Washington Central's net cost to run its schools is $2.3 million a year above the average of its four neighbors. Pay rates, special education and administration account for it. Closing two elementary schools would save about $1.5 million to $1.9 million a year.
Washington Central runs six schools for the children of Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester. It spends more to do that than most of its neighbors. The school board often points to Harwood and Barre as companion districts. Harwood has a much larger tax base and Barre a much smaller one. Montpelier Roxbury and Mount Abraham are closer demographic peers. All four are the districts against which WCUUSD is compared here. Where does the extra money go?
The answer, from the district's budget documents and the state's reports, is above-average spending in four places: teacher pay, administration, buildings, and students with greater need, including special education.
1. We have slightly higher-paid teachers than average. Our starting pay is the highest among peers, and our maximum pay is high. We have about 5 more teaching positions than the average of our four neighbors. Pay rates are most of the difference in teaching salaries: $613,000 of the $953,000 gap to the four-district average. The rest, about $340,000, is the extra positions. Consolidating our elementary schools would allow reducing teacher head count to be in line with our peers.
The staff survey the district files with the state puts our average teacher salary at $79,827, the highest of the five districts, ours and the four neighbors, and $3,659 above the Vermont average (state staff survey). The district's teachers' agreement sets starting pay at $54,224 (teachers' agreement).
Its top pay cell is $89,365. Harwood's is $92,840 and Montpelier Roxbury's $84,666. Harwood starts at $46,420 (Harwood's pay schedules), Montpelier Roxbury at $47,566 (Montpelier Roxbury's agreement) and Barre at $45,265 (Times Argus). Mount Abraham does not post a schedule. Barre's schedule is printed as an image in its contract.
On the district's salary roster, a second source, the median full-time classroom teacher earns $84,399, meaning half earn more and half less, and the mean is $79,586 (salary roster). The agreement sets pay on a grid: a step for each year of service and a column for each level of education. The roster shows at least 54 of our 108 full-time classroom teachers at the top step, which is 14 or more years of service. Twenty-four of them are in the highest education column, at $89,365. The roster prints no steps; those counts come from salaries that appear only at the top step of the grid. Seventeen more teachers earn amounts that appear at several steps, so they cannot be placed. The district does not publish years of service.
A weighted pupil is the state's funding count. It starts from the number of resident children and adds weight for older grades, poverty, English learners, small schools and sparse districts. On the staff survey we have 5.85 teachers for every 100 weighted pupils. The four-district average is 5.635. At our count of 2,371 weighted pupils, that gap is 5.1 positions.
2. We have higher administrative pay. Our superintendent pay is the lowest of our peers, but our average leadership salary is the highest of the five. Our administrative costs are second only to Mount Abraham's even though our admin head count is lower.
The district's salary roster lists the superintendent at $160,268. Harwood pays $193,697, Mount Abraham $186,046, Montpelier Roxbury $180,000 and Barre $180,000, on the state staff survey. It lists the special-education director at $144,031, the highest of the five, and the curriculum director at $145,473, the highest of the four districts that have one.
Leadership means principals, assistant principals, directors, the superintendent and the business manager. Our average leadership salary is $113,361 on the state staff survey. Montpelier Roxbury's is $113,115. Harwood's is $74,093, because its filing counts 13 department heads, paid a $3,400 stipend each, as leadership. Without them Harwood's average is $115,658, above ours. We have 0.75 of them for every 100 weighted pupils. The four-district average is 0.96 with Harwood's department heads counted, 0.84 without them.
On the districts' own budgets, in 2024-25, our administration spending was $1,837 per weighted pupil. Mount Abraham's was $2,275, Montpelier Roxbury's $1,544 and Barre's $1,341. Harwood has not published that year's detail.
The Census Bureau sorts every district's spending into the same categories, so its administration figures compare across districts. Its 2023-24 figure for us, divided by the pupil count the state used before weighted pupils (the equalized pupil), is $2,717. Mount Abraham spent $3,017, Harwood $2,252, Montpelier Roxbury $2,080 and Barre $2,075.
