The Windham Southeast School District board has approved a $69,874,600 - a 2.6% increase this year - for FY27.
Board member Tim Maciel was the sole 'no' vote.
Maciel said he couldn't vote for the budget due to insufficient transparency, board oversight in determining senior administrative pay, and prioritizing capital expenses for athletic facilities and bathroom refurbishment over direct academy and student support services.
He also noted understaffed student support roles and the board's rejection of his proposal earlier in the budgeting process to make a $400,000 capital reduction to evaluate trade-offs.
"So right now, I'm afraid I cannot vote in favor of this proposed budget. […] I have concerns about how senior administrative compensation has been determined over the years," said Maciel. "I am talking about the process here and not the amount of salaries."
Some examples: "Until last year, our school boards had little to no direct oversight of these decisions and compensation for administrators was not even publicly disclosed," he said. "Increases have seemed to take to have little relationship to performance. Transparency matters quite a bit here when we're asking voters to trust that we have examined every major expense."
Raising more concerns, Maciel said it all begs "a fundamental question of priorities."
"I struggle to understand why capital expenses such as $100,000 for bathroom refurbishment or hundreds of thousands of dollars for athletic facilities are treated as absolutely essential for the coming budget year while direct academic student support services are reduced or deemed unaffordable," Maciel said.
"I believe we can still do better," he continued. "My vote reflects a commitment to fiscal responsibility, transparency, and respect for the taxpayers we serve, while remaining fully committed to providing a high quality education for every student in Windham Southeast."
Board Finance Committee Chair Ruby McAdoo spoke via Zoom, calling the budget review process "really robust."
"It's the same process we've had for many years, but I think we did a better job this year at trying to kind of let people know how they could become engaged and show up," she said. "So I can say as the chair, and as someone who has been at every meeting related to budgets in this budget development process, that I feel really confident in this budget. And I feel that way because we had multiple meetings where our administrators were in the room and we could ask them questions. . .are there ways that we can improve it and tweak it and make it better for future years? Always."
McAdoo continued to say, "these are budgets that will help us reach our goals."
"And that's what our administrators have told us," she said, adding Speno and Business Manager Frank Rucker, who has announced his December 2026 retirement, have said adjusting the budget "over the years" has brought it "further and further fiscally responsive."
Key cost drivers in the budget include negotiated agreements ($794,000), health insurance increases ($378,000), and special education costs ($196,000).
Offsets include eliminating the 10 positions (approximately $700,000) and reducing the equipment budget ($150,000).
The proposed budget would reduce the tax rate from $1.84 to $1.80, a 3.9-cent decrease, based on current state funding law.
Spending per student is essentially flat at $15,972, well below the state's tax penalty threshold of $16,470.
The weighted student count is projected to rise by 1.5% to 3,863, primarily due to increases in students in poverty, not solely multi-language learners.
Among roughly 65 districts reporting, the district's 2.2% education spending increase is about half the state average of 4%.
The district's annual meeting and budget vote will be Tuesday, March 17 at Brattleboro Union High School.
School tax rates are currently projected to rise by about 2.9% in Brattleboro, 4.6% in Dummerston, 5.8% in Guilford, and 0.4% in Putney, but the district doesn't yet know the effect of this year's legislative "yield bill," which will affect property taxes as well.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.