Dave McAllister, a member of the Morristown School Board, speaks during a joint meeting of the Elmore-Morristown Unified Union Study Committee and the Stowe School District Board of Directors on Tuesday evening. Photo by Amy Ash Nixon/VTDigger
MORRISTOWN — The Stowe School District board of directors voted unanimously Tuesday not to pursue an accelerated merger under Act 46 with Morristown and Elmore, the other two school districts that make up the Lamoille South Supervisory Union.
Elmore and Morristown are well along in a merger study to join those school districts, and will seek permission from the State Board of Education in September to bring a merger proposal to voters in November.
Whether Stowe would want to attach itself to an Elmore-Morristown Unified Union was on the table at the joint meeting of the merger study committee and the Stowe School Board on Tuesday evening at Morristown Elementary School.
The merger study for the EMUU predates passage of Act 46, but the unified district could later join with a larger Pre-K-12 district, as well.
Act 46 calls on the state’s 277 school districts to find ways to merge into larger Pre-K-12 education districts of at least 900 students to improve educational opportunity and equity for Vermont’s students, and to find cost efficiencies for taxpayers.
The Stowe school directors’ vote Tuesday does not preclude a later merger possibility with Elmore and Morristown or the potential EMUU.
But Stowe’s board made it clear that even with the tax breaks under the accelerated mergers in the new law, Stowe taxpayers would see property tax hikes — not breaks.
“It’s a big thing that we’re saying ‘no’ to,” said Stowe board chairman Cameron Page of the decision not seek the most generous tax breaks in Act 46, a five-year tax rate discount with a one-year window of opportunity.
The Stowe school directors believe their district is already meeting the law in achieving cost effectiveness, strong educational opportunities and outcomes for students, and they said the district has a long history of partnering with the other two districts in Lamoille South.
However, the board made plain that it wants to remain autonomous and preserve local control over its district and its budget.
The board also voted to pursue an alternative governance exception under Act 46 from the State Board of Education to allow Stowe to remain a distinct district.
Stowe school directors acknowledged that seeking an alternative governance structure under Act 46 will be a risk, but agreed it is a risk worth taking.
Stowe School Director Richard Bland said the alternative governance structure Stowe would seek could see the two districts “… collectively meeting all of the goals of Act 46.”
Bland said not going after the accelerated merger incentives is in the Stowe taxpayers’ best interests.
“For us in Stowe, there’s a tax disincentive for us, in that our taxpayers would suffer an approximately 17 percent increase,” Bland said.
Stuart Weppler, a member of the Elmore School Board, speaks at a meeting of the Elmore-Morristown Unified Union Study Committee on Tuesday evening at Morristown Elementary School. Photo by Amy Ash Nixon/VTDigger
A third vote taken by the Stowe school directors was to continue to look at working with Elmore and Morristown and other neighboring districts in the event the district is not permitted an alternate governance structure by the state.
Elmore has been facing significant tax increases and must partner with another district to stop that trajectory, said Stuart Weppler of the Elmore board.
The town’s homestead taxpayers will save about $600,000 annually, Weppler said of the merger with Morristown.
“Morristown has a tougher sell on the process, because they do have a tax increase (under the merged district), but they are guaranteed 120 students,” who will tuition from Elmore, said Weppler; the town will give up school choice in the merger, which now exists for upper grades.
That guaranteed stream of Elmore students, and the fact that Morristown’s school district has the capacity for those students, means it will not impact the system financially, said Tracy Wrend, LSSU superintendent.
Morristown School Board member Dave McAllister said the three districts within LSSU already have a track record of working well together, urging Stowe to be part of the conversations going forward around merging the districts.
“None of us want to bite the bullet, we don’t want to sign onto an agreement that we know is going to cost us more money,” McAllister said. “We’re extending a hand to you guys and saying ‘They’re telling us that we’ve got to paint our house and by getting ahead of the game, we get to choose our color’ because it’s coming,” he said of the state’s directive to schools across Vermont.
For school districts that do not move into the preferred structures laid out in Act 46, and do not meet the Agency of Education’s quality review process, the State Board of Education can, in the end, restructure school districts to meet the state’s objectives for education equity and economies of scale.
About 10 residents of Stowe attended the meeting.
Chandler Matson, a Stowe resident, said while the new law protects against school closures initially, “… merging of districts invites the possibility that in order to find actual economic savings, it will require shuttering of schools or programs and that will be a decision made by a governing body from different schools (in a unified district) and one town will win, and one town will lose.”
“That is true, that is the nature of finite resources, and it’s why many Stowe residents as well as towns throughout this state are worried,” said Matson. “The savings from this bill seem to be illusory … real cuts will have to be made, real savings will have to be found.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Stowe school directors vote to keep school district autonomous.