Nov. 4 Election Day: Voters consider $149 million career center construction bond
October 30, 2025 | By Lisa ScagliottiTuesday, Nov. 4, is Election Day, and without statewide elections this year, only a handful of items are on ballots around Vermont.
Voters in Waterbury, Duxbury and the Mad River Valley towns in the Harwood school district will be voting on the Central Vermont Career Center School District’s $149 million bond to construct a new modern career and technical training center in Barre.
The proposal calls for building a 167,000-square-foot modern school on 27 acres in the Graniteville section of Barre. The new facility would be more than twice the size of the space the career and technical training center operates in at Spaulding High School. It has been located there since it opened in 1969.
The school’s many programs cover a wide range of career paths and skills for high school students, from the building trades such as carpentry, electrical, plumbing to culinary arts, cosmetology, graphic design, automotive technology and medical professions. Programs are growing in popularity with the center turning away dozens of applicants each year for lack of capacity.
If the 30-year construction bond is approved, the new center to accommodate full-day programming to up to 500 students would be built with a target opening of fall 2029, district officials have said.
The Central Vermont Career Center School District encompasses the school districts with the six high schools that send it students: Cabot, Harwood, Montpelier, Spaulding, Twinfield and U-32. Voters in those districts’ 18 communities will be voting on the bond.
Ballots in career center district elections are comingled and counted together for one result. Given the logistics to collect and count ballots from so many polling places, the count from the bond vote is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 6, at the Barre Auditorium. Results should be announced that day, according to district officials.
Locally, the career center bond is the only question for voters in Waterbury, Duxbury, Moretown, Fayston and Waitsfield.
Warren has a vote Tuesday on a $10 million municipal bond to construct a new 12,100-square-foot town highway garage. A public informational meeting on that project will be held on Thursday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. The meeting will be available via Zoom and in person. Details are on the agenda here and the presentation can be found here.
All ballots for Nov. 4 are available now for voters who wish to vote early. This close to Election Day, requesting and returning ballots via the mail is no longer possible. Voters may visit their municipal clerk’s office during regular hours this week or on Monday to mark their ballot.
On Tuesday, Nov. 4, voting will be open in the Harwood district towns from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The polling places and hours in each community are listed on the career center election warning.
In Waterbury, voting will be held inside the municipal offices. Next week also has a property tax payment deadline on Friday, Nov. 7. Town Clerk Karen Petrovic said she’s anticipating plenty of traffic all week from taxpayers, and especially on Monday and Tuesday, given the vote.
In Duxbury, Town Clerk Maureen Harvey said the customary drive-through polling arrangement will be set up outside the town office and town garage on Vermont Rt. 100.
A sample career center ballot is posted on the Waterbury town website under Voting and Elections. More information about the career center project can be found on the Central Vermont Career Center website cvtcc.org. Local news coverage can be found in the Roundabout’s Education section.