The budget's "Board of Education services" line rose 16.5 percent in two years, to $314,820 (FY 27 Final Detail Budget Sheet). The line is insurance, legal fees, board stipends and dues. Business-office salaries and benefits rose 26.1 percent over the same two years, to $644,367.
The district has published one staffing table by school, dated November 10, 2025. There is no earlier one, so whether central-office staffing has grown cannot be checked from the district's own documents.
3. Our facilities and maintenance costs have grown faster than any neighbor's, and our maintenance payroll per pupil is the highest, which should surprise no one. Regardless of what the district has said, closing two elementary schools would give significant cost savings on upkeep, maintenance and employee headcount.
The district's budget documents show building operation and maintenance, the line the budget calls "operation and maintenance of plant", at $2,957,133 in 2021-22 and $3,956,159 in 2024-25. That is up 33.8 percent in three years. Mount Abraham rose 25.3 percent, Barre 19.5 percent and Montpelier Roxbury 2.5 percent. Harwood's figures end a year earlier. To 2023-24 ours rose 18.8 percent and Harwood's 12.6 percent. Consumer prices rose 12.7 percent over our three years.
Salaries rose $442,318, to $1,729,379. Benefits rose $156,388, to $600,708. Together they are 60 percent of our $999,026 increase.
In 2023-24, on the Census Bureau's coding, our maintenance salaries were $1,130 per pupil, the highest of the five. The others ran $709 to $842. That is per pupil by headcount.
The state's building assessments list our six buildings at 335,452 square feet, for about 1,300 students. That is 257 square feet each, the space the district heats, insures and maintains per child. Ten-year repair and replacement needs at our six buildings add up to about $14.2 million (district summary; state report library). Calais is $1,206,600 of that and Doty $850,800.
The state publishes a school-by-school report (2023-24 per-pupil expenditure report). In it, Calais is the most expensive of the 25 schools in the five districts, at $27,042 per K-12 pupil. Harwood Union, Harwood's high school, is $25,501, and Harwood's Warren school $24,512. Doty is $23,652, fourth of the 25. U-32, our middle and high school, is $18,014. The state warns that districts charge different shares of their costs to the central office instead of to schools, 14 to 49 percent across the five. So one district's school figures do not compare cleanly with another's.
The district made two estimates of the saving from going to three elementary schools, closing two of the five. In 2024 it put the classroom-staff saving at $881,920. In 2025 it put the total at $1,088,508. In January 2026 it said neither "is accurate data as of our current budget scenario." The arithmetic below gives $1.5 million to $1.9 million a year.
4. WCUUSD, as a district, has A LOT of students with greater need, including special education. Given our IEP and identification rates, there is not much for us to save on here. Our special education rates explain a significant portion of our excess spending. Vermont as a whole has very high rates of students requiring aid and WCUUSD goes even further. Given other states do not have rates like ours, there is a question of if Vermont is over-identifying students with needs. This appears to be one of the reasons the Agency of Education and legislation would move us to a foundation model and limits on state special ed cost reimbursement.
The state counted 242 of our children ages 3 to 21 with an individualized education program, an IEP, in 2023-24 (state counts and costs). That is 18.1 percent of resident pupils. Barre is at 28.2 percent, Harwood 16.0, Mount Abraham 15.1 and Montpelier Roxbury 14.5. Counting only kindergarten through grade 12, which leaves out preschoolers and young adults, the state's special education reports put our children with an IEP at 211 in 2018-19 and 227 in 2023-24. The state's measure of our special-education cost rose 38 percent over those years, from $6,045,635 to $8,357,927.
Our cost per child with an IEP is $34,537. The four neighbors average $34,619. Vermont's figure is $29,326.
The state's weights (membership and weighting files) count each of our resident pupils as 1.79 weighted pupils in 2025-26. Barre's pupils count as 1.71, Mount Abraham's 1.62, Montpelier Roxbury's 1.58 and Harwood's 1.49. The weights are for grade, poverty, English learners, small schools and sparse districts, not for special education. The state counts 562 of our 1,324 resident pupils, 42.5 percent, as in poverty. Its cutoff is 185 percent of the federal poverty level.
