MORGAN — As in recent years, the fate of the E. Taylor Hatton School took a prominent place in discussions at Morgan’s annual Town Meeting on Monday night. Declining enrollment has kept the school poised on the edge of oblivion, a handful of students away from closure.
The school board formed a future planning committee to evaluate all options for the foreseeable future. Chairing that committee was Steve Matson, and he delivered his report on Monday evening.
“Our conclusion was that the school was being run very well and very prudently,” Mr. Matson said. “Over the years I’ve heard a lot of talk about Morgan being a ‘gold town.’ Being a sending town, or a gold town, is strictly a function of the value of our property measured against the number of children we have at our school.”
The declining enrollment is a problem not unique to Morgan, Mr. Matson said; however, the situation in Morgan is such that the loss of only a few more students could create a serious imbalance in relative costs.
“If we were to tuition our students away next year, based on the numbers we have available, we would save approximately $36 per $100,000 of appraisal value,” Mr. Matson said. “In our view, that’s a pretty modest savings for what we would be losing.”
The committee came to the conclusion that the town faced one of three options should it decide to close its school. One option would be to tuition its students en masse to a neighboring school. Another would be to form a joint school district with one or more neighboring communities. The third option would be to offer school choice for Morgan’s displaced kindergarten through sixth-grade students.
Selectman Robbie Guyer asked if opening up the town to school choice might not help to attract homeowners to town. The prospect of having the opportunity to choose a school for their children could be the draw Morgan needs to attract families, he said.
“It doesn’t seem likely,” Mr. Matson said. “If people wanted to send their kids to Holland they would probably just move to Holland.”
The debate on the approval of the school budget of $638,500 was just as passionate. Resident Allan Wooley proposed delaying a vote on the budget until April 14. This would allow the Legislature the time to determine if it would indeed provide the anticipated level of funding upon which the school budget was based and to decide on what, if any, changes would be made to the education funding system.
“The value of this delay would be in helping us decide if it is economically feasible to keep our school open or to tuition them out,” Mr. Matson added.
The fact of the matter remains that the $638,500 that the school board has requested is what the board feels is necessary to continue operation of the school, someone said from across the room. Delaying the vote won’t change that.
In the end Mr. Wooley withdrew his postponement amendment, and the original budget passed.
The appropriation request from the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department was once again the target of criticism. The department had requested $9,843, a seemingly substantial increase over last year’s $6,774 appropriation. That appropriation, however, dates back to the 2007 Town Meeting when the sheriff’s request was originally lowered.
Roger Stoddard proposed the lower limit, citing dissatisfaction with the level of patrols offered by the sheriff. Some residents also questioned the wisdom of patrols at 6 a.m., midnight, and 8 a.m. on Sunday mornings.
The Sunday morning patrols came as a direct response to a request for heightened patrols as parishioners traveled to and from church, replied Tammy LaCourse. Ms. LaCourse, who serves on the Morgan School Board, is also affiliated with the Sheriff’s Department.
“With the way things are in our budget, you’re not going to be seeing more state patrols,” added resident Sean Selby. Mr. Selby is a Vermont State trooper. “We’re not going to respond to illegal fireworks complaints on the Fourth of July. If we even tried we’d just be running around like chickens with our heads cut off.”
Ed Briggs offered his own reasoning as to why the request should be approved.
“We just voted to spend $600,000 to send our kids to school,” he said. “Why won’t you spend $9,000 to protect them?”
Given the contentious nature of the subject, voting was conducted by paper ballot. The results were 59 in favor of the $9,834 request and 18 opposed.
Earlier in the evening a motion to increase the disabled veteran’s homestead exemption met with opposition. The request would have amended the exemption from $10,000 to $40,000. That exemption would be deducted from the appraised value of the veteran’s homestead in order to determine the taxable value of the home.
Lister Diane Moore amended the motion to raise the limit to $20,000 instead of the proposed $40,000. Doubling the exemption rate seems to be in keeping with the upward trend of home values in the town, she said. Though the town is aware of only five qualifying residents, approving the higher rate would knock $200,000 off of the grand list, a sum the remainder of the town’s taxpayers would need to make up.
“You need to protect your grand list,” Ms. Moore said.
Ms. Moore’s amended motion was approved, and the motion passed.
After more than a decade of service to the town, Selectman Brian Gray declined to run for another term as selectman. Larry Labor was nominated and elected to fill Mr. Gray’s seat on the board. Joette Lantagne became the town’s newest auditor following a stirring speech from fellow auditor Donna Young.
“You don’t need an accounting background,” Ms. Young said. “It’s only about 40 hours of work over two months, but it’s probably the lowest paid job in town.”
Returning officers include moderator Charles Woods, town school district treasurer Ken Mason, school director Danielle Blake, James Judd as lister and tax collector, first constable Robert Cain, second constable Greg Wood, grand juror Cyrus Benson, cemetery commissioner Doug Garon, and Jane Malgeri as grand juror and town agent. Sean Selby expressed interest in serving as the town’s animal control officer but wanted to first ensure there would be no conflict caused by his employment with the Vermont State Police.
