BRISTOL — The Mount Abraham Unified School District (MAUSD) board will present its preliminary 2019–2020 spending plan to the public at 5:30 p.m. next Wednesday, Jan. 23, at the Mount Abraham Union High School cafeteria.
The presentation will reflect community and staff priorities developed from a series of surveys conducted over the last year by MAUSD’s Community Engagement Committee, said schoolboard chair Dawn Griswold.
According to Griswold, the community’s top priorities include:
•  Allocating resources in ways that ensure success for all students across the district.
•  Saving on costs through better collaboration across schools and efficiencies through shared purchasing.
•  Investing in teachers (salary, professional development, etc.) so students have high-quality learning experiences.
Staff priorities include:
•  Social, emotional and physical development.
•  Expertise in learning and the resources needed to support those priorities.
“(Superintendent) Patrick (Reen) and his team are building the budget with all that in mind and our declining enrollment,” Griswold said. “We will be looking at a budget that reflects all that and the cost to taxpayers, a big challenge again this year.”
Because the administration is still integrating state funding figures into the budget, any talk of numbers at this time would be purely speculative, Griswold said.