By Michael Bielawski
Former Republican lawmaker from Stowe Heidi Scheuermann likened how disconnected voters are from the consequences of their school budget votes to having “drunk uncle Joe” in charge of your savings.
“It’s a state-wide system with the locals actually making the decisions, they are voting on the budgets and the state is raising the money. That is essentially like me having my job working five days a week, 9-to-5, whatever else, and my drunk uncle Joe having my checkbook,” she said.
The comments were made on the Morning Drive Radio Show on Wednesday. Scheuermann stressed that she spent much of her 16 years as a House lawmaker advocating for a hard-rework to the state’s education funding formula. She wants something that ties the consequences of each budget vote more closely to each community.
Since the Brigham Decision of 1997, Vermont law interprets that all students regardless of the wealth of the community they reside in should have equal access to a quality education. Critics have argued that the resulting convoluted cost-sharing formula has created a disconnect between the voter and tax-rate impacts.
When asked what she most regrets from her tenure at the Statehouse, she said, “The lack of any progress on education funding reform through my 16 years.”
Former state and city lawmaker and host Kurt Wright noted consequences are coming to voters.
“Now we are at a point where the chickens have come home to roost so to speak and we are looking at a 20% property tax increase,” he said. He added, “No one even understands what their vote means anymore.”
Scheuermann reiterated that sentiment.
“When we go to the ballot box we have no idea what our taxes are going to be,” she said.
Scheuermann hammered lawmakers for lacking accountability.
“They never took any responsibility for the fact that the structural problem was with the funding system, it was the funding system that the legislature put into place,” she said. “Local school boards are doing their best within that structure that Montpelier forced them into to fund their schools.”
She added, “This should be priority number 1 of the legislature to come up with an education funding system, one that is more fair, one that is understandable for people, one that can reconnect voters and taxpayers to the budgets they vote on and the money they spend.”
She criticized the mandates being forced on public schools out of Montpelier.
“Our teachers are social workers now, our schools are providing free lunches and breakfast for our students and requiring Act 46 again, forced consolidation which … in fact, increased spending and our outcomes keep declining.”
She was asked what a new funding formula that resolves her concerns might look like. She said she has put a lot of work into a new “regional tax system.”
She said, “We don’t want to dictate to towns and communities what they do with their schools or to force any consolidation. …And we’ll be able to see exactly where our money is going and what those outcomes are.”
She warned that the anticipated 20% tax increase is only an average estimate, some Vermonters will be dealing with property taxes raised by nearly a third.
“We’re looking at 28% in my town (Stowe),” she said.
Scheuermann was asked if she missed being at her old job at the Statehouse. She said no.
“Not a tear in my eyes. I look at what’s happening over there and I just think ‘Thank God I’m not there anymore,’” she said.
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Education
did heidi scheuermannin, her sixteen years at the state house, ever try to change vermonts land control laws/// no/// she rode the wave with her government pay check/// got out just in time////
I’ve always thought that the way the government has been allowed to control it’s own purse strings is just, man, I don’t have the right word(s) to describe it. Looney, stupid, ignorant, a blind, deaf, and mute trust, asking for trouble ? I would liken it to me buying a new truck, then going back to my boss (me) and telling him (me) I need a raise to pay for it, and I give it to myself, every time, with no consequences ! Those spendthrifts need to be held to a predetermined budget as any responsible adult has to live within. Why should they be any different ? The State’s budget should get a COLA every year based on the inflation of the previous year plus 1% maybe ? and they should be bound to live within it as we do. End of story.
This is where SO many people get it WRONG!
“They never took any responsibility for the fact that the structural problem was with the funding system,…”
Wrong! The “structural problem” is the FEATURE, not the bug!
“They”-the progressives, socialists, Marxists-want chaos. They want destruction. “They” hate Western civilization. They despise the free market system.
Their belief system?:
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
– Churchill, House of Commons, 1945
Yes, yes, yes….they structured it this way on purpose…..to get the results they wanted which was unbridled spending….but even their sneaky plan caught up with them.
Don’t worry, wait until you sell your house! Then you see a huge fat transfer tax bill, just in! On a million dollar house sale…….$30,000+
The tax is bigger than real estate commissions.
Suddenly all, what were the best built buildings in our state 40-50 years ago, our schools suddenly need replacing. Every other building in the state lasts more than 40 years, UVM and churches….100’s of years.
Nope suddenly every school across the state is no longer satisfactory or big enough, despite declining enrollment.
We are being scammed like nobodies business.
We have a long term consensus that our common good calls for an educated citizenry. Schooling is a reasonable contribution to citizens educating themselves. And so, we’ve opted for tax funded schooling businesses run by the commonweal. As might be expected, the danger with government run businesses is they lose their customer/client focus and become self-serving bureaucracies. The customer, families educating their kids, is overshadowed by the needs of the organization and its ever more expensive infrastructure. Has this relinquishing of our personal responsibility to educate our kid and turning it over to the community become a disaster? Is it time for the state to stop running schooling businesses? Can the set aside funds go directly to parents? Can they decide what curriculum, teachers and schooling services they want?
But drunk uncle Joe was always the fun uncle
When Act 127 was written to change the education funding the creators put verbiage in the bill EXEMPTING school districts from existing laws and penalties for submitting inflated budgets for four years (page 16, section). This allowed the schools to carry forward their budgets from the previous two years which were hyper inflated from Federal COVID funding. This was done by design as payback to the NEA and to protect all of the newly hired “educational” staff that was funded via the temporary funds. Rep. Peter Conlon is the chair for the House Committee on Education and would NOT give me an answer as to who put that verbiage in the bill. His non answer tells me all I need to know!