On the district's own budget documents, special education and student support cost $4,465 per weighted pupil in 2024-25. That is second to Barre's $4,799 among the four districts that have published that year's detail. Our special-education and student-support spending grew 36 percent from 2021-22 to 2024-25. That growth is 43 percent of the whole increase in the district's spending over those years.
The state has stopped paying districts back for most of what they spend. Act 173 of 2018 replaced most reimbursement with a block grant the state calls the census grant. It has nothing to do with the Census Bureau. It moves with the pupil count, not with cost. Ours is about $3.2 million a year. Act 73 of 2025 sets a foundation formula from July 1, 2028, if its conditions are met. It would pay a base amount times each district's weighted pupils, with special-education weights by disability category.
The state counts pupils for funding in a unit called LTWADM: long-term weighted average daily membership. It has used it since 2024-25. Every figure above that says "per weighted pupil" is in that unit. The Census Bureau's figures are divided by its own pupil count or by the count the state used before 2024-25, which it called the equalized pupil. The school-by-school figures, the square feet, and the IEP and poverty shares are divided by the number of children, with no weights.
The count starts with a two-year average of resident pupils. Then the state adds weights:
| Weight | Added per pupil |
|---|---|
| Grades 6 to 8 | 0.36 |
| Grades 9 to 12 | 0.39 |
| Family at or below 185 percent of the poverty level | 1.03 |
| English learner | 2.49 |
| Sparse district, 36 to 54 people per square mile (our tier) | 0.12 |
| School under 100 pupils | 0.21 |
| School of 100 to 249 pupils | 0.07 |
A preschooler counts as 0.46 of a pupil. The weights are the state's definition of a pupil (16 V.S.A. § 4010; Agency of Education calculation steps).
The district's budget documents put our LTWADM at 2,370.68 for 2025-26. It started from a two-year average of 1,324 resident pupils. So each resident pupil counted as 1.79, the highest ratio of the five. Sparsity and small-school weights were 231 of the 2,371, or 9.8 percent. Divide our spending by headcount and we were the highest of the five on every measure of total spending for 2023-24 and 2024-25. Divide it by LTWADM and we were second highest, behind Harwood.
For 2026-27 the count is 2,219.40, down 151.28 or 6.4 percent. The district certified it on January 5, 2026 (Draft #3 budget memo). The count averages two autumn counts of resident pupils. The 2025-26 count used fall 2023 and fall 2024; the 2026-27 count uses fall 2024 and fall 2025. The state published the 2025-26 count by its parts, town by town; it has not published the 2026-27 count that way, so which part moved cannot be seen. The one state count published for fall 2025, the staff survey, shows K-12 enrollment at our six schools up by eight from fall 2024.
Two cost measures matter. Net cost to run the schools starts with the budget. It takes out the special-education grants, tuition and other income that pay part of the budget. It adds back any money left over from the year before that the district used to lower what it had to raise. It takes out debt payments and building projects. The savings figures that follow use this measure. The state's measure is education spending. It keeps debt and capital in, and the state's excess-spending threshold applies to it. The district's final budget summary puts our education spending for 2026-27 at $16,373 per weighted pupil. That is the highest of the five and $97 under the threshold of $16,470. The threshold is 118 percent of the statewide average spending per pupil in 2024-25, adjusted for inflation (Joint Fiscal Office). Act 169 of 2026 lowers it to 115.5 percent for 2027-28. The Agency of Education sets the dollar figure by November 15.
Closing Calais and Doty, the two elementary schools the board voted to close, would also change the count. Their pupils would lose the small-school weight. The net loss is about 29 weighted pupils. On an unchanged budget, fewer weighted pupils means a higher cost per weighted pupil, about $180 more.
Computed from the five districts' adopted budgets, our net cost to run the schools was $14,596 per weighted pupil in 2025-26, the latest year with figures for all five. Harwood's was $15,016. Its budget documents do not show whether it applied a surplus from the year before, which would raise that figure. Montpelier Roxbury's was $14,251, Mount Abraham's $13,761 and Barre's $11,476. Our cost rose 6.4 percent that year, the most of the four districts with a complete figure. Consumer prices rose 3.1 percent. For 2026-27 ours is $15,480. Mount Abraham's is $14,814 and Montpelier Roxbury's $14,501. Harwood's cannot be computed, because it has not published its debt and surplus lines, and Barre has no adopted budget.
