STARKSBORO — Starksboro voters on Town Meeting Day re-elected selectboard incumbent Koran Cousino in a two-person race for a two-year seat on the town’s selectboard. Cousino received 249 votes and challenger David Rousseau earned 71 tallies.

That was the only contested race on Starksboro’s March 3 ballot.

Selectboard member Carin H. McCarthy was re-elected to the board for a three-year term, and incumbent Tony Porter won the two years remaining on a three-year term on the board.

Kristen Toy was also re-elected for a three-year term on the Mount Abraham Unified School District Board.

Also at the polls on Tuesday, Starksboro voters fielded a $37,862,780 MAUSD spending plan for the 2026-2027 school year and a Patricia Hannaford Career Center FY27 budget of $6,271,916 to deliver vocational-technical education to Addison County students. See separate stories in this edition revealing those results.

Starksboro held its annual town meeting at Robinson Elementary School this past Saturday, with 128 voters in attendance. At that meeting voters OK’d:

• $1,371,119 in town spending, an increase of $155,200, or just over 11%, from what was proposed last year, with $1,071,257 to be raised by taxes.
• $73,781for the Fire Equipment Reserve Fund, an increase of $6,092.
• $134,095 for the Road Equipment Reserve Fund, up $7,590.
• The use of $35,000 from the Unassigned General Fund Balance for repairs and maintenance of town buildings.
• $64,115.58 for the Starksboro Public Library.
• $1,500 for the Bristol 4th of July Committee to support its annual Independence Day celebration and parade.

Voters also approved Article 14, which asked voters to appropriate a total of $109,357 for 37 local nonprofits serving Starksboro residents.

Article 11 asked if, “In light of actions taken by the Board of the Mount Abraham Unified School District (MAUSD) potentially to close Robinson Elementary School, shall the voters of the Town of Starksboro authorize the community to determine and then inform voters of the steps required (which would include a future vote by the Town’s voters) to withdraw from MAUSD as provided in 16 V.S.A §724.” That article also passed.

MAUSD has been exploring a handful of educational delivery models as part of an effort to reduce costs while continuing to offer quality programming. Two of the options being evaluated could lead to a vote on whether to close a couple of the district’s elementary schools, potentially including Robinson Elementary.

Residents also passed Article 12, which asked if voters should “vote at a special or regular meeting to adopt proposed amendments to the Town Plan or zoning bylaws by Australian Ballot in lieu of the selectboard.” That means voters will weigh in on proposed amendments to the Town Plan or zoning bylaws, rather than have those be approved by the selectboard.