To the Editor: Voters urged to pass Green Mountain HS budget

To the Editor,

Thanks to the hard work of Green Mountain Union High School administration and staff, the GMUHS proposed 2012-13 budget represents an increase in expenditures over the prior year of 1.43%, less than half the rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index for 2011, and almost $5,000 less than the 2009-10 budget approved three years ago. The increases are primarily due to personnel costs, an increase in staffing in the new Library Learning Commons and additional spending on technology.

We continue to maintain the number of learning opportunities for our students and have been able to make significant improvements in technology. The new Library Learning Commons will be a great boost to the longevity of our school and a terrific addition for the community to hold public events.

For the purposes of comparison, we have included the cost of sending students to the River Valley Technical Center in the 1.43% figure. (The actual cost of sending approximately 37 students from our school district is down $26,127 this year.) Thanks to the hard work of staff and administration at RVTC, the local assessment to sending schools, which includes just the cost of the high school age vocational programs, is down 3.64% for the 2012-13 proposed budget.

The assessment to the local school districts for the Windsor Southwest Supervisory Union operating budget is up 2.3% this year, following a 0.5% decrease for last year. The total translates into an increase of $3,910 and $2,050 for the GMUHS and CAES budgets respectively. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have on the subject. Per state mandate, more current districtwide expenditures will continue to transfer to the SU budget from the school budgets.

All of the detailed budgets may be found on the following websites: http://gmuhs.wswsu.org/  http://www.rvtc.org/and www.wswsu.org. You may request a hard copy of all budgets by calling the WSWSU office at 875-3365, ext. 10, or stopping at any of the school offices.

We are truly fortunate to have these excellent educational institutions available to our students. We appreciate the support from the community for our schools. Please support our community and students by voting YES on the GMUHS budget, the CAES budget and the RVTC budget. Thank you.

Alison DesLauriers
Vice Chair, GMUHS Board
Chair, RVTC Board
Chair, WSWSU Board