TOWNSHEND — Following the rejection of a second budget presented to voters, the West River Education District Board is back to the drawing table.
WRED voters rejected the second budget 229-208 on May 13. A third draft of the school budget will need to be presented to Brookline, Jamaica, Newfane, Townshend and Windham residents.
At a special board meeting Wednesday, Windham Central Superintendent Bob Thibault said law allows the district to borrow up to 87 percent of the current fiscal year’s budget if a new spending plan isn’t passed by the end of June. Once a budget is approved, the loan can be paid off.
Board members from Jamaica spoke with community members before a Select Board meeting on Tuesday.
“They gave us marching orders,” School Board member Dana West said.
Structural issues with the district and Windham Central Supervisory Union were cited by WRED Board member Drew Hazelton. Community members want the board to have “those really difficult conversations,” he said, and they’re unwilling to support the budget until the board is committed to discussing a restructuring of the local education system.
“They feel the no vote is their only weapon because we’re not listening,” West said. “And I think they’ve lost trust in the supervisory union and I think they’ve lost trust in us to do right by the kids. I don’t think you’re going to earn that back unless you do structural governance.”
Board Chairman Joe Winrich said the district spent money on an architectural firm to study consolidating buildings and having a single campus in Townshend. Community pushback led to the plans being abandoned about two years ago.
At the time, the board also committed to keeping Leland & Gray open. If that feeling has changed, Winrich said, “let’s have a conversation and look at it.”
Board member Lindsey Bertram called for being “wildly transparent” to gain the community’s trust back.
Thibault suggested more voter outreach might help.
“Ten percent isn’t bad compared to some places but it could be better,” he said of voter turnout.
A new yield anticipated to be used by the state to determine education tax rates will be more favorable to the district than previous estimates, Thibault said. However, he also announced new teacher contracts for nine to 10 positions will result in about $300,000 more in spending than what was presented in the last budget.
About $30,000 per person is “huge when you look at our pay scale,” Hazelton said. The board requested additional information on the contracts, as family insurance also drives up the costs.
Also to be discussed at the next meeting on June 8 is a plan for considering structural changes in the district. The supervisory union board also is looking at reforming its budget process, which has been a complaint in the community.
Michael Pelton, who serves as chairman of the Windham School Board, said the repeated failure of the WRED budget “reflects years of growing frustration with leadership, accountability, transparency to the overall structure of both the supervisory union and the district itself.”
“Taxpayers of local towns have felt unheard while costs continue to rise,” he told the WRED Board. “Decisions are increasingly made far from the communities funding them, and the public participation often feels limited rather than welcomed. Many residents believe the system has become administratively heavy, financially unsustainable and disconnected from local needs. That loss of confidence is now serious enough that multiple towns are openly discussing whether they should leave the current structure entirely.”
Pelton called on the supervisory union, WRED and administration to “immediately freeze nonessential expansion, conduct a full review and reduction of staffing and operational costs, and present a public restructuring plan in haste before presenting another budget.”
“Communities deserve full transparency regarding administrative spending, salary growth, staffing levels and long-term financial sustainability,” he said. “Equally important, towns must regain meaningful authority over budgets, priorities and governance.
Also needed, Pelton said, is “serious action regarding structural form, including possible closures, consolidation, greater local control, tuition-based models and regional partnerships.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.reformer.com ’
