Woodstock Union High School senior Finn Farrell speaks in support of full-time Latin teacher Sarah Allen to the Mountain Views Supervisory Union board on Monday, Dec. 2 in Woodstock, Vt. Photo by Jennifer Hauck/Valley NewsThis story by Christina Dolan was first published in The Valley News on Dec. 17WOODSTOCK — A divided Mountain Views School Board voted 8-7 at a special meeting Monday night to restore all of the unified arts positions eliminated in an initial budget proposal first presented to the board last month.The original proposal contained cuts to two central office staff, 17 full- and part-time teaching and staff positions, and reduced funding for building and grounds and professional development for teachers and administrators. Monday’s vote restored the high school Latin program, a full-time STEM teacher, full-time Spanish teacher and part-time teachers in music, art and French.The board has not yet made final decisions on the roughly $30 million budget, which remains under review. The budget supports the education of the more than 900 students Mountain Views serves from Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Pomfret, Plymouth, Reading and Woodstock, as well as tuition-paying students from the surrounding region.Bridgewater representative Ryan Townsend made the motion to ask the district’s leadership to restore all of the unified arts positions in all grades. The community, he said, had spoken.If the board were to approve a budget with any cuts to the arts, it would be “a slap to the face of the community that we are literally here to represent,” he said.The board’s decision came following public opposition to the proposed budget cuts.“If we have 15 different sections that we can look at to cut,” Townsend said, “I’d like to make a motion that (unified arts) is not on that list at all.”When the vote was called, the result was a 7-7 tie, which Board Chairwoman Keri Bristow broke with an “aye.”“I think it’s worth exploration,” she said. “If it comes to still having to make cuts, we have to make cuts,” she added.Deliberating for more than two hours in the Woodstock Middle and High School library Monday night, board members grappled with how, or even whether, to keep next year’s spending below an “excess spending” penalty threshold set by the state. Members questioned whether the voting public would tolerate a budget that included penalty payments, even if that budget resulted in a decrease in tax rates from last year to this year.The main culprit in the district’s current budget woes is an “excess spending” penalty that the Legislature suspended in 2022. With the penalty suspended until 2029, Mountain Views’ spending crept up.But, hoping to rein in educational spending at the district level, the Legislature reinstated the excess spending penalty shortly before adjourning this past June.For Mountain Views, the penalty means that unless it shaves $1.5 million in spending from its fiscal year ‘26 budget, every dollar above the “excess” threshold will be taxed as though it were two dollars.The first inklings of trouble in the district came in September when teachers and staff began receiving buyout offers — half of their annual salaries to leave the district — and a $6,000 incentive to waive the school’s health insurance policy.READ MORE As the budget proposal became public, the board began to face public pushback, including in a Dec. 2 meeting during which nearly 100 students, parents and community members voiced support for the arts and urged the board to reject the proposed budget.During Monday’s meeting some expressed concerns that cuts to programming, whether in the arts, athletics or other extracurricular offerings, would degrade the quality of education and drive families away from the district, raising tax rates for those who remain.“The more you keep cutting, the more people are going to leave,” Killington resident and zoning board administrator Jim Haff said. Haff was among the roughly 70 members of the public who attended Monday’s special meeting both in person and via Zoom.If cuts to programs and staff drive people out of the district, “our cost per pupil is going to go up even more, as are our taxes,” Woodstock resident Jessica Kirby, speaking via Zoom, said.The board’s Finance Committee Chairman Ben Ford presented a spreadsheet showing comparisons of the tax impacts of different budget scenarios, including keeping all of the original cuts, restoring all of those cuts, and restoring only the unified arts positions.The upshot of Ford’s analysis was that, even if the board restored all of the cuts in the original budget proposal, tax rates would decline in all but two of its towns.With all cuts restored, Ford estimated that Killington would see a 2.33% tax rate increase from last year, Plymouth’s would increase by 12.74%, and all other towns would see a decline in rates.With all of the original cuts in place — including the unified arts positions — Ford’s data showed that Plymouth would see an estimated 7.9% tax increase, and all other towns would see a decrease.The caveat in these early tax rate estimations, Finance Director Jim Fenn noted, is that the state does not finalize the education tax rate until June.Additionally, there is uncertainty about what, if any, steps the Legislature might take when it reconvenes in January.“The state could change its numbers again,” Bristow said.Pomfret resident and board member Bob Crean, who voted in favor of restoring the unified arts cuts, said that the move may increase the odds of approval when the budget goes before voters. “If we don’t cut (unified arts),” he said. “We’ll have a strong force in the community to convince the rest of the community to go ahead and pass the budget.”The board hopes to approve a budget by Jan. 6, so that it can be warned in time for Town Meeting in March.There is, however, no statutory requirement that school boards present their budgets to voters in March, Bristow said.“If we don’t pass our budget in March because of some of these things, we have to go again in April and see where it lands,” she said.Read the story on VTDigger here: Mountain Views school board restores budget for arts positions.