This is the kind of bipartisanship we’re talking about!

by Rob Roper

As the legislature returned to Montpelier for the 2026 session, Representative Gina Galfetti (R-Barre) announced her proposal for a bill that would freeze property tax rates for the next three years. We like this! It is a necessary response to the 14 percent statewide increase in 2024 – an insane 40 percent increase over the past five years – and in the face of another estimated 12 percent increase in 2026. It has to stop.

In her announcement op-ed, Galfetti admits that this is not a solution the education funding problem, but a kind of trauma procedure to stop the patient (us taxpayers) from bleeding out before or during actual surgery. Or, as she put it, “…so “Vermonters can survive while we at the Legislature get to work.” That work being the creation over three-year freeze of an affordable, sustainable, effective education system.

On the other side of the aisle, Senate President Pro Tem, Philip Baruth (D/P-Chittenden ) announced that he would propose in the next couple of weeks a bill that would cap school district budget increases for two years, though he doesn’t say by how much and the “two years” he’s referring to are FY2028 and ‘29, not starting now and for the next two years. The flaw (or perhaps feature) of this proposal is that it would incentivize districts to spend MORE in FY 2027 while the getting’s good, driving up property taxes in the near future and baking that new spending into the “capped” cake. So… meh.

But I’ll give Baruth kudos (or maybe one kudo if that’s a thing) for at least kinda sorta nodding at the reality that we have a public school spending problem. Because even by making this incredibly modest, borderline useless proposal, he exposed The Blob’s greed (that is the public education bureaucracy made up of the VTNEA, Principals’ Association, Superintendents’ Association, etcetera) and total unwillingness to consider the plight of taxpayers by drawing their oppositional fire.

Asked by Vermont Public about Baruth’s proposal, the executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association responded, “We share the concern about rising property taxes. However,… hard budget caps do not address rapidly rising employee health care costs. They simply shift the pain onto students and classrooms.” Translation: “We’re not really concerned about rising property taxes. Your children are our hostages. Pay up!”

Of course, the proper response to that response should be a very loud, collective shout from all Vermonters of two words you still can’t say on television. Or perhaps a three-word variation on the sentiment.

But here’s why we need both Galfetti’s and a version of Baruth’s ideas to work together –immediately. Galfetti’s freeze on property taxes (per her admission) doesn’t solve by itself the spending problem. It just shifts the revenue source from the property tax to the general fund. This is a good thing because it will put pressure on legislators to solve the education spending problem or be forced to either cut general fund programs (which we need to do anyway) or raise new taxes to make up the difference – neither of which will be popular with blocks of voters. It’s a powerful incentive that does not exist in the current system.

The short-term challenge for implementing just a property tax freeze is that school boards could decide to push for higher spending with the knowledge that local property taxpayers won’t feel the pinch. This is where Baruth’s spending cap comes in. Or, better yet, the “foundation formula” envisioned by Act 73.

Just to review, the foundation formula was/is the cost containment mechanism in the law that would give each school district a set amount of funds based on the number of students in a school. That’s your budget. Period. It’s essentially a cap, and a good and necessary idea (probably the only good idea in Act 73, but I digress…).

Here’s how the two components need to work together: legislators should immediately this year determine and announce what the Act 73 foundation formula is going to be at the end of Galfetti’s three-year property tax freeze. School boards should then be instructed to use these three years to create a budget glide path that will allow for a smooth transition to the new funding system. If a school board increases spending out of line with that trajectory, they will only be setting themselves up for a painful fiscal cliff at the end of three years.

So, as in the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials, my hope for the opening days of the 2026 legislative session is that Rep. Galfetti and Sen. Baruth bump into each other in the hallways declaring, “You got your property tax freeze in my spending cap!” “You got your spending cap in my property tax freeze!” Yes, two great policies that work great together – in bipartisan fashion no less, which is what they all say they want, is it not?

Of course, one has to remember that The Blob’s tentacles grip tight. Asked by Vermont Daily Chronicle what she thought of Galfetti’s proposal, Democrat Majority Leader, Lori Houghton (D-Essex Junction) said, “Costwise, we have to be very careful about looking at this proposal. That would be a really hard thing to do, when we have cost increases every year.”

Uhhh… yeah. Those “cost increases every year” are the thing the voters in November 2024 told you loud and clear to end. It’s hard? No. Cutting back on spending that has been increasing at multiples of inflation every year for years and now ranks at a bloated $29,000 per student – nearly twice the national average – shouldn’t be that hard. What’s hard is the average Vermont household having to absorb a 41 percent property tax increase over the past five years. Which is on top of what was already one of the most onerous property tax burdens in the country. That’s hard. For too many it’s impossible.

Make it stop. Freeze the taxes for three years per Galfetti and put a lid on spending going forward. Nearly every other state is doing a better job of educating their children for less money than we are spending. School boards and teachers can figure it out. If not, they’re probably not smart enough to be teaching our kids in the first place.

VIDEO REVIEW: If you want to know why no progress is being made on education finance reform, consider these two videos from last year….

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com