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