Health insurance, wage increases drive up Hanover, Norwich school costs
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Published: 01-27-2025 5:30 PM
Modified: 01-29-2025 9:31 AM |
HANOVER — In March, voters in Norwich and Hanover will weigh in on school budgets and decide whether to appropriate funds for a new middle school athletics program.
For all three districts, management services from School Administrative Unit 70, rising health insurance costs and wage increases for teachers and staff are the major factors driving up the budgets.
The Dresden School Board is recommending a $31.2 million base operating budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, an increase of about $181,000, or less than one percent, from last year’s budget.
The Dresden School District is an interstate district that serves students from both Norwich and Hanover. It operates Frances C. Richmond Middle School and Hanover High School both located in Hanover. Voters in both towns will have a chance to weigh in on the proposed budget.
If all of the warrant articles pass, the Dresden budget will increase by about $725,000, or 2%.
However, the amount that is needed from taxpayers will increase by $982,000, or nearly 4%, due to a projected decline in revenues of more than 7% mostly from an expected decrease in tuition dollars and funds from New Hampshire.
A separate warrant article asks voters whether they support a three-year agreement with the Hanover Support Staff Association, which represents employees such as education aides, front office workers, bookkeepers and security guards to increase salaries and benefits by $229,000 in Dresden for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The board and the union agreed on a 10% increase in base wages to compensate for a lag in wages compared to neighboring schools.
If voters approve the agreement, wages would increase by 4.5% for the following two years, 2026-27 and 2027-28. If voters do not approve the articles, the tentative agreement would be negated and employees would remain at the current pay levels with no advancement.
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Another article on the Dresden warrant asks voters whether they want to appropriate $201,291 to fund an athletics program at Richmond Middle School.
Currently, Hanover’s Parks and Recreation Department operates the middle school athletics program, offering soccer, cross country, basketball, lacrosse, track and field, and softball. If the article passes, seventh and eight grade athletics would be operated by the middle school.
“It’s a relatively low-cost initiative to provide a lot of services for our students,” Kelly McConnell, vice chairwoman of the Hanover School Board, said.
Families could expect to pay about the same price per child per sport (currently $65 to $135 depending on the sport), but have the additional bonus of transportation services.
The cost in the article includes coaching stipends and adding anew athletic director and co-curricular activities coordinator position.
McConnell said the board hopes these two new staff members would “create some exposure to new sports and inclusive opp ortunities,” including intramural teams and co-curriculars besides athletics.
The Hanover School Board is recommending a $16.2 million base operating budget for the Bernice A. Ray School for students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade. This is a $459,000, or nearly 3%, increase from last year’s budget.
A separate article asks Hanover voters to approve an increase in salaries and benefits by about $156,000 for support staff. The articles for both the Dresden and Hanover districts must pass for these employees to receive increases.
If all of the warrant articles pass in Hanover, the budget will be up $821,000, or about 5%.
If all of the warrant articles pass in both the Hanover and Dresden districts, the projected local education tax increase is 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation, bringing it to $12.11, a more than 4% increase.
If voters approve the budgets with all articles in March as presented, it would add $300 in school taxes to a property assessed at $600,000.
The Norwich School Board is recommending an $8.3 million budget, a $327,000, or approximately 4%, increase from last year’s budget. Meanwhile, revenues in Norwich are projected to increase nearly 6% from the previous year.
Like Hanover and Dresden, the bulk of the budget increases are rising costs in health insurance and management services from SAU 70 and wage increases for employees. Tuition from families outside of the district who send their kids to Norwich is projected to increase 150.3%, helping to drive up revenues.
This year, Norwich will continue to be able to utilize a discount in its tax rate formula due to the spike in the tax rate caused by the Legislature’s passage of Act 127 in 2022. The act drove up last year’s rate by 16.57% even after a 19 cent discount.
Act 127 gives districts more dollars from the state’s education fund for students who are in poverty or who are learning English as a second language than students who are not. Because Norwich does not have many students that meet this criteria, the district now receives less funding per student than it did previously. In order to allow for districts like Norwich to adjust their budgeting, the Legislature introduced a tax rate discount last year that would be reduced every year over a five-year period.
“I’m uncomfortable predicting a tax rate in print as there are too many variables still not decided,” SAU 70 Business Administrator Jamie Teague said.
Vermont’s Agency of Education has not ratified the estimated long term weighted average daily membership for the upcoming fiscal year, which determines the cost per student. The Vermont Department of Taxes also has not set the Common Level of Appraisal, or CLA, yet, Teague noted.
The CLA “adjusts for any difference between the town’s assessed property value from the time of the last reappraisal and its current fair market value,” according to the department’s website.
Norwich is currently undergoing a town wide reassessment, Town Clerk Lily Trajman said in a Tuesday phone interview.
“Early estimates with data points that are subject to change may result in an adjusted tax rate for Norwich that is relatively flat or slightly lower than the current fiscal year,” said Teague.
Norwich’s education homestead tax rate is currently $2.33 per $100 of assessed property value. An owner of a home assessed at $600,000 pays around $14,000 in property taxes for education.
Voting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 4 from 7 a.m to 7 p.m. in the Hanover High School gymnasium for Hanover residents, located at 41 Lebanon St., and in Tracy Hall for Norwich residents, located at 300 Main St.
Emma Roth-Wells can be reached at erothwells@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.
CORRECTION: One of the articles on the Dresden School District warrant asks voters whethe r they want to appropriate funds to add an athletics program, including a new athletic director and co-curricular activities coordinator position, to Richmond Middle School. A story in Tuesday's paper about the Dresden, Norwich and Hanover proposed school budgets included an incorrect number of positions that would be created to lead the program.
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