If we matched our neighbors' average on each measure, at our own pupil count, the amounts are these (comparison page). Where Harwood has not published 2024-25 detail, the average is of the other three. The rows overlap, so they cannot be added. The first row, total net cost, is the most that matching every average could save. The saving from closing two schools is a different calculation. It cuts some of the same salaries that appear in the payroll rows, and it can take us below the averages.
| Area | Saving a year | Share of net cost |
|---|---|---|
| Total net cost, four-neighbor average | $2,300,000 | 6.6% |
| Total net cost, three neighbors without Barre* | $600,000 | 1.7% |
| All salaries** | $1,250,000 | 3.6% |
| Teacher salaries | $953,000 | 2.8% |
| Special education, before state special-education revenue† | $991,000 | 2.9% |
| Special education, after that revenue†‡ | $898,000 | 2.6% |
| Administration, districts' budgets, 2024-25† | $278,000 | 0.8% |
| Administration, Census figures, 2023-24 | $497,000 | 1.4% |
| Leadership pay, headcount held | $253,000 | 0.7% |
*Harwood, Montpelier Roxbury and Mount Abraham. **Pay rates are $1,000,000 of it. †Montpelier Roxbury, Mount Abraham and Barre; Harwood has not published 2024-25 detail. ‡The state special-education revenue the district budgets, $4.97 million in 2024-25, of which the census grant is about $3.2 million. The Census row is per the equalized pupil; the budgets row per weighted pupil.
Barre's net cost, $11,476, is far below the other three. That is why two totals are shown. Matching our neighbors' cost per child with an IEP would save nothing; we are at their average. What sets us apart is the number of children with an IEP, a share above three of the four neighbors.
In October 2025 the superintendent gave the board a model (configuration memo). It would move sixth grade to U-32 and close Calais and Doty, leaving three elementary schools. On December 17, 2025 the board voted for the three-school configuration and to close Calais and Doty. The Bridge reported the tallies as 7 to 6 and 8 to 5. Each closure went to the voters of its town. On February 10, 2026 Calais voted 398 to 249 and Worcester, Doty's town, 212 to 114 to keep their schools. In May the administration paired Rumney and Doty for 2026-27 without a board vote (district's Rumney-Doty page). The district's page describes it as pre-K to grade 2 at Rumney, grades 5 and 6 at Doty, and grades 3 and 4 at both. The sixth-grade move to U-32 is on hold. On August 11 district voters amended the Articles of Agreement, 1,711 to 1,365. Closures are now decided by a district-wide vote.
The district's June 2024 chart put the classroom-staff saving from three schools at $881,920 (June 2024 FAQ). It put building operations at $343,452. Principals, nurses, counselors and allied arts (art, music, PE and library, in the district's usage) were "unknown at this time." Its November 2025 estimate was $1,088,508 (November 19 presentation). In January 2026 it wrote: "Neither of these estimates of projected savings is accurate data as of our current budget scenario" (January 2026 FAQ). The model behind them is not published.
The arithmetic below counts the closures alone, with grade 6 staying in the elementary schools, from the district's salary roster and projections (comparison page). It assumes teachers move with pupils. The 539 K-6 pupils the district projects for 2026-27 need the same classes at the schools that remain. Paraeducators assigned to pupils move with them. The saving is in sections. A section is one class. As at the district's schools today, a class may hold two grades. Fewer schools need fewer sections.
The five schools ran 34 K-6 classrooms in 2025-26, the last year before Rumney and Doty were paired. Three K-6 schools would hold Berlin's 145 pupils, East Montpelier's and Calais's 244, and Rumney's and Doty's 150. Filling classes to 20 pupils, with at least one class per grade, they need 29 sections. At 18 pupils a class they need 32. Against today's 34, that is two to five fewer classroom teachers.
Art, music and PE staff scale with sections. Today 6.4 positions on the roster serve 39 sections from pre-K to grade 6: the 34 K-6 classrooms plus the pre-K classes. Three schools need 34 to 37. That saves 0.3 to 0.8 positions.
