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By Guy Page
Comprehensive public school funding and governance reform is too complex to pass this year, House Democrats said at a Wednesday press conference.
Vermont Education Secretary Zoie Saunders disagrees. “We have to,” she told VDC Wednesday in a State House hallway conversation.
Tax relief is driving the Scott administration. Double-digit property tax increases drove Vermonters to the polls last November, where they re-elected Scott and dis-elected many Democrat supporters of the current tax structure. Although next year’s property taxes will be “bought down’ with other state funds, the State can’t afford to do that forever, Gov. Scott and other administration officials have said.
Regardless, education reform is just too big a lift to finish this spring, House Democrats insist.
The problem is not spendthrift school boards. That’s not happening, Education Chair Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall) said. “I’ve never seen such across-the-board effort to keep spending in line.”
“We will not fix education this year,” House Majority Leader Lori Houghton (D-Essex) said. She said the House might move the ball down the field some – agree on goals and a concrete plan and pass class size minimums this year, for example – but a comprehensive solution isn’t in the cards for the 2025 Session, she and others said.
“We can’t get that done in just one session,” Ways & Means Ranking Member Charlie Kimbell (D-Woodstock) said. Kimbell said the governor’s plan fails to address capital spending and debt. And it includes assumptions like three students sharing one $74 dollar computer. The governor’s proposed buy-downs to keep taxes low are okay in the short-run, but they’re not a good long term solution, he said.
The thorny problem of religious school tuition and transgender students
House Democrats were asked whether independent religious schools would qualify for public funding. While saying neither nay nor yea, Conlon stressed that the issue would be addressed in a way that is “Vermont constitutionally compliant.”
The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Carson V. Makin decision prohibits funding discrimination against private religious schools. Critics of Carson V. Makin say some religious schools discriminate against LGBTQ staff and students.
At a press conference hosted today by the Friends of Vermont Public Education, a non-profit formed last year in part to address Carson V. Makin, VDC asked, ‘what’s wrong with public funding for religious schools?”
A Friends of Vermont Public Education spokesperson said Vermont has a ‘compelled support’ law, “which basically says the government cannot force its citizens through taxation to support religious organizations that they don’t believe in.”
VDC then noted the Trump administration is threatening to cut off funding to Maine for allowing biological males to play in girls’ sports. If Vermont is likewise threatened, what they should the State do, Geo Honigford of Royalton, FVPE co-founder, was asked.
“Transgender people are protected classes,” Honigford said. “What we should do is continue to protect them.”
Even if Vermont loses a ton of federal money?, he was asked.
“This is about human rights,” Honigford responded. None of the several legislators standing behind him (Sens. Tanya Vahovsky and Martine Gulick, Rep. Rebecca Holcombe) responded either way to his comment.
No Cellphones in School Day – A group of parents, students and educators at the State House Wednesday called for lawmakers to pass legislation prohibiting use of cellphones in schools.
We realize the school funding and districting questions are big, but this is low-hanging fruit and will prove immediate positive results in academic performance and overall mental health of all Vermont students,” says Robin Junker, a mother of three. “Students at Thetford Academy who have been given this opportunity are reporting a more socially rich campus and a ‘happier’ school environment.”
Junker and others support H.54 & S.21. The two virtually identical bills have broad, bi-partisan sponsorship from House and Senate members.
Her Honor Is In The Building – Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak was seen in the State House cafeteria at lunchtime Thursday. The former state representative elected mayor last year says that she was in the State House to meet with Burlington delegation of lawmakers.
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Categories: Education, Legislation
Just keep moving that can down the road a few more years ensuring another generation of illiterates ready to take the current legislative leadership’s place.
Legislative stonewalling isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This is the first year of the biennium, next year is statewide elections. Disapprove of the d&p malarkey- Vote ‘Em Out Next year! Your school budget? Vote the Budget Down this year. As Many times as it takes to defeat it!
Next year work to replace your senator or rep AND your school board member that sees no problem with double digit property tax increases. While we wait, the legislature isn’t going to hurry another bill that increases property taxes, as they did with 2022’s Act 127. Remember that? Act 127 was the cause of the current property tax debacle.
Thanks, Joe!
No education reform this year. The only choice is to vote down all town and school budgets and also vote down all new bonding proposals on the ballot. Now the cave monkeys should just go home as it looks like they are not going to cut spending. More inflation and higher property taxes coming this year. Send these clowns home now.
It is infuriating that the Dems’ position “We cannot accomplish this in the current session” is the stumbling block. This is as plain as the nose on all of their faces. They need time to get their marching orders from the union folks, other lobbyists and organizations like the VPA before tossing out any ideas. Such baloney they play with and ultimately our money. These political thugs have spent enough of my money.Time to do as the previous writer said; “Vote NO on all budgets all across the state and then vote NO for any Democrat running for office.
The longer we wait the more we will pay.
Is it we can’t or is it we ” Won’t “…………………………….We serserve better !!!
