’re having the revote is because the budget didn’t have a fair chance to pass on its merits, based on widespread misinformation about the increase,” school board chair Steve Odefey said at a public hearing last week.

That informational meeting drew just one “no” voter, who left early for a St. Patrick’s Day dinner of corned beef and cabbage.

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” Waterbury resident John Callahan said in a conversation with the Record and at-large board member Jason Gibbs shortly before the public hearing.

Callahan told board members his “no” vote had nothing to do with confusion about the budget increase.

Gibbs said last Thursday that voters upset with the state government’s property tax formula for education should send their message to the Statehouse.

“Voting ‘no’ on the budget doesn’t send a message to Montpelier about property tax reform,” Gibbs said. “All it does is punish the kids that we’re not going to be able to educate.”

The board decided last month to offer the budget again, without a symbolic cut in the proposed $238,000 increase, of which just $21,000 or so is discretionary.

The school board and administrators say they held the spending increase to 2.1 percent by eliminating 5.2 full-time jobs, mostly achieved through retirements. They also point out the district has a relatively high student-teacher ratio of 17:1, and the budget would spend $466 less than the state average for per-pupil costs, excluding special education.

Odefey said the board worked hard this year to present a fiscally responsible budget to voters.