On fourth attempt, Barre voters approve school district budget

Updated at 4:56 p.m.

BARRE — Voters in the Barre Unified Union School District approved an annual spending plan for the district on their fourth attempt Tuesday. 

The district was the last in the state to approve a budget, which allocates $56.6 million this fiscal year, which started July 1. Residents across Barre Town and Barre City previously voted down three costlier proposed spending plans. 

Notably, the district’s new budget leaves open staff positions vacant and cuts funds for building maintenance. It spares any cuts to winter sports and after school activities, which board members previously said might be on the chopping block if the district had to continue operating without a voter approved budget. 

Across both municipalities, 58% of voters approved the latest spending plan, according to totals from Barre Town’s website and Barre City’s clerk.

In Barre Town, 55% of voters approved the budget, according to vote counts on the town website. A larger margin of voters in Barre City, 62%, approved the measure, according to tallies from the city clerk. 

“I’m feeling really great about the community support we had for the budget. I think the community understood the stakes,” Garrett Grant, chair of the school board, said in an interview Wednesday. 

The drawn-out process of approving the district’s budget is notable because the district has among the lowest rates of per-student spending in the state. Still, voters rejected a $57.8 million budget on Town Meeting Day and have rejected two smaller proposed budgets since then. The spending plan approved by voters is 1.2% higher than the district spent overall last fiscal year, a rate much lower than inflation. 

To keep schools running without a voter-approved budget, board members said the district had to take out a line of credit, a measure expected to cost the district up to $22,000 in monthly interest payments. Districts are allowed to spend 87% of the previous year’s budget when they lack a plan approved by voters. Grant said that looking at cuts to sports and activities during that time was a “fiscal reality.”

Since voters rejected a proposed budget of $57.1 million in September, board members cut half a million dollars in district spending to propose a slimmer budget on the November ballot. 

Board members decided the district could “live without” the $100,000 it usually reserves for building maintenance costs, Grant said. And the board decided to cut $200,000 that it usually spends in tuition for students to attend the technical education center, along with leaving four open staff positions vacant. 

At the Barre Town polls on Tuesday, resident Matt Thurston said that he voted yes on the budget and has supported it during every previous vote. 

Thurston coaches wrestling in the district and is married to a kindergarten teacher in the district, which he said gives him perspective on the opportunities students are given when districts are willing to spend more.

“We get to see how it works up close,” he said. 

Thurston was shocked by the possibility of not having funds for winter wrestling this year, he said, and was scared of what it would mean for student athletes to go without activities in the event the district didn’t pass a budget. 

The school board could have done a better job at explaining budget decisions to the community, he said, and making the information easier to digest. 

“Hoping fourth time’s the charm,” he said. 

At the polls in Barre City, Sam Fisk, 56, said he voted no on the budget because “any more of a tax burden of taxpayers is too much.” 

Fisk, who has grandkids in the districts, said he wasn’t sure if he would be worried about additional cuts to school resources or activities if the budget failed again. He said he feels “stressed to the max” financially, and the price tag is just too high. 

The district took out a $6.4 million line of credit this fall, according to Grant, so in future meetings board members will have to find out how much money the district actually spent and how much it owes in interest payments, Grant said. 

Although the district now has a voter-approved budget, funds from the state don’t start flowing immediately, Grant said. 

“I am so happy that the budget passed,” Grant said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: On fourth attempt, Barre voters approve school district budget.