GMUSD board re-organizes with several new members Board chooses two new Chester representatives

By Shawn Cunningham
© Telegraph Publishing LLC

The effects of the recent Town Meeting Day elections and filling of its two vacancies are looking like a sea change in the operation of the Green Mountain Unified School District board if last Thursday’s meeting is any indication.

The new directors —  Michael Ripley of Cavendish replacing Kate Lamphere, Shayna Kalnitsky of Andover replacing Scott Kendall and Patricia Benelli of Chester replacing Jeff Hance — took their seats and elected Lisa Sanders of Cavendish to the chair.  Sanders is the first Cavendish resident to take the chair since the district was created by Act 46. Previous chairs have come from Andover, Baltimore and Chester.

For the past couple of years, Adrienne Williams of Baltimore was the chair but on Thursday, she declined to serve in that capacity or on any of the board committees she was offered. Williams also told the board that she was establishing a “personal boundary” and would not stay at meetings beyond 8 p.m.

The new board was then tasked with filling two vacancies created when Casey Leahy resigned and Jesse Bailey decided not to take the seat he won in the Town Meeting voting. Of the five candidates seeking appointment to the two vacancies only Anne Henshaw and Caitlin Miller attended the meeting. According to Williams, veteran board member Rick Alexander had dropped out of the running. Alan Levy and Ryan Anderson did not attend but Superintendent Layne Millington confirmed that all five candidates had been sent a email inviting them to the meeting.

As has happened in the past, board members took turns questioning the candidates, but several members demurred. Ripley said he would not participate because he believes that the selection of a representative to fill a town’s vacant seat should be up to a select board, not the school board. That was the case until recent years when the state legislature took that power away from select boards, which now can only recommend. Kalnitsky said she was too new to the board and did not prepare questions, while board member Jerry Ucci, an appointed incumbent who won a three-year term in the March election, simply passed.

After some confusion on how to conduct the vote on four candidates for two positions, the board chose Henshaw and Miller. Since these are appointments for unfilled years in previously elected terms, both will have to stand for election at the next Town Meeting Day.

Other appointments included:

• Donovan Nichols as Vice Chair
• Shayna Kalnitsky, Donovan Nichols and Lisa Sanders to the board of the Two Rivers Supervisory Union.
• Penny Benelli as alternate to the TRSU board
• Jerry Ucci to the River Valley Tech Center board pending a check of his schedule. Millington volunteered to attend any meetings that Ucci could not
• Mike Ripley and Donovan Nichols to the Support Staff Bargaining Committee.

Several other assignments were left open until the next meeting so that Henshaw and Miller would be able to participate.

Revote on failed budget

Millington spoke of the failure of the district budget on Town Meeting Day. Saying that the margin was slim, (37 votes from total 1,013 ballots cast in the four constituent towns) he asked the board how they thought a revote should be handled.

He noted that it was a “level service” budget with no new services added so the increase of $714,319 was what this year’s offerings will cost in fiscal ’27. He also said that it was a 3.84 percent increase compared with the state average of 4.2 percent.

The superintendent reminded directors that state funding comes from a pool and that substantial cuts in the budget will result in small reductions in taxes. The board discussed the vote, concluding that voters were angry with the state funding system, but that ends up hurting GM students. After talking about having a better, more convincing message and getting it out to voters, the board agreed that it would resubmit the current $19 million budget for a second vote.

Facilities report from outgoing director

Todd Parah, who is moving out of state and has resigned his posts as facilities director and athletic director effective June 30, recommended that the board adopt “option 1” in replacing the boiler at the high school.

He said that the contractor is in a position to do the work this summer, but that the lead time on getting a boiler is 3 to 4 months so the decision could not wait for next month’s meeting. Parah said the price would be $588,262, which could be paid for from the capital reserve plus funds from the voter approved reserve. Those two funds currently total $699,000. It was noted that the board need to vote specifically to release the funds from the latter. With a bit of discussion, the board approved the use of the funds and gave Parah the go-ahead.

Parah also spoke of PCB remediation work to be done this summer, especially on the third floor of Green Mountain High. This would include replacing with new caulk all the contaminated caulk on all the windows in the school. In addition, there would be removal and replacement of contaminated floor tiles in several class rooms.