Lamoille North elementary schools’ budget fails again

Pared down to around $16 million, the second budget would fund the elementary schools in Waterville, Belvidere, Eden, Johnson and Hyde Park.

In the wake of the first defeat, the Lamoille North School Board set a half-million-dollar limit for proposed cuts. In a closed executive session at a subsequent school board meeting, the board proposed just over $350,000 in cuts across the five schools.

The first budget represented a 15 percent increase in spending, while the retooled one brought it down to 13 percent, but due to changes in education fund policy at the state level, towns in the Lamoille North district would have only seen an estimated property tax increase of less than 3 percent from education funding increases alone this year.

The board worked closely with school administrators to trim the first budget without directly affecting students. This involved cutting some district employees, like the diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator and a senior-level assistant at the district administration level, and part- and full-time technology assistant positions at Hyde Park Elementary School and Eden Central School.

Cuts included the elimination or reduction of positions the district intended to fill with new hires at Eden and Johnson elementary schools, a new snowblower and a covered walkway to connect the school to outdoor coolers and freezers for the school’s kitchen in Eden, and new cameras and upper-level air conditioning in Hyde Park.

The district had also sought to save $70,000 by moving the Waterville pre-kindergarten program from the Belvidere Central School to Waterville Elementary School.

Throughout the budget crafting process before the first town meeting day vote, Lamoille North superintendent Catherine Gallagher and business manager Deb Clark have insisted that both the budgets for the elementaries and the upper levels were conservative and primarily focused on students.

The spending increase was necessary, they argued, to cover the rise in non-negotiable costs like health care and salaries, and to cover continued support for students set back by the disruption of the pandemic after federal funding dried up, all while ensuring a minimal tax impact.

“Property taxes are an emotional thing for people, rightly so,” Gallagher said in the wake of the first budget’s defeat. “But you still have to run school systems. Whether your property taxes are high or low, there’s always going to be a school system to run, and we have to do right by our children.”