Three schools need three counselors against 4.8 in 2025-26, and three library positions against 3.3. The roster lists four nurses that cover the five elementaries. Three are the elementaries' own; the fourth is U-32's, shared with Rumney. Three schools need three, so the table counts no nurse saving.
On the roster, the positions tied to the two buildings are two principals, two office assistants, the custodians and maintenance staff, and two cooks. That is $552,000 in salary and about $790,000 with benefits. Heat, electricity, insurance and supplies for the two buildings' 38,500 square feet run about $182,000 a year at the district's average cost per square foot.
Saving a year from three elementary schools (computed)
| Component | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Positions tied to the two buildings, with benefits | $790,000 | $790,000 |
| Building operating costs | $182,000 | $182,000 |
| K-6 classroom sections, 2 to 5 teachers | $233,000 | $582,000 |
| Art, music, PE, 0.3 to 0.8 positions | $31,000 | $83,000 |
| Counselors and library, 2.1 positions | $251,000 | $251,000 |
| Total | $1,487,000 | $1,888,000 |
That is 4.3 to 5.5 percent of our net cost, $627 to $796 per weighted pupil. Two things cut the saving. The lost small-school weight, about 29 weighted pupils, adds about $180 per weighted pupil to our cost. A closed building still costs heat, insurance and upkeep until it is sold or leased. The district has not priced that, and the figures here leave it out. One thing adds to the saving. Once the buildings are sold or leased, the $2.1 million of ten-year needs the state lists for Calais and Doty goes away. After subtracting the $180 from the lost weight, and nothing else, three schools lower our cost per weighted pupil by $450 to $620, to about $14,000 to $14,150 on the 2025-26 figures. That is below Montpelier Roxbury's $14,251 and above Mount Abraham's $13,761 and Barre's $11,476.
The public record conflicts with itself in six places that bear on these figures.
| Year | Printed total | Sum of the six schools |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | 1,341 | 1,469 |
| 2021-22 | 1,366 | 1,461 |
| 2022-23 | 1,304 | 1,395 |
| 2023-24 | 1,291 | 1,366 |
| 2024-25 | 1,255 | 1,365 |
| 2025-26 (projected) | 1,253 | 1,345 |
| 2026-27 (projected) | 1,204 | 1,300 |
| Count | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certified LTWADM, 2025-26 to 2026-27 | 2,370.68 | 2,219.40 | −6.4% |
| State fall PK-12 count, fall 2023 to fall 2024 | 1,388 | 1,307 | −5.8% |
| State staff survey K-12 count, fall 2024 to fall 2025 | 1,196 | 1,204 | +0.7% |
| District October 1 report, K-12, 2024 to 2025 | 1,218 | 1,246 | +2.3% |
| 2026 annual report projections, 2025-26 to 2026-27 | 1,253 | 1,204 | −3.9% |
Sources: annual report p. 31 and the Draft #3 budget memo for the LTWADM; the state's fall counts as staged at hungermountaini.com, the latest the state has published; the district's October 1, 2025 Enrollment Report.
Twenty-six inconsistencies are listed on the comparison page (Data inconsistencies that bear on these figures).
The Gazette asks the district and the Agency of Education for these records as spreadsheets, one row per record, with a note on what each field means. The years are 2019-20, the merged district's first full year, through 2026-27.
The Agency of Education produces the first and the district has a copy. The district holds the rest.
The numbers and savings estimates above were made by an outsider with no particular specialty in education. Given the difficult budget seasons behind us and the harder ones ahead, why can't WCUUSD at least describe its budgets, its needs and the impact of school closures in this level of financial detail, with justifications for its higher-than-average costs for administration, buildings and students with greater need, including special education? I set teacher pay aside. Teachers are essential, and a salary of about $80,000 is not a lavish income in today's Vermont, though it is above average and for a school year, not a calendar year. The district, the board and the well-paid administration owe us a budget with justifications that show due diligence in spending our communities' education dollars. Our district's academic performance has plunged in recent years, along with college and trade school attendance. We need to get our fiscal house in order so we can start focusing on these more important education issues.
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