GMUSD reschedules tonight’s finance meeting Next budget meeting on for Jan. 8

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC

In an email this morning, Green Mountain Unified School District Board chair Marilyn Mahusky informed members that tonight’s finance committee meeting scheduled for the hour before the full board meeting was being canceled.

The full board meeting will go on as scheduled at 6 p.m. at Green Mountain Union High School, 716 VT-103 in Chester.

In her email, Mahusky told the board that the board bargaining council and support staff had reached an agreement late last night and that it would have an impact on the budget “that the administration needs time to consider.”

In an interview with The Telegraph, Mahusky said that while she doesn’t sit on the district’s Bargaining Council, she thinks that the complications may come in the area of health care in which some of the numbers take effect on Jan. 1 while others kick in in July.

“They (TRSU) needs more time to think about it,” said Mahusky.

The committee was to meet to receive a budget that it had requested that would reflect a reduction in expenses to bring the overall budget increases to between 3 percent and 3.5 percent.

Mahusky addressed this in her email saying that “…the administration is struggling to revise the budget to fit within the parameters set by the finance committee at its last meeting.”

The meeting is being rescheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 8, 2019 at Cavendish Town Elementary, 573 Main St. in Proctorsville, with the final decision being made at the Jan. 17 full board meeting.

Asked if the process was  getting tight on time, Mahusky said no. “I think we’re going to be OK,” she added. “It is what it is and if we need more meetings we can schedule more meetings.”

Committee member Joe Fromberger, who has been vocal about many aspects of the budget, agreed.

“I can understand the rationale for delaying to get the information in a form that will make sense to the board,” said Fromberger. “Unfortunately it comes so late in the process, but we still have time to get the budget together by mid-January.”