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Gaetano Putignano, chairman of the Rockingham Select Board, and others participate in the Rockingham Town Meeting at the Bellows Falls Opera House, in Bellows Falls, Vt., on Monday, March 1, 2021.
Kristopher Radder Brattleboro Reformer
Deb Wright listens to people speaking during the Rockingham Town Meeting at the Bellows Falls Opera House Monday night.
Kristopher Radder, Brattleboro Reformer
Doug MacPhee, of Rockingham, addresses the Select Board during the Rockingham Town Meeting at the Bellows Falls Opera House Monday night.
Kristopher Radder, Brattleboro Reformer
Rockingham hosted the Rockingham Town Meeting at the Bellows Falls Opera House, in Bellows Falls, Vt., on Monday, March 1, 2021.
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WESTMINSTER â The Bellows Falls Union High School Board narrowly approved a proposed budget for the 2021-22 school year Monday night that shows a 2 percent decrease over the current budget.
But three school directors almost defeated the budget with their insistence that the board know what the actual impact will be on taxpayers before the budget is approved.
On a 4-3 vote, the board approved the proposed $7,502,808 million budget, which Principal Christopher Hodsden said is a two percent decrease over the current budget of $7.655,000.
But Directors David Clark of Westminster, Deborah Wright of Rockingham and Stephen Fine of Athens voted against the budget, largely because the tax impact is not known.
BELLOWS FALLS â What a difference 24 hours makes .
Officials from the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union released new overall budget figures that were dramatically different from from budget figures discussed Monday night at a meeting of the Bellows Falls Union High School. At that time, a BFUHS budget increase of 11 percent was projected. Now the various budgets of the different schools in the union look like they will be close to level funded.
Superintendent Christopher Pratt and Business Manager Flora Pagan said they spent the entire day Tuesday working on the budget with other district officials, not so much cutting things, but re-aligning the budget without the state education finance system, eFinance.