MVSU board approves district budget that keeps academic programs intact

By Polly Mikula

After a narrow vote to save all unified arts (UA) programs and positions at the last school district board meeting, Dec. 16, the Mountain Views School District (MVSD) easily approved a revised budget Monday, Jan. 6, with a vote of 13-3.

The approved budget reinstated all UA programs and positions and made no other cuts to academics. It does, however, enact a 10% cut across “all sports and co-curriculars” (for a savings of $71,495) and increases the tuition rate for non-district towns (including Pittsfield) by $1,500 across all grade levels (which is expected to yield $120,000).

MVSU serves about 995 students preK-12 from seven district towns (Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Pomfret, Plymouth, Reading and Woodstock) which will include the MVSU budget on their Town Meeting Day ballots, March 4. 

The district had originally attempted to stay out of the penalty phase, which would have required $3.3 million worth of cuts. In order to accomplish that, it proposed eliminating $450,000 from UA programs among many other non-academic line items. (Unified Arts refers to art, music, world languages, STEM, makerspace and library programs.)

However, at the Dec. 16 meeting and in letters to the board prior, the community implored the board to reinstate those programs. The board voted 7-7 on whether or not to save UA programs. The tie-breaker vote in favor of saving the programs was cast by MVSU board chair Keri Bristow of Woodstock.

That vote mandated the finance committee to retool the budget to see what, if any, additional cuts could be made to offset at least some of the costs that would put the district into the penalty phase. The penalty phase — calculated as 118% of average statewide budgets, which will be adjusted as actual budgets are passed — means that spending past that threshold is assessed $2 for every $1 spent.

On Monday, Jan. 6, the finance committee presented seven different budget scenarios, ultimately recommending scenario 6, which the board passed. That budget cut $2.4 million of the $3.3 million original goal, which means about $900,000 will likely be assessed in the penalty phase, but it prevents cuts to academic programing.

Spending is flat, tax rates decrease for most

The MVSU board approved budget equates to lower tax rates in six of the seven district towns compared to the current fiscal year FY25. Only Plymouth, which is lagging in CLA and its reappraisal, will see an increased rate. 

This is a welcomed change from last year’s budget, which saw 29%, 30%, 36% increases in Killington, Woodstock and Plymouth, respectively. 

But the tax rates and year-over-year comparisons don’t tell the full story, Ford explained. “For towns who have done recent reappraisals, your tax rate is going to be applied to a new home value. For the towns who’ve done those reappraisals, I think it’s four of our towns with Killington being the fifth planned for this year, the increases to property value are far more meaningful than the decreases to tax rates. So… even if you’ve got a decrease to the tax rate, that increase to home value will cause an increase amount of taxes that a homeowner would need to pay.”

The actual budget change from the current FY25 budget of $30,429,153 to the FY26 proposed budget of $30,773,078 is $343,925 or a 1.12% increase.

The FY26 per pupil spend is estimated to be $17,278.57 — up $235.16 or 1.38% from FY25.

About $300,000 increase in health care costs plus contractual staffing obligations (which make up about 80% of the total budget), contributed to making this year’s budget $3.3 million over the newly reimplemented penalty threshold this year, before the $2.4 million in reductions were implemented.

Sports and co-curricular reduction

The 10% reduction to all sports and co-curricular budgets garnered little discussion from the board, except to explain that the $71,495 projected savings was coming from a total combined budget of about 714,950 (10%) that is currently allocated across all sports and co-curricular activities middle through high school. The football budget, for example, is about $7,000; the field hockey budget is $1,100.

“That $1,100 is for middle school through varsity,” said Leanne Tapley, the Varsity field hockey coach who lives in Woodstock and has kids in seventh and ninth grade. “That gives me enough to get uniforms every three years … So it’s a very small budget. We do mostly fundraising. We bake sale at every game. We do crazy amounts of fundraising just to get a program every year,” she added, emphasizing the important role sports play in education not only as a resume builder for college application but also as a draw to Woodstock from across the region. “I think you will find that a lot of students come to Woodstock High School for athletics, and not so much fourth grade Spanish,” she concluded.

Tuition increase

The MVSU board had approved a tuition rate for FY26 of $21,010 for high school students in November. The $1,500 increase voted on Jan. 6 now makes that rate $22,510. For elementary school the rate will increase from $18,180 to $19,680. For Pre-K it would be $12,120.

