Recount confirms narrow school budget defeat in Alburgh

ALBURGH – A recount has confirmed the results of a narrow election in early May that saw Alburgh voters reject a proposed spending plan for the Alburgh Town School District by a single vote.

Election officials in Alburgh met earlier this week to review the results from an early May special election, confirming through a requested recount that voters had rejected their school district’s proposed $8.3 million budget by a slim 110-to-109 vote margin.

The recount, handled Monday afternoon at Alburgh’s town office, was overseen by Alburgh’s municipal clerk Danielle James Choiniere and three members of Alburgh’s board of civil authority, selectperson Tom Ward and justices of the peace Christopher Higgins and Loretta Knight. Each official individually confirmed the results of this month’s special election.

“It just goes to show you,” Higgins remarked as the recount came to a close, “that your vote counts.”

The recount had been requested by Cheryl Dunn, the chairperson of Alburgh’s elected school board. In a brief interview on Monday, Dunn said she had individually spoken with each of her counterparts on the board and confirmed that “the whole board” supported her request for a recount.

According to Vermont statute, residents in a town or a school district are allowed to request a recount if an election for a local ballot item is decided by a margin of less than 5% of the total votes cast. Residents can request a recount within ten days of an election.

In an interview on Monday, Dunn said the Alburgh school board would likely meet next week to discuss their next budget vote. The school board chair was hesitant to commit to any particular spending cuts, citing both ongoing debate about offsetting property taxes in Montpelier and the little room officials had to amend their budget without affecting education programming.

“I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘Go back with the same budget, with a bigger push,’” Dunn told The Islander. “You get down to cutting staff, and that hurts kids.”
Had it been approved, the Alburgh Town School District’s proposed $8.3 million spending plan would have supported both programming at the Alburgh Community Education Center and tuition payments for older students attending high school outside of the Champlain Islands. The spending plan would have also funded Alburgh’s share of the larger Grand Isle Supervisory Union budget.

With roughly 200 students between its prekindergarten program and its elementary and middle school classes, the Alburgh Community Education Center is the largest public school in Grand Isle County.

This month’s election was the second time voters rejected Alburgh’s proposed $8.3 million budget for the next school year. The same proposal had appeared on a Town Meeting Day ballot this past March, when voters handily defeated the proposed budget by a 256-to-201 margin.

After their budget was rejected in March, school officials in Alburgh discussed cutting up to $100,000 from their initial spending plan before ultimately agreeing to bring the same budget before voters in May. At the time, officials argued the spending plan would be more palatable by May, when lawmakers were expected to have agreed to using state funds to offset property taxes statewide.

Members of the Alburgh school board also argued that their ability to amend their district’s proposed budget was limited, with most of their proposed spending allocated to either tuition payments or mandated programming overseen by the Grand Isle Supervisory Union, like special education, that was tightly regulated under state and federal law.

According to school officials, the $8.3 million budget rejected twice by voters amounted to a roughly 3.2% increase in spending from the year before. Alburgh officials attributed the increased spending almost entirely to increases in what the district needed to budget for health care and dental insurance, as well as contractual increases in wages.

As of early May, school officials were projecting a likely 6.9% increase in local education taxes had their spending plan been approved. According to officials, an outsized increase in education taxes in Alburgh stemmed primarily from challenges with Vermont’s formula for calculating taxes, with Alburgh officials particularly citing the formula’s use of a ratio reflecting local property sales.

Tax projections from early May were expected to change over the coming weeks as lawmakers continue debating potential tax relief in Montpelier. The Vermont Senate and Vermont House of Representatives have each forwarded their own proposals allocating different amounts of surplus funding for buying down Vermont’s education taxes, as has Gov. Phil Scott’s administration.

In Alburgh, meanwhile, officials were anticipating another election over the coming weeks. The Alburgh school board was tentatively planning to meet this coming Wednesday to discuss their defeated school budget, according to Dunn, and were anticipating a quick turnaround to bring another budget proposal before voters before the end of June.

“We have until the end of the month,” Dunn told The Islander after Monday’s recount.

The Alburgh school district has until July to approve a new budget. Without an approved spending plan in place by the start of the next fiscal year, the district would only be allowed to borrow up to 87% of its current operating budget, an amount that would both add interest costs to what school officials already considered a tight budget and likely affect programming at Alburgh’s elementary and middle school.

This month’s special election was notable for being the second election in Alburgh where the final vote tallies were remarkably close. Earlier this year on Town Meeting Day, candidates Bernard Savage and Tom Ward tied in their respective bids for a three-year seat on Alburgh’s selectboard, prompting a rare runoff election that ultimately saw Ward elected.

According to Choiniere, Alburgh’s municipal clerk, recounts were relatively rare in Alburgh. This week’s recount was the first Choiniere had overseen since becoming Alburgh’s town clerk, and Choiniere estimated that it had been “a couple of years” since Alburgh last saw a local election come close enough to warrant a recount.

“Your vote really counts,” Choiniere told The Islander. “You can literally sway an election.”