Glossary

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#A

#Act 127 (pupil weighting)

2022 legislation that rebalanced Vermont's pupil-weighting formula to direct more funding to districts with higher concentrations of English-learner and income-eligible students. Phases in through FY29. The same act's Section 14 also directed the district quality standards now in Rule 100, effective July 1, 2025; see the education-law timeline.

#Act 153 (supervisory union services)

2010 legislation that made the supervisory union's shared services mandatory rather than optional. It deleted the words "at the option of the supervisory union" from 16 V.S.A. § 261a, turning a list of optional shared services into required ones, and added human resources management support to that list; it also made SPED an SU responsibility; in Windsor Southeast, that is when SPED staff became SU employees rather than district employees. A supervisory union may ask the Secretary of Education for a waiver, but an individual district cannot opt out on its own. See From four superintendents to one.

#Act 173 (Special Education funding)

2018 legislation that replaced Vermont's old reimbursement-based SPED funding with a Census Block Grant, a per-LTWADM allocation paid to each SU regardless of actual SPED spending. The grant is supplemented by Reimbursement and Extraordinary Reimbursement for documented costs above the grant. See SPED money flow diagram.

#ADM (Average Daily Membership)

Unweighted average pupil count over the school year: what you get if you sum daily enrollment and divide by the number of school days. The raw input that LTWADM weights and smooths. Useful as a sanity check; not used directly in state-aid calculations.

#AOE (Agency of Education)

Vermont's state-level education agency. Sets EQS, administers the Education Fund, processes state-aid payments, and collects the statewide data used in the per-district AOE 3-year comparison tables later in this book.

#ASBO (Association of School Business Officials International)

The professional association for school business officials. Its Meritorious Budget Award (MBA) recognizes school budget documents that meet a published set of criteria for clarity and completeness.

#Assessed SU Costs

The portion of the SU operating budget that is allocated back to the three member districts. Each district's voters see the assessment as a single line in their own district budget. The complement of On-Behalf Revenue.

#Assessment (SU assessment)

The amount the Supervisory Union bills each member district for its share of SU costs. See Assessed SU Costs.

#C

#Capital Reserve Fund (CRF)

A non-operating fund a district uses to save for capital projects outside the General Fund. CRFs let districts plan the timing of roof, HVAC, and systems-replacement costs across multiple budget cycles.

#CDHP (Consumer-Directed Health Plan)

A health plan with a higher deductible, paired with a tax-advantaged account (an HSA or HRA) that helps pay medical costs before the deductible is met. Plans offered to Vermont school employees through VEHI include CDHP options.

#CLA (Common Level of Appraisal)

Vermont's statewide adjustment that brings each town's locally assessed property values into rough equivalence with fair market value. The CLA is recomputed annually; a CLA below 100% means the town's grand list is lower than market, so the homestead tax rate gets divided by the CLA to land at the actual mil rate.

#E

#ELL (English Language Learner)

A student whose first language is not English and who receives instruction to build English proficiency. Vermont's pupil weighting counts English learners at a higher weight; see Act 127.

#EQS (Education Quality Standards)

The Vermont AOE rule set that defines minimum requirements for curriculum, staffing, and student support services that every Vermont public school must meet. EQS compliance is one of the structural cost-drivers in any school budget.

#ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief)

Federal pandemic-relief grants to schools, awarded 2020–2021. Districts had until September 30, 2024 to commit the funds, so positions paid from ESSER either ended or moved to other funding.

#Excess-spending threshold

A per-pupil spending ceiling above which the marginal homestead rate doubles. Set by the legislature annually (FY27: $16,470 / LTWADM). Districts that exceed it face an effective 2× rate on every dollar over, creating a strong incentive to stay below.

#F

#FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act)

The federal payroll taxes for Social Security (6.2% of wages, up to the annual wage base) and Medicare (1.45%). The employer pays its share on every employee's wages, so FICA is budgeted as a benefit cost alongside salaries.

#FTE (Full-Time Equivalent)

A way of counting positions: one full-time position is 1.0 FTE, and a half-time position is 0.5. Staffing figures in this book are in FTE unless they say head count.

#FY (Fiscal Year)

July 1 through June 30 in Vermont. FY28 = July 1, 2027 through June 30, 2028. School-year terminology (e.g. "2027–28 school year") and fiscal-year terminology refer to the same span; the budget book uses the FY designation throughout.

