Winooski Voters to decide on school budget

A teacher & student play hopscotch outside of John F. Kennedy Elementary School this past fall. File photo by Brooke McKeen.

As Town Meeting Day approaches, Winooski Voters have important decisions to make — like the fate of the Winooski School Budget.

Although there is little growth in the overall proposed budget, if passed, the budget will result in higher tax rates for Winooski Taxpayers. The City of Winooski and the Winooski School district held their annual joint budget presentations on Feb. 17.

“We’re proposing a budget that only sees a 2.69% increase in our overall budget, but unfortunately it means a potential increase in our overall tax rates by like 7%,” said Winooski School Board Member Alexander Yin. “Part of it is that the revenue streams at the state level weren’t as high, so to make up for it, I think some of it is coming out of the education budget.”

 It’s important to involve the community when proposing the FY 2022 budget, Yin said.

“When we design a budget it’s important for us to have what we call ‘budget buddies’, people from the community to keep us honest and make sure that when we propose a budget, we’re proposing a budget that will be supported by the community so that they will vote ‘yes’ on March 2,” Yin said.

In the Winooski School District’s budget flyer, Superintendent Sean McMannon notes that the low budget increase is “particularly impressive given the onset of debt service for our capital project.”

According to the flyer, the proposed budget will invest in transportation for students who live over .75 miles from the Winooski campus. More money goes to the districts’ Cultural Liaisons, who provide families with services like interpreting parent-teacher conferences and references to other services.

The board has faced challenges creating a low-increase budget while accommodating the needs of students.

“We’re a school district that is working also to advocate at the state level to really fix our educational equity,” Yin said.  “The education funding formula disadvantages our students and it really constrains our ability to really meet the needs of our students.”

Yin says that he is working to adjust the education funding formula to “remove some of the inequities that are in our system so that we can provide a fair education to all of our students.”

Yin says that this challenge hasn’t prevented the board from meeting the needs of the students.

“I’m not going to say that we’ve been failing our students because we have a creative administration team, school board, staff, teachers, who’ve been creating ways to make sure that we meet the needs, but it didn’t have to be as hard as it has been,” Yin said.

Winooski teacher’s union leader Matthew Webb agrees that the district is supporting its students.

“I would say the district has made really great strides in recent years to make sure that English Language Learners are getting the support that they need, to make sure that students with special needs are being supported” Webb said.

However, Webb says that he is frustrated with the salaries of Winooski teachers.

“The main issue for teachers is that we are paid by far the worst in Chittenden County,” Webb said. “Vermont has statewide school funding, so it’s been frustrating to consistently not be able to get our salaries up.” 

Webb says it would be beneficial for the district to raise teacher’s salaries.

“It’s not good for Winooski in the long-term to not be able to pay competitive wages, certainly as the school district is thinking about trying to attract and retain more faculty of color,” Webb said. “I don’t see how having such uncompetitive wages is really going to incentivize folks to choose our school, when really I think any school would be happy to diversify its faculty, including schools that are paying up to $15,000 more per year salary to teachers.”

Although Webb wishes to see a change in teacher salaries, he does acknowledge positive aspects of the proposed budget.

“Another thing I think is good is that the budget’s starting to include money for the renovation project, which we’re all just extremely excited about, it’s going to be a really big positive for Winooski.”

According to the flyer, McMannon is in favor of the board’s proposed budget.

“I think you will see that the Board of Trustees has constructed a thoughtful, vision-driven investment in Winooski children that continues to move us forward to meet the high expectations for our WSD Ends Statement,” McMannon wrote.