The petition for a reconsideration* for the White River Unified District’s (WRUD) bond was accepted on Tuesday April 1st by the Royalton and Bethel Town Clerks. The petition -initiated by a community member- received enough signatures to meet the state/local requirements which means that a reconsideration on the WRUD bond will go through. The WRUD school board will discuss and set a date for that at their meeting next Tuesday, April 8th at 7 p.m. at White River Valley High School in Royalton. 

The reconsideration is asking residents to take another look at our revised facilities upgrades proposal and approve a $3.8 million 20 year bond for a $6.17 million project. We’re funding the rest of the cost through donations and our capital building fund. Explore this site for more information about what’s the bond is for, why it’s needed, and what it means for you.

"RECONSIDERATION OR RECISSION
If voters are asking about reconsideration votes, you can refer to them to our website – Petitioning Your Local Government – Requests for Reconsideration of an Article. Reconsideration petitions require signatures from at least 5% of the registered voters in town, and must be filed with the clerk of the municipality within 30 days following the date of the meeting. For a reconsideration vote by Australian ballot, you ARE required to mail a ballot to all voters who requested one for the first vote."

Why Now?

Our school buildings have served us well for many years.  Why are we now asking for these improvements?  Put simply, our high school enrollment is up.  While overall student numbers are down significantly in Vermont from their peak in the late 1990s, since the merger we now have all the students from two towns, not just one attending our high school.  We have been attracting increasing numbers of students from surrounding communities as well, leading to our high school having its highest enrollment ever.  The current enrollment of 231 is 10% higher than South Royalton High School's peak enrollment in 1998.  While we have more classroom space than they did then to accommodate the extra students since middle school students are educated in Bethel, dedicated function rooms, like the music room and shop space are running into space issues thanks to increased demand.  

School Board Message

Dear White River Unified District Voters, 

Since the November bond vote, we have been working hard to determine the best path forward for addressing our building needs.  We hosted meetings to collect voter feedback and worked with the architect and contractor to look at different options.  We looked at lowering the height of the new space and changing the footprint of the addition.  In the end, neither provided significant enough savings as while they would have saved material costs, that was offset by the increased design complexity.  The minimal savings was not worth the functionality lost.  After exploring options we strongly feel that the original project design provides the best blend of cost efficiency and utility.

Despite not making major changes to the overall plan, we did change how the project is going to be funded to address some of the concerns we heard.  For those that felt that a Performing Arts Center was extravagant, we limited what the bond would fund to just the rehearsal space addition.  Any extra improvements will need to be fundraised for separately.  This has the added benefit of addressing concerns that we were counting on fundraising and grant money that had not been received yet.  By limiting the project scope, we have 100% of the non-bond funding in hand. 

We were hoping that these changes would allow us to decrease the bond request, however it looks like we will not be receiving the $600k safe entrances grant this year.  We will apply again next year, but are not counting on receiving that money for this bond proposal.  While that was disappointing, we have an additional $200k surplus funds that we are asking be added to the building reserve fund that were not available in November.

Finally, we know there was a lot anxiety about school funding and fears about potential tax increases at the time of the original bond vote.  While working on the bond proposal, we also worked on our budget proposal.  By producing a responsible budget that provides significant tax relief in Royalton, and keeps taxes in line with recent levels in Bethel, we can be confident that this project is affordable. We hope you will consider supporting this project on March 4th.

WRUD Board

Andrew Jones, Chair
Rodney Rainville, Vice Chair
Julie Hinman, Clerk
Nancy Pejouhy
Ed Sullivan
Peggy Ainsworth