St. Johnsbury School Budget Update

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Created on Wednesday, 05 March 2014 19:59

Written by Elyssa Ellis

ST. JOHNSBURY- St. Johnsbury's proposed school budget of nearly sixteen million dollars was shot down. Superintendent Ranney Bledsoe says it's not the first time one of the town's proposed school budgets has failed. "We certainly heard that they're very upset about being hit with a really big tax increase this year." Bledsoe said.

While the budget didn't pass Garth Leach a father of two children that attend the St. Johnsbury School is upset with the results of yesterday's vote.

"I came back five years ago and we decided we wanted to raise our kids in St. Johnsbury so we came back and unfortunately the one thing that we didn't know coming back here was how much of a struggle the school was having both in education but also with raising money to support the kids." Leach said.

Tuitioning students to attend the academy is what officials say was the leading factor in the proposed budget increase. Now the district has a waiting period before they can make another request to be voted on by the town.

"We felt that we had a close to barebones budget and we have a strong history of being frugal and we really felt that we were asking for supper that was justified but we also have to respect the response of the voters. Bledsoe said.

Leach said, "I didn't think that what they were asking for was a lot of money, it's an increase, but I think it's an increase that was obvious."

Bledsoe said now that the proposed budget wasn't passed the school board will have to return to the drawing board and figure out what their next steps will be.