No firm data yet on new likely school tax increase, centrist group calls for voting down school budgets
By Guy Page
Last week, the Legislature passed and Phil Scott signed H.850, which supporters say brings Vermont back from the 20.5% statewide property tax cliff.
It does so – or at least supporters hope it does so – by removing a 5% tax cap granted to school districts in the most recent education reform bill. Many school districts loaded up with spending believing it was essentially ‘free money’ because other districts would be required to pay for it.
But the overspending was so widespread that the proposed statewide property tax for next year exploded to over 20%. Lawmakers hurriedly backtracked, removing the cliff and giving school districts more time to revise budgets and warn them for approval later this spring.
The situation was so dire that, the Campaign for Vermont reports, a Democratic state senator looking at a $3,000 property tax increase herself said the pre-H.850 property tax would “put people out of their homes.”
Ann Cummings (D-Washington), Chair of Senate Finance, told education union officials last week that she “wondered how “middle class people, who are the heart and sole of our communities, can afford to live here,” the Campaign for Vermont reports.
The unintended outcome of the school funding formula isn’t the only cause of this year’s unprecedented high school spending. $30 million for universal school meals, loss of one-time federal Covid-era funds, inflation, and increased health care and salary budgets all contribute.
What’s not clear, yet, is how much the statewide property tax will fall as a result of H.850 passing. VDC has reached out to key lawmakers but as yet has not received an answer.
Campaign for Vermont, a centrist public policy organization aimed at promoting affordable and high quality of life, is openly urging Vermonters to turn down their school budgets unless spending comes down. It published the following last week:
It is no secret that Vermont has a working/middle class affordability crisis.This year’s education spending increase of over $200M is adding insult to injury. But this problem is not actually new, while spending may have accelerated during Covid, Vermont schools have increased education spending by $900,000,000 over the past decade.
We have also dropped to the lowest student/teacher ratio in the country (by a mile).
Our system is over-resourced as a whole, but it is also likely that those resources are not deployed to the correct places. Act 127, in some ways, was meant to address this even though the mechanism itself is quite painful. We also have too many administrators, which consolidating Supervisory Unions could help to address (see our 2014 report).
While changing our complicated education finance system is the purview of the Legislature, the good news is that there IS something you can do. As CFV Co-Founder and state finance guru Tom Pelham stated this week in his opinion editorial, simply vote no on your school budget.
There is little justification for the current levels of spending in Vermont schools, it has not resulted in better outcomes for students. Vermonter’s have historically been supportive of their local schools (justifiably so), but this year’s drastic increase in spending is unprecedented and should give us cause to re-evaluate if this system is actually working. Surprisingly, in our polling from this past fall we found that 57% of Vermonters had a negative opinion of the quality of education being provided in our schools. That number increased to 71% for households with children… maybe that should tell the rest of us something.
This Town Meeting Day, don’t be afraid to ask your school board and school administrators tough questions. Make them justify spending increases and tell them to go back and re-evaluate their budgets if need be. Voting down a school budget may be exactly what districts need to make tough decisions that should have been made years ago. If a school budget is voted down, most districts will get one or two more chances to vote on a new budget before the default 87% budget goes into effect on July 1st (if no budget is passed, districts revert to 87% of the prior year’s budget).
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Categories: Education
Overtaxed?
Vote them out!
Vote Team Trump!
Don’t like it?
Tough cookies!
This is America…the land of many opinions.
THROW THE TAX AND SPEND BUMS OUT!
(Thanks, I needed that.)
Government spending under Trump was way more than Obama spent, and he was in for half the time. You are on your own no matter who is president. We haven’t even begun to see the wealth destruction and boom/bust that was created yet because it takes time for that money to get into circulation. By the time that money hits your pockets, it is worth a fraction of what it was when the money is first spent. It’s a shame 99.9% of people are ignorant on economics.
Remember this trick. When a republican talks about “cutting spending”, they are really only talking about cutting a proposed increase in spending, meanwhile it will still be an increase in spending and nothing will be cut. Their friends, the democrats will then just propose a ridiculous increase in spending, and they will counter with a little bit less than what was proposed so they still get what they originally wanted. The voters will be duped into thinking they won some great feat. Later, the democrats and republicans party in their friends mansion and bang each others wives and do illegal drugs while they laugh at you.
