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Volume 51 Number 26
Consultant says zoning ‘overly complex’
shelburnenews.com
June 30, 2022
Feeding time
Shelburne planners hold meeting July 14 COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER
Shelburne’s zoning policy in the town’s residential district along the northern part of Route 7 is “overly complex for a relatively small geographic area” and relies on “unclear, vague or contradictory language” compared to the town plan which, as a result, leaves the area open for a wide array of development that the town and neighbors may not want to see. That’s according to Blue Zones, the company brought in to make a thorough examination of Shelburne’s mixed residential character overlay district, which runs along Route 7 past the town center up to the border with South Burlington. The company was hired in April to See ZONING on page 11
PHOTO BY LEE KROHN
Shelburne’s resident osprey checks in on her chick.
Schools face tough budgetary choices with new ed formula District could face a 16 percent tax increase COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER
With Vermont’s new education formula signed into law, the Champlain Valley School District will have to face tough choices in budget years to come — namely, how and where in their budget to cut spending to avoid a 16 percent tax increase. The new formula, signed by Gov. Phil Scott in May, builds upon a 2019 study conducted by researchers at the Universi-
ty of Vermont and Rutgers University that showed the state’s practice of pupil weights was insufficient, and that those weights for low-income students or non-English speaking students needed to be raised. Vermont’s education formula tries to ensure that rural or low-income school districts with fewer resources are not forced to pass big tax hikes onto their residents by weighing students in these districts differently. But because of the new shift in pupil
weighting, several districts are facing drops in pupil weights, meaning they’ll eventually have to start raising taxes or cutting spending to fill in the gap. As a result, the Champlain Valley School District, which includes Hinesburg, Charlotte, Shelburne, Williston and St. George, is facing a budget hole that will either need to be raised through a 16 percent homestead tax rate increase, or by dramatically cutting spending in the district. “Nobody likes a 16 percent tax increase, and nobody’s going to like it when we start cutting things in schools,” Jeanne Jenson, the district’s chief operations officer, said.
“As a school district, we agonize when the tax rate is going to go up by 3 percent, (but) the property taxes either have to go up or we have to cut an awful lot of spending out of our budget.” Luckily, officials have some time. The new formula won’t take effect until fiscal year 2025, and will be phased in through 2029 to ensure tax increases are not overly onerous, givng the district time to begin making any tough decisions. The first move for the district is “communicating what this all means to our See BUDGET on page 16