Dear Ward 7 neighbors and constituents,
Hope this message finds you well, enjoying the winter months, staying happy, healthy and warm. I am writing to advocate for the FY'25 BSD School Budget and the importance of voting YES on our proposed budget. On January 16th, the school board approved BSD's operating budget for the FY'25 fiscal year, totaling $119.6 million dollars, which is an increase of $15.5 million from the current FY'24 fiscal year. There are a few factors that impact our increased budget this year. The first being that ESSER funds (Federal COVID relief funds) expired with the FY'24 fiscal cycle. Then there are the standard increases to wages and benefits, with health insurance premiums alone going up 15%. And lastly, nearly 60% of the $15.5 million increase, is the payment on the debt service for the BHS-BTC bond. This year BSD borrowed $130 million for the building of our new high school, leading to a debt service payment of $9.5 million. We are grateful to our community, which in November 2022 overwhelmingly approved the high school bond measure. However, voting yes on that bond measure only gave the approval to borrow the money, now it is time to start paying it back. The FY25 budget reflects the biggest tax impact of the BHS-BTC project and in subsequent years, the debt service payments will be smaller.
For the third year in a row, under the direction of Superintendent Flanagan, BSD is utilizing an Equitable Budget and Staffing Model. This model does not have to do with increasing or decreasing the budget, but redistributing how 'the pie is cut' so that more resources go to students who need them most. The RISE (Recognizing Injustice and Seeking Equity) allocation uses a weighted student formula funneling funds to schools in greater need. Each school in the district formed an Advisory Group composed of school leaders, teachers and parents, to come up with a plan on how to spend that school's RISE allocation. Our Superintendent is also committed to supporting the 5 year Strategic Plan composed of five priority areas. The FY'25 budget includes modest investments in this area totaling $1.2 million, and offsetting this spending with $1.1 million in cuts, mostly to Central Office staff and budgets and 4 FTE teaching positions throughout the district.
On the state wide level, thanks to the hard work of Commissioner Sowers and many other school commissioners from across the state, Act 127 was passed and is being enacted in this FY'25 budget. Act 127 deals with a more equitable distribution of Vermont's education fund dollars by rebalancing the Pupil Weighting formula. Under this formula more money is being funneled to districts, such as ours, with higher needs. We are seeing the benefits of this, however they are balanced out with our initial BHS-BTC debt service payment. Another provision in Act 127 is a tax cap of 5%, which BSD is taking advantage of.
Last but not least, I must mention the negative impact of the CLA (Common Level of Appraisal) on our budget. The CLA is a measure of how closely property in a community is valued at fair market value. Since our home values are increasing rapidly without being reappraised, this year's CLA for Burlington came in at -7.87%, which drove the tax impact up by 9%. Thus the overall tax impact for the FY'25 is at a total of nearly 14%, which is a daunting figure. To drive this number below 10%, BSD would have to cut staffing by 50 FTEs, which is nearly 12% of our BSD's staff. I urge you to please support our school FY'25 budget in this difficult year.
For more info on this budget or any other BSD related issue, please come meet with myself, Kendra Sowers and Martine Gulick, your NNE School Commissioners, this upcoming Saturday, February 10th, from 9:30am to 10:30am at The Bagel Café.
Cheers,
Monika Ivancic, PhD
Ward 7 School Commissioner
(802) 540-0830
Dec 24, 2024, 4 PM
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Legal ClinicDec 28, 2024, 11 AM to 1 PM