Voters throughout the state overwhelmingly approved their local school budgets on Town Meeting Day. The latest figures show that 216 budgets were approved Tuesday and only 11 were rejected. Last year, 20 budgets were rejected, and 2014 voters rejected 35 budgets.
Nicole Mace, the executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association, thinks the spending caps of Act 46 encouraged many school boards to limit their budget growth.
"Boards worked very closely with their administrators to develop budgets that kept spending below their thresholds while at the same time ensuring they were able to offer an educational program that met the needs of students," says Mace. "And what we're seeing is that communities overwhelmingly supported those efforts."
Mace says she is concerned that a number of school boards tapped into reserve accounts as a way to keep their budget growth under control this year.
