§ 562. Powers of electorate

At a school district meeting, the electorate:

(1) Shall conduct meetings in accordance with Robert’s Rules of Order, unless other rules of order are specifically adopted at a meeting.

(2) Shall elect a moderator at the annual meeting who shall preside at the district meetings, regulate the business thereof, decide questions of order, and make a public declaration of every vote. The moderator may administer oaths to district officers and newly elected school board members. In the moderator’s absence, a moderator pro tempore shall be chosen to preside.

(3) May elect a school district clerk at the annual meeting who shall keep a true record of all proceedings at each district meeting, certify its records, make an attested copy of any records of the district for any person upon request and tender of reasonable fees therefor, if so appointed serve as secretary of the school board, and perform such other duties as may be required by law.

(4) May authorize the school board to retain a public accountant, licensed in this State, to examine the accounts of the treasurer and the school board at the close of each fiscal year and at such other times whenever necessary, and report to the district whether the same are correctly cast and properly vouched.

(5) May vote annual salaries for school board members.

(6) May authorize the payment of actual and necessary expenses of school board members when traveling in the performance of duty.

(7) May authorize the school board to enter into leases of real property for more than three years, to purchase buildings or sites for school purposes, to locate and erect schoolhouses, and to sell, or otherwise dispose of, schoolhouses or sites for same.

(8) Shall authorize at each annual school district meeting an amount of money from all revenue sources to be expended by the board for the support of public schools; and, except for one-time purchase items that the board warns as a separate article, the board shall determine how the authorized funds shall be expended.

(9) May authorize the school board to borrow money not in excess of anticipated revenue for the school year by issuing bonds or notes.

(10) Shall elect school board directors and other officers as are required for each class of school district.

(11) May grant general authority to the school board, at the request of the board, to incur debt at any time within the subsequent five years to finance the cost of school-building energy improvements not to exceed $350,000.00 per building in any three-year period and payable over a maximum term coextensive with the useful life of the financed improvements, but not to exceed ten years, provided that the avoided costs attributable to the financed improvements exceed the annual payment of principal and interest of the indebtedness. No indebtedness shall be incurred under this subdivision unless the entity appointed as an energy efficiency utility under 30 V.S.A. § 209(d)(2), an independent licensed engineer, or an independent licensed architect has certified to the district the cost of the improvements to be financed, the avoided costs attributable to the improvements, and the adequacy of debt service coverage from the avoided costs over the term of the proposed indebtedness. (Added 1969, No. 298 (Adj. Sess.), § 39; amended 1975, No. 192 (Adj. Sess.), § 3; 1979, No. 23, § 3; 2003, No. 12, § 2; 2005, No. 54, § 4; 2005, No. 182 (Adj. Sess.), § 2; 2011, No. 58, § 32, eff. May 31, 2011; 2013, No. 92 (Adj. Sess.), § 68, eff. Feb. 14, 2014.)