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287
Not true – Trump only had a jump the last year because he caved to the radical leftist, fascists, Covid control freaks and he had to pay the interest on the 10 trillion Obama put on the debt.
@Karen Rowell – You provided an irrelevant link, said not true, then followed up with but but but because. I’m willing to be corrected, but I’m not seeing how what I said isn’t true based off of any input you provided.
Okay, I possibly was mistaken.
Under Obama they spent 21,335.6B in 8 years
Under Trump they spent 13,528.8B in 4 years
but still, Obama’s last 4 years they spent 12,314.5B which is less than under Trump’s 4 years. This is not even close to cutting anything. The pattern follows with every president, it doesn’t matter if its D or R, and the spending is always more and more and more and more.
Although, I think they have some sneaky tricks in their spending budgets that don’t come into the actual spending reports, but I can’t find the original data so I’ll rescind my previous statement of “spending in half the time”
Point still stands.
If I’m not mistaken, this article is about spending in the State of Vermont, and I don’t think Obama or Trump have much to do with Vermont spending. Let’s point the finger at the real culprits. The State legislators we elected.
2012 $6.39 Billion
2013 $6.72 Billion
2014 $7.07 Billion
2015 $7.43 Billion
2016 $7.74 Billion
2017 $7.81 Billion
2018 $7.86 Billion
2019 $7.78 Billion
2020 $8.1 Billion
2021 $9.2 Billion (Covid Begins)
2022 $10.03 Billion
2023 $10.91 Billion (Covid Ends)
2024 $10.99 Billion (projected)
2025 $10.87 Billion (proposed)
Why doesn’t the Vermont budget return to some semblance of pre Covid levels now that the pandemic is over?
Hello, again. I’m a Vermont legislator, and I’m addicted to other people’s money.
Well, hello back at you. I’m a Vermont voter, and I’m stupid enough to vote for you.
And it wouldn’t matter if we elected all Republicans in Vermont, the spending would likely be… More than last year!
Rough calculation is that we have about 364,886.76 people with jobs in Vermont, the rest are students, children, retired, or vagrants/etc.
The median income in VT is $32,959
If the working people had to pay the budget Jay is citing, that would be $30,118.93 per person!!!
If you include everyone in VT minus those 0-17, that would be about $20,791 per person. But kids don’t get drivers licenses and jobs until they turn 26 now right? /s
Close to half of school children aren’t proficient at math or reading. This is very good for the politician. I bet the schools make them proficient at learning to vote for the agenda when they are old enough though. Vermont is in the top 15 states for youth voter turnout. Amazing.
52,800 people in Vermont work for government, and you will be sure they are voting for the people that let them keep their jobs, and give them more money.
And the cycle continues, until it can’t
Uniparty loves our money…….no question there. The love us fighting eachother, they were really hoping you didn’t notice how they keep giving themselves more money no matter who’s in office.
The other shell game they loved playing for a few years was PAC money, the minority would scream at how unjust it was. But when they became the majority, nobody mentioned it.
Notice how much they both love it now? yeah……they do love money.
Want to stop the wild spending in Washington?
Easy. The Convention of States wants to have a Constitutional Amendment calling for TERM LIMITS for Congress and a BALANCED FEDERAL BUDGET.
Article 5 of the Constitution says the STATES can amend the document without ANY input from Washington. Google Article 5.
i will believe when i see it/// they are too entrenched/// you will need a total financial collapse///
You want to save money, and have more say (control) over local schools ? Get rid of the Vt NEA, and have teachers covered by the VSEA like the rest of state employees .
I remember reading that Vermont had some big surpluses last year and the year before. I seem to remember a few articles showing that. One of the articles mentioned that Vermonters were supposed to receive a check from about $250-$275 from the surplus.
Here is the article:
Scott would return $45 million in Ed Fund surplus to taxpayers, spend rest on tech centers
BY GUY PAGE
ON MARCH 9, 2022 • ( 4 COMMENTS )
Scott’s plan for unexpected $90 million surplus in the state Education Fund: give half back to taxpayers in $250 checks this summer, and spend the rest teaching trades to young Vermonters enrolled in technical education.
Did anyone receive their check?
Total spending in the South Burlington School District was up 4.89% in FY23, 7.17% in FY24, and proposed spending is up 13.86% in FY25.
