News from Montpelier

Windsor schools lose battle for $500K

March 8, 2008

By JOSH O’GORMAN Herald Staff

MONTPELIER — The Vermont Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Windsor School District will not be able to recoup about $500,000 in legal expenses following a long legal battle with the state Department of Corrections.

“We are pleased that the Supreme Court found that the school district’s request for further compensation was unreasonable and we are glad to put this matter to rest,” DOC Commissioner Robert Hofmann said Friday.

The Windsor School District has been engaged in lawsuits with the DOC over a piece of land the DOC had given the town that later turned out to be contaminated.

According to the Supreme Court’s decision, the state operated a prison in Windsor until the early 1970’s, and between 1954 and 1958 ran a wood treatment facility on the property.

The wood was dipped in a combination of kerosene and a wood preservative called pentachlorophenol, the court said, and these substances contaminated site.

In 1976 the DOC gave the land to the town. Nobody was aware of the contamination until the DOC contacted the district superintendent in 1995, the court said.

Windsor hired two consulting firms to investigate the property for contamination and in November 1995 the town contacted the DOC telling them of the findings and asked the DOC to assume the full cost of site clean-up.

The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources hired contractors and subcontractors to clean up the site.

Ed Connors, business manager for the school district, said that now the land is used for a football field and a track.

In October 1996 Windsor filed suit against the state and the DOC in Windsor Superior Court seeking compensation for legal and consulting costs. The court found in favor of Windsor and awarded the town $228,981.

Windsor appealed, seeking prejudgment interest on the bank loans the town had taken out to pay for the attorneys and the consultants in the first place, the court said, as well as further legal costs incurred in lawsuits between the town and the state and the town’s lawsuits against its insurers.

The Supreme Court in its ruling rejected these claims for further compensation.

“The bottom line is that the school district did nothing wrong and they are not able to recoup their legal fees,” school district attorney Robert E. Manchester said.

Manchester did not have an exact figure but said that the district will have spent at least $500,000 in legal costs that it will not be able to recoup.

Manchester said there are no further appeals after the Supreme Court, but there is the possibility of rearguing the case. Manchester said that he did not know if the district would pursue rearguing the case.

Superintendent Brenda Needham could not be reached for comment.

“This will be a bitter pill for Windsor residents to swallow when they are trying to keep their school budgets down,” Manchester said.

Contact Josh O’Gorman at josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com.

March 4th - 5th Town Meeting and Elections

Since elections were brought up as topic I have started a new blog here. I am glad this was brought up and although there is only days left before the elections, I think it is important for people to voice views, not whether or not they have been to select board meetings. Whether or not you attend a select board meeting isn’t the real issue, it’s what you take from and give to the meetings that matters.

I listened and watched the candidate forum on WOA and I was most impressed with the two who said they had been speaking with the department heads. I think there in-lies the best approach for governance. We need to know what their needs are and how we can improve their functionality. They serve us. I trust that they, know more about how to protect my life than  a select board does. If you need emergency help, I recommend EMS, if you need help with a criminal, I suggest the Police, if you have a problem with a fire, call the Fire Department. There needs to be more cooperation betwwen the SB and department heads.

Fred

School budget

I’m not sure I heard correctly but, the superintendent will get a raise of .04 percent this year? If she makes 100,000.00 per year, (minimal), her raise will equal $4,000.00. When was the last time you had a raise like that? Wouldn’t it be nice if she would accept a .02 percent raise of only $2000.00 this year? Maybe we should all suffer the ills of a bad economy? These figures might be wrong and I will retract if they are, but I don’t think so.

Also, the school budget will approach 8.9 millions dollars with the 2008-2009 budget. That is an increase of around 300,000 dollars. I heard a figure of 15,000 dollars mentioned during one of the shows but I don’t know where the other 285,000.00 will be spent? I would like to see a break down of the school budget before I vote. Will those figures be in the town report?

I have heard that this year is the last year paying for the new track and field, when will the school be paid down and how much will taxes drop when, (if), they do?

Thanks..

Discussion of Proposed Budget

From Mike Farrell:

In case you missed last night’s live budget call-in show on Windsor on Air, or have some follow up questions, you’ll have another chance to find out about the proposed Town Budget next Thursday night February 21st at 7:00 p.m. We’re hoping for a large crowd, so we’ve moved the meeting location to Room 210 at the high school.

Topics:

Presentation and public discussion of the proposed Town Operational and Capital Budgets, and their relationship to the MRI Assessment Report.

Additionally, here is the copy of the latest proposed budget, as sent out by Mike Farrell.

Adobe Acrobat format (printable) - Proposed 08-09 budget This version also includes % increase column that was not in the original document.

Microsoft Word format - Proposed 08-09 budget - Word format

2 School Boards to Study Consolidation

By Valley News Staff Writer Matt McCormick

The Hartford and Hartland school boards are jointly funding a study of collaboration options for the districts, including several consolidation arrangements that would end Hartland’s much-prized school choice for ninth- through 12th-grade students.

During the four-month, $4,000 study, the Vermont School Boards Association will examine the feasibility of four types of district cooperation, ranging from cost-sharing agreements for elementary school programs to full-fledged K-12 consolidation.

Any implementation of the options is at least 18 months away, and would require townwide votes in both Hartford and Hartland: one to spend $2,500 apiece on a more in-depth study and another to approve any governance changes recommended by the school boards.”

http://www.vnews.com/01102008/4502558.htm

I wonder if the school has addressed the potential effects of such a move since we rely heavily on tuition students to help foot the bill. Why didn’t Windsor approach Hartland about the same issue, or were they completely blindsided?

Learn about Vermont Tax Rates

I’m not sure how I found this Vermont government web page (it was a while ago), but if you want to educate yourself on school and municipal taxes, you should check out a number of links here:

http://www.state.vt.us/tax/pvr.shtml

You should especially check the drop-down list of additional documents on the bottom of that page.  These pages include numerous Excel spreadsheets and matching pdf files (aka Adobe Acrobat files, for those who don’t have Excel), making it possible to accurately compare Windsor’s taxes and property values.
The one I found most useful there was Annual Reports. The latest annual reports are for 2006, but that’s pretty good.

It’s going to take me a while before I understand what each of the spreadsheet columns indicates, because of acronyms and jargon. But I have found a number of definitions by reading through additional spreadsheets.

Hopefully studying these will help us all better understand how Windsor compares against similar towns (if those exist?).