Emma Stanton, Vermont Standard Staff Writer
Last Thursday, Jan. 8, the Mountain Views Supervisory Union (MVSU) school board and Rebuild Working Group finalized the numbers for three separate bond votes slated for Town Meeting this March.
Two of the three are smaller bonds intended to repair infrastructure damage plaguing the Woodstock Union High/Middle School building. A $300,000 wastewater removal system and a $250,000 boiler replacement bond were approved during the Monday, Jan. 5, MVSU school board meeting.
The third bond proposed and finalized on Thursday was for the construction of a new middle/high school. The total price tag for the bond will be $111.9 million. However, taxpayers would only be obligated to pay $83.9 million, as at least 25% of the initial construction cost will be covered by state construction aid and private funding, according to Seth Webb, MVSU board member and chair of the Rebuild Working Group.
Webb spoke to the Standard along with Joe Rigoli, director of buildings and grounds at WUHS/MS, and Keri Bristow, chair of the MVSU board, about the rebuild, the current state of the school, and what the MVSU board would like voters and residents to know before Town Meeting.
“We’re presenting a $15 million dollar reduction for voters [compared to the previous new school build bond vote],” Webb told the Standard this week. “And we are achieving this by making around one million dollars in cuts to the pre-approved design. That choice helped to offset the 13% inflation. The majority of our savings, however, is coming from our mixed funding solution, where we would get 25% of the initial construction costs from the state construction fund and from private sources.”
The $15 million reduction taxpayers would see comes in relation to the previous rebuild bond vote that was rejected by voters in 2024. “The cost of the bond in 2024 was $99 million. The $111.9 million bond proposed this year will be higher than the last one, but the amount that voters would be funding for the initial construction cost will be reduced to $83.9 million,” Webb explained.
This newly proposed rebuild bond vote has two contingencies attached, according to Webb. The first is that 25% of the total initial construction cost must be funded through the state and private sources. “If that money does not come through, the rebuild plan does not move forward,” Webb said. “We don’t need to receive the money immediately. We have structured the funding so that we could receive state and private funds at a later date to pay off the bond payments. Right now, for this rebuild to move forward, we need to have an agreement with the state.”
According to Webb, the state has said that Act 73 establishes a school construction fund. “It is supposed to be active and set up by July 2026. Many details are supposed to be worked out in this upcoming legislative session. Our point is that if voters want to reduce costs, we know we need to act quickly to optimize our chances of working in partnership with the state.”
“Our eyes are wide open,” Webb added. “We know that there is risk involved in this approach — we have to pass the bond vote, and we have to secure guarantees that state and private funding will come through. The state has indicated interest, and folks have come through for us in the private funding capacity, but we will know more definitively in the coming months.”
The second contingency, in addition to the 25% state/private funding, is that construction will only move forward if the state agrees to decouple capital construction debt from per-pupil spending. This would further protect taxpayers and eliminate the current “double penalty” districts face when financing capital projects, Webb said. The MVSU Board has made clear that construction would not proceed without these protections in place.
“Decoupling requires legislative action,” Webb continued. “That means that it must be voted on and passed. Our delegation, led by State Rep. Charlie Kimbell and State Sen. Alison Clarkson, will be introducing a bill this month to decouple capital expenses from per-pupil expenses. We know that this is an issue for many other districts and has support statewide. This is a penalty that affects any school trying to maintain their facilities. We think it’s common-sense legislation, and we’re grateful for our representatives for leading the effort. We’re cautiously optimistic it’s going to pass this session as it already has strong support in districts across Vermont.”
If 100% of funding is secured in 2026 and the bond vote passes this March, with both contingencies met, the Rebuild Working Group hopes to see construction begin as early as spring 2027. “We’d bid the job out in January 2027 and seek to begin construction in the spring of 2027. It would then be completed by summer of 2029, with students occupying the new school in September 2029.”
To prepare for possible redistricting and MVSU’s ability to serve as a “hub school,” Webb has outlined a three-phase construction plan to accommodate any necessary expansion of the student body. “We have tried to be as cost-effective in our plans while still being completely aligned with state education reform. Thus, we have instituted a phased approach for sizing,” Webb explained. “Phase One — the initial rebuild plan — would be sized for 600 students with the expansion option of Phase Two (which would account for 750 students) and Phase Three (which would account for over 1,000 students).”
“Right now, MVSU serves twenty-eight communities,” Bristow added. “We have seven communities in our seven towns within our district, and we serve another 21 communities [outside of that]. We are acting as a regional hub and have always acted as one. By the nature of having these phases, we can continue to support state education policy no matter how redistricting goes in the future. We always want to be able to offer our school to as many students as possible.”
The finalization of the rebuild bond could not come at a better time, said Rigoli. “This past week, we had gray water enter the boys’ locker room during a girls’ basketball game. We lost the boys’ locker room and a custodial closet. I wound up shutting down approximately 20% of the building’s bathrooms. We were able to clear the pipes temporarily, but if the bond doesn’t pass, a long-term solution is going to be needed. That would probably mean going back to bond for more money to replace those pipes that are now compromised.”
This latest sewage issue comes in the wake of the board finalizing two other infrastructure repair-related bonds to replace the boiler and the wastewater removal system running through the school cafeteria.
“The building is at the end of its life cycle,” Rigoli said. “It’s not prudent to try to band-aid the building any longer, but the truth is that’s what we’ll have to do if we don’t get funding to rebuild. I think over the past three years, I’ve put in a couple million into that school just to keep the doors open, and I imagine that we’ll see much of the same in the years to follow. The famous quote around here is that we are one flush away from going down completely, and I firmly believe that. It’s just a matter of time before crucial building systems fail, and there really won’t be an easy fix. Rebuilding is the only option for the future of this school.”
“There are five main reasons we are pushing for this bond vote now in 2026,” Webb said. “First, the facility is in terrible shape, to which Joe Rigoli has testified. Second, rebuilding is the most cost-effective option moving forward. Third, the more we wait, the more costs continue to rise. Fourth, state funds are planned to be released in July 2026. We already have the pre-approval of our rebuild plan and feel like we could match the key criteria required to earn state grant support. Lastly, if redistricting moves forward and we are part of a bigger district, it might be more difficult to make these infrastructural rebuild plans if we lose control of the tight-knit community MVSU currently exists within.”
“The time is now,” he added. “We want folks to know that we have looked at every possible option; we did not take on this task lightly. The Rebuild Working Group has been acutely aware that affordability is a serious concern for families in our district, and so we scrutinized funding, design, phasing, and financing options with that reality in mind. Even with the cost reductions proposed, this is still a major investment for our community. We are very sensitive to that, and so we’re trying to balance the need for affordability with the need for a healthy, safe place for our students to go to school that will last for the next 75 years. This is the best option to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for our district. We hope our community will support us this March and beyond.”