School+Budget

SCHOOL BUDGET

As you might of heard, 48 teachers are expected to be layoff after taxpayers had declined annual school budget said Jeanne Collins the Superintendent. Collins had imagined it was between 20 or 30. On Wednesday she had told the Free Press the number of teaching positions had hit 48. The union contract says that the teachers should be informed by March 28 if the district does not plan to move forward with their services in the approaching school year. With no budget in place there can’t be any promises. When the final budget is accepted, Collins assumes an unknown portion of the layoff notices will be removed. The city taxpayers selected 4,118 to 3,424 to decline the proposed $66,871,288 school budget on Town Meeting Day. The Voters in four city’s seventh ward gave a negative thumbs down on the budget. This reflected 9.9 percent of growth in the total tax rate, the budget had also included $1.5 million to cover a shortage. Collins also says that the districts will be looking at possible cuts to programs and staff as it tries to start a new budget for taxpayers to consider. The board is anticipating to have a budget to the voters before the end of June. Six brand new members of the school board starts on April first. In Vermont layoff notices are frequent when local school budgets are rejected. Union contracts needs school districts to inform any teacher by an agreed upon date. They do not plan to restart an employee’s contract. With no ultimate approved budget in hand school districts are not able to guarantee everyone's job. Some of the cases all the teachers got a layoff notice this is because layoffs are based on a combination of factors. More than just seniority.

This might be a hard change for others and this might not affects others. Since there is a layoff, staff and programs will be cut out because of the budget that can not guaranteed everyone's job. Lots of people are declining the budget and included a $1.5 million to cover a shortage. I think that this will be bad because people are losing job because the taxpayers had rejected the annual school budget. And as Collins said that she thought differently about how many people were getting layoff she had imagined that there was going to be 20 to 30 people layoff, but instead it was 48 teachers that are expectedly be layoff. This would change people's lives and how they would live. I have asked some people what they think about this. One of the people said, “This will affect your life & change the way you live. It's not a good thing for people who don't know how to save.” Another said, “This would make your life harder and getting layoff you would have to be prepared and this happens without notice.” To me I agree with both theses two people. This is what I think and how this would affect other people in this situation.

KC Hlordsz January 25, 2016