#G

#GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles)

The accounting standards for financial reporting; for state and local governments they are set by the GASB. Board policy F20 requires WSESU's accounting to meet them. See Basis of Budgeting.

#GASB (Governmental Accounting Standards Board)

The independent board that sets GAAP for state and local governments, including school districts. Its Statement No. 54 defines the categories of fund balance (nonspendable, restricted, committed, assigned and unassigned). See What makes up a fund balance.

#H

#HRA (Health Reimbursement Arrangement)

An employer-funded account that reimburses employees for qualified medical costs, often paired with a CDHP. Claims paid ahead of the year they belong to show up as prepaid items in fund balance.

#HSA (Health Savings Account)

A tax-advantaged savings account owned by the employee and paired with a high-deductible health plan. Employer contributions to employees' HSAs are a budgeted benefit cost.

#I

#IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)

The federal law that guarantees students with disabilities a free appropriate public education and sets the rules for IEPs. IDEA grants are restricted federal revenue.

#IEP (Individualized Education Program)

A legally binding document that lays out the special-education services a student is entitled to under federal IDEA law. IEPs drive most of the SPED line in any school budget.

#L

#LTWADM (Long-Term Weighted Average Daily Membership)

The pupil-count formula Vermont uses for state-aid calculations. Average daily membership (ADM) is weighted by grade level and other categorical factors, then smoothed over multiple years to dampen year-to-year enrollment swings. See How Vermont funds schools.

#M

#MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports)

A framework for matching academic, behavioral, and social-emotional interventions to student need: Tier 1 is universal, Tier 2 is targeted, Tier 3 is intensive. Every WSESU member school runs an MTSS process and budgets staff time for it.

#O

#On-Behalf Revenue via Expense Reimbursement

State revenues paid directly to the Supervisory Union rather than to a member school district. Categorical Special Education aid, transportation reimbursement, and similar formulas all flow this way. These dollars never appear in any member-district budget (they show up only on the SU's books), but they do reduce the amount the SU has to assess back to the districts to break even. The opposite of Assessed SU Costs. See How the SU money flows.

#OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefits)

Benefits other than a pension that an employer has promised to employees after they retire, such as retiree health insurance. Where they exist, the accrued obligation is reported in the audited financial statements.

#S

#SPED (Special Education)

Instruction and services for students with disabilities under IDEA, delivered through each student's IEP. In WSESU, SPED is an SU responsibility; see Act 153 and Act 173.

#T

#Title I / Title IIA (federal)

Federal grant programs under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Title I funds supplement instruction for schools with high concentrations of low-income students; Title IIA funds professional development. Both flow as restricted federal revenues, separate from state aid.

#Town Meeting Day

The first Tuesday in March, established by 16 V.S.A. § 553. Each member town of WSESU votes its school-district budget on this day. The FY28 vote falls on March 2, 2027.

#Tuitioning

The arrangement under which a school district that does not operate a school of its own pays tuition for its students to attend another school. Hartland and Weathersfield operate PreK–8 schools and tuition their high-school students, so 9–12 tuitioning is a budgeted expense in those districts rather than a school they run. The receiving school may be public or an approved independent school, and families choose among them. See From Four Superintendents to One.

#U

#UCOA (Uniform Chart of Accounts)

Vermont's statewide chart of accounts that every school district uses to code expenditures and revenues. Each transaction is tagged with a function code (what the money is for: Direct Instruction, Plant Operations, etc.) and an object code (what kind of expense: Salaries, Benefits, Supplies, etc.). Standardization across districts is what makes statewide comparisons possible.

#V

#VEHI (Vermont Education Health Initiative)

The statewide program through which Vermont school employers provide health insurance to their employees. Premium changes set by VEHI are one of the largest drivers of benefit costs in this budget.

#W

#Warning

The official notice that a town must post before any vote on the school-district budget. It sets the date, time, polling place, and the question(s) being voted on.

#Y

#Yield

The dollar amount Vermont sets each year as the spending level per equalized pupil that one $1.00 homestead tax rate is expected to raise. Education spending above the yield raises the homestead rate proportionally; the yield is the lever the legislature uses to set the relationship between budget growth and tax-rate change.