GM board sends same budget back for May 12 re-vote

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

After a rough start to its Thursday, April 16 meeting, the Green Mountain Unified School District board gelled and decided unanimously to again put forward the budget that went down to defeat at Town Meeting Day, to set the re-vote date for May 12, then brainstormed ways to put their pro-budget arguments before the voters.

Addressing residents’ concerns over possible higher taxes, Two Rivers Superintendent Layne Millington gave a presentation to show how little the burden for taxpayers would be eased even if the board cut the budget enough to result in layoffs.

He also noted that tax rates are impacted greatly by the Common Level of Appraisal, which the state uses to equalize the values of homes to make taxes more equitable. Town-wide appraisals in Andover and Baltimore have lowered those towns’ tax rates, but Cavendish and Chester remain on a waiting list for their appraisals, since there are few companies that conduct them. Chester’s next appraisal will occur in 2027 and 2028, taking effect in 2029. Since the CLA is expressed as a three-year average, the impact will be muted at first.

And while the board recently approved sending notices of a reduction in force to employees, board members believed that the way to avoid RIFs was to put the original $19 million budget up for re-vote and conduct a better, more effective information campaign.

The budget that voters rejected in March contained the same level of services as the current year’s budget but those now cost $724,000 more. Level funding in that budget would result in a number of positions being cut to achieve those savings.

“No board member is in favor of reducing staff,” said Andover representative Shayna Kalnitsky.

With three cost-cutting scenarios (including level funding) in addition to the original budget, Cavendish representative Mike Ripley exhorted the board to “pick one tonight.”

After discussion and re-adoption of the budget that was turned down in March by a margin of 37 votes out of 1,013 ballots cast, the board considered picking one of the reduction scenarios as a backup for a third vote if the May 12 vote fails. Ripley again spoke up saying that voters would see that as being “held hostage,” and react badly. The idea was dropped.

There was then discussion of how to get the word out about the budget. Yard signs, letters to the editor and a postcard mailing were all suggested along with social media postings. The materials paid for by the district legally cannot tell people how to vote but can simply encourage them to vote. The postcard would be the most expensive route, but several board members noted that that method failed to convince voters to pass a school renovation bond in 2022, which was defeated by 47 votes.

The board also scheduled an information meeting regarding the budget re-vote for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 5 at Green Mountain Union High School, 716 Route 103 south and remotely via Zoom. 

Long agenda cut and some tense exchanges

Thursday night’s agenda was unusually long with a number of people coming to voice their opinions on the budget, which came late on the agenda.

There were some contentious moments in the process of cutting and moving items to other parts of the agenda but the most tense part of the meeting was a request by Cavendish representative Donovan Nichols to replace a portion of the minutes from a meeting in January with text that he said better reflected that discussion.

There was some pointed questioning of what Nichols wanted by board members Adrienne Williams of Baltimore and Katie Murphy of Chester and when it came to voting on his request several of the new members abstained. The votes went against Nichols and the request failed.

When the board took up the “Future Meeting (s) and Agenda Item(s)” Chester representative Penny Benelli asked that a presentation on reducing bullying be scheduled for the next meeting. Board chair Lisa Sanders said they would not be doing that but rather at the next meeting they would discuss whether they want a presentation on reducing bullying.

Lastly, Chester resident Randy Miles rose to complain about The Telegraph’s status as paper of record. Miles stated that that the paper is biased because it ran an editorial and a letter to the editor that did not align with this beliefs.

And he was upset that when he did not answer questions in a Q&A formatted article the paper printed that he declined to answer. Board members asked questions and discussed this but no action was taken.

Miles also asked about the status of his complaint that materials inside the school that refer to LGBTQ+ rights and Black Lives Matter violate the same policy that banned discriminatory mascot branding. Miles was a vocal advocate for keeping the Chieftain name for the school’s sports teams.

Millington said that the policy, which arose out of Act 152 which, bans any discriminatory “name, symbol, or image used by a school as a mascot, nickname, logo, letterhead, team name, slogan, motto, or other identifier.” Millington maintained the sort of materials Miles referred to did not fit under that definition and were not banned from the school.

Miles disagreed, saying that the subjects that have appeared in classrooms are “other identifiers.”