Williston
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MARCH 14, 2024
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
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School board reduces budget proposal Revote set for April 16 BY JASON STARR Observer staff Champlain Valley School District administrators acted quickly last week to revise their budget for the upcoming fiscal year after voters rejected their original $106 million proposal on Town Meeting Day. A split school board on Tuesday approved a $102 million budget proposal and set a date of April 16 for a revote in the five-town district. The board approved the proposal by a 7-4 vote with some members wanting to reduce the budget further before putting it back on the ballot. The $102 million budget has a roughly $6 million increase in spending over the current year. But it is a reduction of $4 million from the budget that was defeated last week. The board also agreed to add in $1 million in reserve funds to soften the impact on taxpayers, leaving the district with $1.7 million remaining in reserves. Voters defeated the original proposal largely due to the projected 20 percent tax rate increase it would have resulted in. “This is not where we wanted to be, but we need to react to the feedback from the community,” said Meghan Metzler, the Charlotte board member who took over Tuesday as board chair from Williston’s Angela Arsenault. Within the $4 million reduction is the loss of 42 positions, including 16 teaching positions, nine administrative positions and 17 support staff positions that
were created with federal pandemic recovery grants. It also includes scaling back on school maintenance projects, according to the district’s chief operations officer, Gary Marckres. He said the district could absorb the cuts without “major structural changes to schools.” “Building administrators identified what they believe were the least impactful reductions,” Marckres said. All educators in the district were notified last week that staff cuts are on the horizon. “Please remember, there are humans behind these decisions,” CVU librarian Peter Langella told the board. “You are talking about people’s livelihoods, their vocation, their passions.” Arsenault said the staff cuts will mean “a lot of moments that won’t happen, moments of connection. It represents giving up a lot … Every cut is a tiny loss.” Allen Brook School teacher Cara Clopton said the district should consider offering retirement incentives to more tenured teachers with salaries over $100,000 to make room for upand-coming teachers who are paid less. As a whole, teachers in the district are due a 4.5 percent salary increase next fiscal year under their union contract with the board. Marckres estimates that the new budget proposal will result in a 14 percent tax rate increase for Williston property owners over the current fiscal year. That would amount to an additional $723 on the annual property tax bill of the median-priced home ($300,000).
The Planetarium Lady, aka Carrie Cruz, left, will bring her mobile planetarium, above, to the WCS gym March 22 to give students a preview of the April 8 solar eclipse. OBSERVER COURTESY PHOTOS
‘Planetarium Lady’ sees sky high interest BY JASON STARR Observer staff What a time to be the Planetarium Lady. Carrie Cruz moved from Long Island, N.Y., in 2020 after retiring from public school teaching and working as an educator at a museum and planetarium. In Williston, she found a property for sale at the top of Snowdrift Lane that once housed a Vermont Astronomical Society observatory. That’s when the stars began to align on a post-retirement business idea. She would refurbish the observatory and teach about the moon, planets, sun and stars with her own portable planetarium. Cruz also was aware of a once-in-a-lifetime event that hadn’t dawned on
most people yet: next month’s total solar eclipse. With the April 8 event now on the horizon, the Planetarium Lady, as her business is called, is
ECLIPSE PREVIEW WHAT: Planetarium show WHERE: Williston Central WHEN: March 22 Register at www.damlvt.org in serious demand. She will set up the planetarium at the Williston Central School gym March 22 in a Dorothy Alling Memorial Library event, inviting people in for a simulated preview of the eclipse
as seen from space and a discussion about planetary science. The dome fits about 20 people at a time. Register for a time slot at www.damlvt.org. “I’m able to move us through time and space and watch the interplay of the earth, the moon and the sun and how the sun casts the moon’s shadow down on North America,” Cruz explained. “When you see all of this dynamic motion and you see what’s really happening and understand the whole dynamic, it’s wonderful … Everybody who comes into the dome gets wowed.” Cruz was going to launch the planetarium business, eclipse or no eclipse. But excitement about see PLANETARIUM page 5
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