Q: What is the Special Article for the MVU Parking Lot?
A:This means that the vote for the school budget and the vote for funds to fix the MVU parking lot will be separate items on the ballot. Voters can approve both, only one, or neither.
Q: How Are Our Schools Doing?
A: We're happy to report state test scores are up in all subject areas. But test scores are only part of the picture of school success. Enrollment is stable, average attendance in 95%, and staff retention is at 90%. We have also started to increase focus on preparing students for future success, with a dedicated career-readiness center in MVU, on site agriculture and welding training, a partnership with Northwest Career and Technical Center, work placement programs, an internship program, an annual apprenticeship fair, early college offerings, and more opportunities being added every year. This budget was designed to ensure level services to students to maintain this momentum while also keeping our rank as one of the lowest spending districts in the state.
Q: What is a Level Service Budget?
A: A Level Service Budget means keeping the same services offered to students without removing any from the previous year, even if they have increased in cost. This helps ensure consistent progress for students year to year.
Q: What is the tax impact of this budget?
A: Tax rates are calculated using a wide variety of factors, and individual district spending per student is just a small part. For this proposed budget the Equalized Tax Rate is DOWN $0.02. This tax rate is shared among every town in the district and is more reflective of what is within local control than individual households' final tax rate which can continue to fluctuate even after a school budget is passed.
Q: How Can the Tax Rate Go Down if the School Budget Goes Up?
A: School funding is distributed by the state based on the total budgets passed by all school districts and supervisory unions. This means if spending is down on average throughout the state, taxes can go down, even if our individual district budget goes up.
Q: How Does MVSD Spending Compare to the Rest of the State?
A: MVSD is one of the best values in Vermont. Even with rising test scores and increasing student opportunities, we spend less than 80% of school districts in the state. About $1500 less per student than the state average.
Our community has consistently asked for renovations to the MVU parking lot. Because this will add about $0.04 to the equalized tax rate, we are putting that to an individual vote to ensure it truly reflects the majority opinion.