ADDISON COUNTY AND BRANDON — Voters on Town Meeting Day gave their approval to four out of the five local high school spending plans.
While residents of the five Addison Northwest Supervisory Union towns rejected the Vergennes Union High School budget (see story, Page 1A), proposed budgets in the rest of Addison County and northern Rutland County met with approval.
Those were in the Addison Central, Addison Northeast and Rutland Northeast supervisory unions, plus the Patricia A. Hannaford Regional Technical School, which runs the Hannaford Career Center.
Voters in the seven ACSU towns OK’d the $17,064,779 UD-3 budget by a vote of  2,111 to 936. ACSU residents also approved a $400,000 bond for financing team rooms and related improvements in the public recreation and athletic facilities to be constructed on Creek Road in Middlebury to be leased by the school district to the town of Middlebury. The 2,000-square-foot addition onto the proposed community center would accommodate four team rooms, restrooms, showers and storage space.
The ANeSU passed the warned $14,091,304 budget with a tally of 1,034-710. It represents a 2 percent increase from the current spending of about $13.8 million. 
In the Brandon area, RNeSU voters approved the Otter Valley Union High School budget, 1,152-1,062. The $10,525,717 spending plan for 2014-15 is $16,351 lower than the current spending plan. But despite a steady decrease in enrollment and ever-increasing energy costs, the OV board used broad strokes to both increase spending in some areas and decrease in others. The biggest cuts came with the elimination of the dean of students position and a $110,000 decrease in special education spending.
Residents in the 17 towns that make up the ACSU, ANwSU and ANeSU can send their children to the Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center. Those residents voted 4,498 to 1,977 to approve proposed 2014-2015 spending of $3,419,913, which represents a 2.73-percent cut in spending that will call for elimination of the center’s building trades program as well as downsizing of the school’s administration.