“Comprehensive public school funding and governance reform is too complex to pass this year,” Yes, understood. The government running such a complicated business is just an unconscionable burden. Perhaps we ought to get out of the schooling business. Re-empower citizens to run these business responding to customer demands. Teachers are likely to be particularly good at running such businesses.
They might as well have said: ‘Up yours!’
SOLD DOWN THE SLIMY RIVER ONCE AGAIN
“I want to assure you that real, meaningful change is coming,” Speaker Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) vowed during a Statehouse press conference” – December 4, 2024
And it is rumored a bridge is for sale in Brooklyn…..
Unfortunately, it’s Bernies bridge.
And there is a gold plated bridge in California for sale, cheap.
You know what “We the People” do if it’s something the boss sorely needs to get done. We stay and put our noses to the grindstone until it’s done. You can’t serve two masters at once.
Most of the legislators really are displaying remarkable ineptitude. A major shakeup is required. We need business minded legislators like there is now in the white house, with a heavy dose DOGE.
We need DOGE. We need the Feds to come in and supervise a corrupt state, and clean these clowns, and all their machinations out.
School reform can’t pass neither can many Vermont students (but they do). Another shovel load of money isn’t going to fix the problem. Better teaching quality and sound curriculum will.
Education Chair Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall) said. “I’ve never seen such across-the-board effort to keep spending in line.”
Really? Across the board effort? The Chair has probably not heard of a community in Vermont known as South Burlington (SB)
In SB the proposed FY26 budget increases spending by 5% compared to the approved budget this year (FY25) and the education tax rate (which is directly proportional to education tax assessments on City tax bills) is up 7.93% after an 8.18% increase this year.
Some school districts have kept spending increases down but in SB significant spending increases are a religion and occur due to (1) a Superintendent who does not understand the concept of sustainable spending (2 years on the job with a compensation package of about $250,000) and (2) a School Board that does not care about sustainable spending.
It is probably just coincidence that the School Board is composed of at least 2 members with children in the SB school system, one member teaches in another school district, and the Chair’s partner is a teacher in the SB school system.
The perspective of the SBSD leadership and the SB School Board can be summarized as follows: if they can justify every dollar spent and every employed individual in the school system then the economic impact on SB taxpayers and the State Education Fund is irrelevant.
Add that perspective to the SB teachers’s association (the SBEA) who, in my opinion, view local citizens and the State Education Fund as their own personal ATM.
If citizens complain about excessive spending budgets, due in large part to gargantuan compensation packages juxtaposed against below proficient academic achievement outcomes of many students in the school district, the SBEA historically has, again in my opinion, conveyed that the responsibility of SB residents is to be quiet (aka “shut up”) and pay their taxes.
“A Friends of Vermont Public Education spokesperson said Vermont has a ‘compelled support’ law, “which basically says the government cannot force its citizens through taxation to support religious organizations that they don’t believe in.” Do I have an equal right to not be taxed to support the gender cult religion being pushed in public schools? The spokesperson needs to cite the statute.
The Governor dumped a 117 page bill on the legislature two months into the session. After last year’s huge property tax increase, he had almost a year to prepare a proposal. He didn’t. His secretary has described the current proposal as no more than a “starting point.”
Overhaul of our education system may be necessary, but any significant reform is going to be hugely unpopular because there are no easy solutions. It appears that the Governor is more interested in setting up the legislature to take the heat than spending any of his considerable political capital on real reform.
One of the Governor’s proposals is to reduce costs by mandating consolidation and closing down schools to reduce administrative costs and lower the cost per pupil. Everybody here okay with that?
Yup.
Rutland County could close West Rutland, Proctor, Poultney, and Otter Valley tomorrow, consolidate to Rutland and Fair Haven high and the result would be $45 million in savings, increased programming and sports teams that are actually good and not filled with 8th graders
No, I am not “okay” with consolidation, with its false promise of less expense. I don’t buy it. Consolidation is communism. Government has done an intentionally lousy job of dumbing down the population. We need to return fully to local control, in which parents are in control of what is taught to their children in their communities.
They went into the session knowing full well that this was the number one issue to voters yet they squander time away on other issues. Does this not show that the leadership in the legislature needs to be changed? I think so.
Incompetence abounds in Vermont, and we let it happen, election after election !!
Before any budget increases happens, a complete audit is needed within every level Government for waste fraud and abuse……. I bet there’s plenty, so let’s see who balks
at doing an audit, lets make them famous within the state, maybe things will change for good of the people……………………..
Sounds like a slow roll to noreformville.
There is no prejudice in denying people who say that they are the opposite sex of what their chromosomes are, from playing sports. They have to play in the group that matches their chromosomes, XXs with XXs and XYs with XYs. Simple. Any one can claim to be something that they aren’t. I can claim to be a billionaire but that isn’t what I am. Karens claim to be entitled to all sorts of privileges but they aren’t.
Then I guess we’ll have to put people in who can do it
House dems aka corrupt elitist
troussell2, would you please include your full name in your handle? Thank you