In FY25’s proposed budget spending per student would be $28,341
So I took the average of those 3 years (8.64%) and determined how much it would cost to educate ONE student over 13 years (K-12), beginning with a first year cost of $28,341, and using a serial progression where spending increased by 8.64% per year and student number remained unchanged.
Answer: $635,294!
And they can’t read, write or do math at grade level, so that’s a bonus.
It’s insane. Other schools can easily do it for $130,000 or less, want a really good education, home school for about $36,000 all in and you’ll have some marvelous children, entering adulthood, fully prepared.
Schools have reduced certain aspects of of their budgets saying that they are trying, but are the reductions actually in the best interest of the students?
The legislature fix is to raise taxes, making it way too costly home ownership on established owner and future. This that New York and California that has cost them tax income”IE. residents”, is this the goal to what end?
Nothing motivates a democrat more than when a tax increase hits their income or the violence happens to them or their spawn. Then the usual priorities change.
Feckless fools have no understanding of how to run a Government, all they know is to tax, tax, tax no real solutions they are nothing more than well-dressed beggars !!
Hard-working citizens and homeowners who are strapped with debt because of all the foolish spending bills, if these elected officials worked for any other company they would all be fired, and we should fire them ” Vote them out ”
Wake up people, they don’t care it’s all about their agenda and making you fund it !!
Does it take a legislator to see her taxes going up $3000 to feel the pain of her constituents? Probably just felt her own pain. Why not empathize with the angst we go through with each and every law you pass? Nah…not sensitized to the consequences of the expensive DEI…Climate… Electric…Oil ‘initiatives’ you and your Woker Jokers waste your time and our money on
Why can’t the supervisory union positions be reduced?
Has my senator, Ann Cummings, woken up from her DNC mind-control induced, trance? Welcome back to realty Ann, where ya been? The Federal deficit is $34+ Trillion – that is on the books – off the books, who knows. As Vermont is a never-ending weaning runt on the teet of the Federal welfare system, the State hasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell making it on it’s own. We are finished as a State – the only thing keeping it running is foreign money and cartels – all of what we are seeing is Kabuki Theater – the curtain will be falling shortly and the casket closed.
definitely not, she just didn’t like her tax bill…..
they will raise legislative pay another $3,000, see how that works?
then it will be declared fixed across all the propaganda networks, all the while blaming white christian nationalists for spreading misinformation.
Welcome to the new world order. Where some pigs are more equal than others.
They’ve been fixin” it for decades, this is how we got into this mess!!!!
So, here’s a fun video, Vermont could change as fast Argentina did, we only need to change our direction and allow the people to see and experience the truth and forgiveness.
https://choiceclips.whatfinger.com/2024/02/27/were-back-top-10-memes-watch-maga/
I’ve been saying this for decades…Why does such a small state as Vermont, need so many Supervisory Unions, Town/Village School Districts, especially when the overall population is lower than other states nationally, and those states utilize county wide school districts. So why can’t lil’-ol’-Vermont make 14 county school districts, abolish the supervisory unions/village/town school districts, send the top heavy administrative positions packing/find another vocation etc…
Why do Vermont legislators seem to think they need a raise and pay during their “off time” AND free healthcare??? Why can’t Vermont legislators go back to meeting every other year? And for a much shorter period of time??? (there! Problem solved!!) Why does Vermont have more state workers than New Hampshire?? The school tax is just abominable at this point. One of the highest per pupil costs in the nations and average or below for test scores. I would never put my kids into public school today if they were school age. And the Vermont legislature wants to force parents to either use the governments schools or pay for other schools yourself!! Disgusting. If the government schools are so good, people would be flocking to them….in fact when I worked in a public school years ago people choiced to our school in droves!! There were waiting lists our school was THAT good! The entire system in Vermont needs an overhaul, state workers, socialist handout programs, schools, the fake “climate change” and the unaffordable laws that followed, and they ALL need to figure out how to make things work without our money and stop with the hand outs. Looks like one D is waking up….can we have another??
I figured that is there attempted plan all along ,the dystopian socialists.Over tax ,over regulate ,make unaffordable mandates , drive out the Vermonters. Then the land can be bought by foreigners or sympathizers .Not on my watch !
Wouldn’t school choice stick a fork in the insanity?
Yes!