In the first full preview of the budget needed to run schools for the 2027-28 school year, Harwood Unified Union School District board members have gotten the bad news – and more bad news.
District finance director Lisa Estler’s sweeping 50-slide presentation to the school board Sept. 24, uses preliminary cost estimates in its forecast that will come into clearer focus as January nears.
The options appear to be setting up an unprecedented choice between asking voters to agree to paying a potentially hefty penalty to the state, or asking them to support trimming the equivalent of several dozen full-time staff in one year.
Starting with the current $51.9 million budget that voters approved in March to run schools this year, Estler calculated a projected budget for next year considered “level-service.” That means keeping the same staffing and programs that exist today.
Calculating the increased costs of current services, that scenario shows the bottom line would grow by 6.4% to $55.2 million.
The catch: The 2026-27 budget came in $241 below the state’s per-pupil spending threshold. But legislation passed earlier this year lowered the spending threshold, so the projected level-service budget for 2027-28 goes over by $1,071.
PENALTY
As a result, operating the school district next year as it is running this year would cost the district a penalty of over $2.7 million.
Superintendent Mike Leichliter joined Estler in presenting the information. He pointed to one slide showing a school being squeezed by a vice.
He said the illustration is apropos and he also took issue with the state’s spending cap being called an “excess spending threshold” in common parlance.
“To me that's a pejorative term,” he said, explaining that the figure is an average. “You’re going to have numbers above and below,” he said.
Historically, HUUSD has built its budgets to fall just below the state average per-pupil spending, he pointed out. Exacerbating the pressure, Leichliter noted, is that enrollment continues to decline, pushing the per-pupil cost calculation higher.
“All the calculations that Lisa showed you … are further to our detriment,” he said.
The district will share its student count for this year in October. Estler said it will likely be down by about 30 from last October’s tally of 1,591.
ASSESSING OPTIONS
In all, Estler presented five variations of preliminary budgets.
A $53.3 million version, for example, relies on an increase of just 2.7% in line with inflation. It surpasses the spending threshold by $172 per pupil, resulting in a $445,000 penalty.
One option for coming in under the new threshold holds spending at the exact level as the current school year’s budget, $51,884,847.
The good news: Capping FY28 spending at the FY27 level puts per-pupil spending $230 under the state threshold. The bad news: Rising costs of contracted salaries, employee health insurance, special education, and transportation will require cutting at least $3.3 million to stay under the cap. Estler said that equates to losing the equivalent of at least 30 full-time employees. She pointed out that, over the past three years, the district has trimmed the equivalent of 53 full-time staff.
“That bottom line of reducing $3.3 million with our current structure – that's impossible. I don't know how we would get there,” Leichliter said.
BUDGET SEASON
Meeting twice monthly, the school board has until late January to assemble the budget that it will put to voters on Town Meeting Day in March. Leichliter said the board’s first task is to choose a path.
“The board is going to have to strategize to say, number one: what's the appetite of our community for exceeding that spending threshold? To what amount? What would you like to see?” he said.
The first run-through yielded no decisions from the school board. They asked administrators for more data for costs associated with big changes to consider, such as transportation, extracurricular activities and field trips.
They asked about savings from combining all seventh- and eighth-graders at Harwood.
And although the board in September agreed to explore the concept of combining the four Valley elementary schools, that move has not been envisioned to occur as soon as next fall. The board has yet to hire an architect to evaluate the feasibility of the Cabot Creamery office building in Waitsfield as a possible site for a future combined elementary school.
Short of that, some members pointed to a slide listing operational costs by school showing several schools’ operating costs between $2 million and $3 million.
CLOSING BUILDINGS
“We are not fans of closing buildings,” the superintendent said, adding, however, that there would be efficiencies in combining classes from small elementary schools. Closing an elementary school raises the issue of finding schools with the capacity to accommodate them.
Drafting the FY28 budget has a late-January target to be ready for voters in March.
Board Chair Ashley Woods commented that the new, lower spending thresholds are putting pressure on that process.
“So now we're going to get squeezed,” she said. “Squeezed to meet [the] demand, which is to merge, to shrink, to close. That's what this is. This is deliberate.”
Woods said the board could try a suggestion from Waitsfield member J.B. Weir to begin future board meetings with budget discussions to make it easier for the public to attend or follow online. The board’s Outreach Committee encourages people to send board members emails with suggestions and questions. They also created an online form to collect and share questions and answers publicly. Find that online at tinyurl.com/Harwoodbudgetquestions.
