The district's debt paid to renovate three schools. The heaviest bills per student are still ahead at the other two.

Voters in Calais and Worcester decided in February to keep Calais Elementary and Doty Memorial open. The financial record in front of the district says something specific about that choice. Three of the district's schools got multimillion-dollar rebuilds in the past decade. The two that were saved never did — their biggest capital years ran $110,000 at Doty and $171,000 at Calais, roof, window, and heating-system replacements. And by the state's 2023 building assessment, they face the heaviest ten-year capital needs per student among the district's five elementary schools.

Where a decade of capital money went. Until the five towns' districts merged in 2019, each filed its own finances with the U.S. Census Bureau, so building-by-building spending is a matter of public record. Capital spending per student, fiscal years 2012–2019, shows three unmistakable spikes:

Those three spikes are the district's debt. Washington Central owed $7.33 million at the end of FY2025, per its audited financial statements. All of it was inherited from the predecessor districts at the 2019 merger; none of it has been borrowed since, and all of it went to buildings. East Montpelier's bond paid for a full renovation: roof, insulation, glazing, lighting, HVAC, library, and cafeteria. Rumney's paid for an addition and renovation — kitchen, bathrooms, heating and ventilation. Berlin's paid for code, safety, air, and energy work. A $500,000 federal construction bond and small water-project notes round out the list. The rates run 1 to 3.04 percent, fixed. The last bond payment is scheduled for the end of 2036, with a small water note running to 2037. Debt service was about $976,000 in the fiscal year that ended in June, roughly 2.3 percent of the budget. It spikes toward $1.4 million in the year now beginning, as the $500,000 federal bond comes due — paid from money already set aside — then falls back. Nothing in the debt is for operating deficits.

What the buildings cost to run. Operations — heat, electricity, custodians, repairs — held steady across the decade, and the spread between schools is real. Calais was the most expensive elementary to operate, at an average of $1,501 per student — about 40 percent more than Rumney, the least, at $1,067. Berlin ($1,371), Doty ($1,243), and East Montpelier ($1,168) fell between.

What the 2023 assessment found. Vermont's Act 72 facilities assessment is the state's own accounting of what each building will need. Engineers from Bureau Veritas assessed every building and delivered the reports to districts in November 2023. This piece compares the five elementary schools; U-32, four times the size of any of them, carries the district's largest building needs in absolute dollars. Over 20 years the five elementaries look alike, at roughly $22,000 to $28,000 of renewal need per student. What separates them is timing. Per the assessment's 10-year projections, measured against current K-6 enrollment:

(Divided by the assessment's own building populations instead, the top two trade places — the two smallest schools top the list either way.)

The assessment's building reports say why. Calais's only major renovation came in 1990 — the longest gap in the district. Roughly 70 percent of its plumbing is original to 1970, and the electrical system dates to 1990. Assessors found active roof leaks, a security system that "needs full replacement," and no fire sprinklers in most of the building. Bureau Veritas projects that, without intervention, Calais crosses the 30-percent condition mark around 2038. That is the point its methodology labels "renewal is now necessary." Doty, built in 1959, is the district's oldest school. It got a new roof in 2017, paid by the pre-merger Worcester school district, and window, HVAC, and electrical work in 2019, the year the five towns' districts merged. This was maintenance-scale spending — about $100,000 in each of those years, paid in cash, not a rebuild. It bought the building its clean current bill of health: deficiencies today total $1,000. Its 1959 plumbing, though, is original, and the assessment flags $248,600 of needs within three years and $434,200 within five — by year five, the highest projected per-student need of any school in the district.

The two schools are also the district's smallest by every measure:

Per-student capital math is unforgiving at that scale — the same boiler or roof divides across fewer children.

The uneven geography of that debt has been raised as an equity question since the merger's first year. The district's 2020 annual report noted that "significant costs have been transferred to some of our towns without any corresponding benefit (e.g. elementary school bonds that were voted through before the merger)." The 2023 assessment shows the other side of the ledger. The schools that carry no bonded debt are the ones the engineers the state hired flag for the heaviest ten-year needs per student. At Doty that means $248,600 of work within three years and $434,200 within five — mostly heating-plant and 1959-plumbing work. At Calais it means $417,100 within five years, on systems dating to 1970 and 1990. The picture is not clean everywhere: Rumney, still carrying its bond, has the largest three-year elementary need ($527,000, mostly building envelope — the district's capital plan already funds it).

Where size does show up: the office. School administration — principals, assistant principals, and their office staff — is a mostly fixed cost, and the pre-merger filings show it. Over eight years the office line averaged $1,405 per student at Doty, against $1,034 to $1,148 at the district's three largest schools, with Calais at $1,116. The gap held around $200 to $330 per student for seven years, then jumped in the districts' final year: in FY2019, Doty's office cost $1,774 per student — $760 to $850 more than at the three larger schools. (From 2016 the supervisory union paid some administration centrally, so single-year town figures are noisy; the eight-year averages are the sturdier comparison.) Building operations also ran higher at the small schools — the two smallest averaged about $1,370 per student, against roughly $1,200 at the three larger. That pattern is looser, though: mid-sized Rumney was cheapest, and Berlin, the second largest, was second-dearest. The office line is where the district's smallest school stands apart most cleanly.

School office spending per student, year by year (FY2012–2019)

School	FY12	FY13	FY14	FY15	FY16	FY17	FY18	FY19	8-yr avg
Doty (Worcester)	$1,230	$1,427	$1,403	$1,446	$1,346	$1,346	$1,272	$1,774	$1,405
Calais	$1,107	$955	$985	$985	$1,148	$1,220	$1,208	$1,320	$1,116
East Montpelier	$1,249	$1,248	$1,390	$1,514	$1,044	$946	$869	$924	$1,148
Berlin	$977	$1,087	$1,070	$1,147	$1,035	$947	$1,009	$1,005	$1,035
Rumney (Middlesex)	$989	$957	$989	$1,056	$1,043	$1,158	$1,074	$1,011	$1,034

The line through all of it is cost per student. On the recurring side, keeping a building open costs its students the operations line and the office line together, every year. On the pre-merger decade's averages, that is about $2,650 per student at Doty and $2,620 at Calais, while the three larger schools ran $2,100 to $2,410.

On the capital side, the renovation bills that East Montpelier, Rumney, and Berlin already financed through bonds are still ahead of Calais and Doty. That is a combined $2.1 million of assessed need over the coming decade, divided across the district's two smallest enrollments. February's vote settled whether the small schools stay open. What the ledger keeps open is the per-student price of that choice. That price has two parts: a yearly premium in running the buildings, office and upkeep combined, and the renovations still unbought.

Sources: WCUUSD audited financial statements, FY2020 and FY2025 (Note 7). U.S. Census Bureau F-33 school finance surveys, FY2012–2024, reported separately for the pre-merger Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, and Middlesex town school districts and the Worcester village school district; per-student figures divide by each district's total fall membership, prekindergarten included. Vermont Act 72 facility condition assessments (Bureau Veritas, 2023), via the Vermont Agency of Education. WCUUSD 2020 annual report. WCUUSD Facilities Overview and FY27 budget documents. Middlesex 2014 and Berlin 2016 town reports. February 10, 2026 vote results as reported by VTDigger and Vermont Public. Explore district-level finances yourself: the Ledger and the Comparer.