Latest Drafts of Vermont Legislature's Yield Bill Leave Mountain Views Supervisory District High and Dry
House action denies the decoupling of capital debt from per-pupil spend for bonds passed after January 2025, threatening MVSU’s plans to rebuild WUHSMS
New versions of a bill known as the Yield Bill -- or H.949 - released by the Vermont State Senate and House Tuesday will virtually short-sheet Mountain Views Supervisory District’s (MVSD) plans -- endorsed by its communities’ voters -- to build a new high school unless the drafts are amended before the present session ends.
Last March, more that 60 percent of voters living in MVSD’s seven towns resoundingly approved three bonds on March 3, 2026. Two bonds were passed to replace failed sewage and heating systems at Woodstock’s crumbling middle and high schools. The third provided for the replacement of WUHSMS’ failing infrastructure with the construction of a new building that would provide students a safe and healthy environment in which to learn, but only on the conditions that bond costs be exempted from the excess spending calculation (decoupling capital debt from per-pupil spending) and that 25% of the costs be funded by Federal, State, and/or private sources.
With H.949’s current language, the House and Senate legislators, including those elected to represent MVSD, yesterday denied the District’s bond requirement for “decoupling” based only on the date the new school bond happened to have passed: House conferees chose to exclude only those capital bonds that were passed prior to January 1, 2025, from excess-spending calculations. The Senate’s version takes the same harmful toll, because it excludes bonds passed by July 1, 2024. For MVSD, its member towns, and its students, the negative impact is the same: without decoupling provided at least through or beyond March 3, 2026, plans to rebuild a safe high school will stall.
If rebuild plans can’t move forward, students will ultimately be forced to attend classes in trailers on the football field as classrooms become uninhabitable, at a price tag of $5.2 million to start and an annual rental cost of $250,000. From another perspective, estimates of the costs that would be required to slow the WUHSMS building’s inevitable collapse come to $52 million over 10 years, while the funding needed to build a brand-new school with an 80-year lifespan is set at $112 million if construction begins this year. No other high school in the region has the capacity to absorb WUHSMS students.
Adding to the urgency, the Yield Build language could threaten MVSD’s very existence -- a District that this year earned some of the highest performance marks in Vermont and has long been one of the finest learning centers in the State. Furthermore, MVSD contributes 61% of all Homestead and Non-homestead tax dollars raised by the residents of its seven member towns to benefit Vermont’s education system, retaining only 39% for its own use.
In a letter posted Wednesday to Parents Square, a portal accessible by staff, parents, and students across the District, Superintendent Sherry Sousa called for action to extend H-949’s cut-off dates so that they include the successful passage of MVSD’s bonds by its taxpaying voters during a legal election.
“Given this legislative dilemma, the time for action is now,” wrote Sousa. “Your voice is and will be critical in the next few days to inform our legislators of the need to exempt the bonds our districts’ citizens have so strongly approved from excess cost calculations – months after our bonds passed in good faith.” In her letter, the Superintendent called on voters in District communities to contact their representatives and:
Demand that legislators exempt all voter-approved bonds from excess-cost calculations in the Yield Bill.
Stress that failure to exclude these bonds will result in an additional $13 million to keep the
WUHS/MS building functional over the next 5 years.
Remind legislators that when the building fails – not if – our only option to educate our students is to build temporary classrooms in trailers on the football field at a price tag of $5.2 million to start and annual rental costs of $250,000.
“We are terribly disheartened by the current content of the 2026 Yield Bill, especially because we’ve done all the hard work to earn not only our voters’ approval but also the support of our legislators,” said Keri Bristow, Chair, MVSD. “Over the course of many years, we’ve done everything asked of us, only to have the rug pulled out from underneath us in a single day. We seriously encourage both the Vermont State House and Senate -- and especially our own representatives --to respect the wishes of the voters they serve and change the Yield Bill’s language to recognize the need to decouple capital debt from per-pupil spending.”
About Mountain Views Supervisor Union (MVSU): Located in Central Vermont’s Green Mountains, Mountain Views Supervisory Union serves students from Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Pittsfield, Plymouth, Pomfret, Reading, Woodstock, and other neighboring school-choice communities. For more information, please visit the MVSU Website.
Contact:
Gina McAllister
MVSU Communications Committee Chair
gina.mcallister@mtnviews.org
Mobile: (802) 738-6414 Office:
(802) 952-1048