Monday night was the first time the board had discussed raising the tuition by $1,500.

Ben Ford, MVSU board member from Woodstock and chair of its finance committee, explained: “Looking at what’s allowable for the school district to set our tuition rates, and recognizing that our taxpayers have been hit hard by these tax increases over the last several years, we thought we could share that burden with the choice towns who would send students to our district,” he said, adding that the increase would result in about $120,000 in additional local revenue, which would in turn, “reduce taxes in that amount once we enter the formula.”

“Those tuition dollars are public dollars, tax dollars paid by the towns who send students to our schools,” he clarified. “It’s not private tuition. It doesn’t come [directly] out of a family’s budget.”

Ray Rice, who represents Pittsfield but is not a voting member of the MVSU board, requested the board consider reducing the increase to $1,000. That suggestion was not taken up for discussion.

Tough decisions, balance and compromise required

“My main takeaway on all this is that when you’re in a budget constrained situation, you need to make compromises,” said MVSU board member Anne Karl from Killington in an interview Tuesday. “I think the goal was to try to preserve as much of the academic programming as possible, while also keeping rates flat for taxpayers. And we got there. Is it the perfect solution? I don’t know, but we did achieve those goals of protecting the academic program and keeping tax rates flat. So that seems like a win,” she said explaining why she voted yes for the proposed budget.

“There are also so many formulas and changes that could happen late in the game that will have impacts,” Karl continued. “I understand that the system is designed to be incredibly fair across districts, but it is so complicated that it just makes it very difficult for the school district and for the taxpayers. It creates this challenging situation where, even when you’re doing your absolute best to balance student needs with the needs of taxpayers, it’s hard to know if you’re hitting the right mark, because there are so many wild cards from the state.”

“We’re trying to balance competing needs, and it’s tough,” Karl summarized. “That’s always tough, and you have to make compromises. This felt like a reasonable compromise.”

Katie Reed, the other MVSU board member from Killington, was one of three that voted against the proposed budget. The other two members were Josh Linton of Plymouth and Heather Lawler from Barnard. 

While Reed did not explain her choice during Monday’s meeting, she did in an interview Tuesday: “The reason I voted against the budget last night is fundamentally I cannot support a budget that takes the town into a penalty phase. It’s incredibly cavalier for people to come forward and say it’s not that big a deal… it doesn’t sit very comfortably with me putting that additional burden on our taxpayers,” she said.

“I actually feel very good about the conversations that we had at our December meeting and much of that was reflected in Option 6 … 10% cut to athletics while your knee gut reaction is ‘oh my god, that sucks,’ we already have systems in place to offset some of that. There’s already booster clubs… I think the example given at the meeting last night was an $1,100 field hockey budget, 10% is $110, I think we can find ways to cover that,” she added.

When asked what she would support cutting to get the budget down $900,000 and out of the penalty phase, Reed said, “That’s not an easy thing to say, because cutting our way is not viable. I think that we’re in the process of the snowball effect if we keep cutting … it’s really forcing families to make difficult decisions about where they live, according to their taxes and according to the quality of education their kids receive. I don’t think a viable option is cutting UA, and I agree 100% with putting that back in but I do think there are plenty of other ways to cut. 

“I thought that the cut to athletics, like I mentioned, was definitely a step in the right direction, and I appreciated that compromise … So what I would support is continued discussions on other ways that aren’t teaching positions… I think that we could be more economical and how we use the facilities that we have,” she said.

Reed also acknowledged that the difference in Killington’s tax rate from the budget proposal Dec. 16 that cut $450,000 from UA to the one adopted Jan. 6, was just 3%.

“Yes, it’s important to remember that the budget still does include a good amount of cuts [$2.4 million] which includes an entire Pre K classroom from Killington,” Reed concluded.

Brian Manion, a father of a 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old from Woodstock who was attending the meeting remotely along with about 40 others, spoke up in support of the approved budget and its commitment to educational excellence. “I think that scenarios is absolutely the best course forward,” he said. “I can say just from personal experience (we moved here about a year ago) that one of the major reasons why we decided to move to Woodstock was because of the quality of the education.”

Voters in the seven MVSU district towns will ultimately have the final say on whether to support or reject this budget on Town Meeting Day, March 4.