What a roller coaster Vermont taxpayers are on.
The Campaign for Vermont reports that just over a week ago the Administration was happy to report that consumption tax revenues were coming in stronger than expected, downgrading the looming property tax increase to 17.3%. But this week the Agency of Education received a large number of big budgets that school boards were planning to warn on town meeting day.
The budgets are up. They are up a lot. Thanks to Act 127 language that (unintentionally, lawmakers are assuring the public and administration) incentivizes school districts to increase spending without tax penalties in some situations, over $216M in new spending is on tap for FY2025 – a 14.3% increase over last year and higher than the Agency of Education originally predicted.
This will drive property tax bills up to 20.56% next year. To be clear, the only policy levers the Legislature actually has to address this is to force school districts to control spending. They are already looking to add new revenues for this year – such as a Wealth Tax on some unrealized capital gains – but that will only redistribute the burden of a quarter billion dollar increase in spending.
Phil Dodd, reporter for the Montpelier Bridge, says legislative leaders are considering doing away with Act 127’s 5% equalized tax rate cap, a complicated formula meant to protect districts from huge tax increases but which, in practice, is incentivizing across-the-board increased spending.
If the Legislature takes this (or other) steps to avoid the likely Town Meeting descent from the precipice, it also may allow school districts to tear up existing school budget proposals, write new ones, and rewarn them for a yet-to-be scheduled annual school meeting.
“As a result of the expected changes, school boards may be given the option of revising their budgets and warning another district budget vote, according to Rep. Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), chair of the House Education Committee,” Dodd reports in a recent issue of the Montpelier community newspaper.
House Education will continue to grapple with the problem at 1:15 pm Tuesday.
Based on reports from the Campaign for Vermont and the Montpelier Bridge.
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Categories: Education
Chop Chop Chop. The education bureaucracy needs to be gone. Start with every supervisory union in the state and don’t stop there. My favorite would be removing all the computers and internet from every classroom k- 12. Human flourishing first.
Also-I’ll say again-increase the number of students per teacher would help reduce the school budgets significantly! I know-I know-but it would. Check out how Vt. compares with most other states about it.
Centralized power of the government doesn’t work…The Soviet Union will tell you that… When the towns of VT ran their own schools, they worked pretty well overall. Stu Lindberg is right on.
Actually the Soviet Republic worked quite well for several generations, IF you were apparatchik and nomenklatura of the party. Compare the Soviet Nomenklatura to what exists in 2024 Vermont… and see how that fits. We’ll leave out the murderous purges, detainments and labor camps- and focus instead on the ruled caste system as compared to Vermont’s current arrangement of State employee unions, NGO’s and lobbyists- and our version of the politbureau, firmly ensconced under the golden dome- leaving the peasant to provide for the bloated and inept administrative state.
I just finished reading a biography about Joseph Stalin. There are so many similarities between soviet politics and beurocrats/plutocrats it isn’t funny. For example, Stalin had zero tolerance for political pluralism, meaning only one political view was accepted and everyone else who challenged that doctrine was repressed, along with being sent to Siberia , the work house or executed.
There’s something wrong when the number of students keeps going down and the budget keeps going up. To me this situation screams audit as there is no acceptable reason for this math formula to add up. The system is broken. IMO the education department, the unions, and the local school boards need to be audited to ensure that taxpayers are not getting played, and are getting the most bang for our buck. Personally I’d like to see the teachers out of the VTNEA, and part of the VSEA like every other department in state government.
“I caught you knockin’ at my cellar door
I love you, baby, can I have some more?
Ooh, ooh, the damage done.
I’ve seen the needle and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie’s like a settin’ sun.”
Do the math.
With more than 37,700 AOE employees serving only 72,747 K-12 students, one would think the VT Agency of Education and its public schools had the staff to do a better job in all categories. After all, with a $2.08 Billion projected education budget ($28,400+ per K-12 student) one would think they’d do a better job educating the kids. That fewer than half of Vermont’s high school graduates meet grade level proficiencies at that price isn’t anything to write home about (if they can even write).
If you want to save money and improve student outcomes, cut education spending by allowing all parents to have School Choice.
H.405!
Where can I find that number of people that AOE employs? It just boggles the mind.
Neil, Is that you Neil ???
What do you get for the $2.08 Billion, an agenda with indoctrination to all the liberal nonsense programs, your basic reading, writing, and arithmetic programs that teach your child to succeed in life, are nonexistent, well at least that’s what the test scores show !!
So to all the homeowners, seeing your school tax increase year after year and you’re stuck in your job not seeing an increase year after year, but the educator receives an increase every year along with benefits……… what’s wrong with that picture?
Wake up people, they’re your kids and it is their future, remember the teachers’ union
have always said ” It’s for the kids “, Nope it’s for them, and their agenda !!
Me thinks that every city and town should vote down their school budgets to send a very loud message to the Legislature, that we’ve had enough! It may even send a loud message to the AOE, the school districts, and parents. Time for getting the government out of the “education” business and back to making laws that punish wrongdoers.
Yes, HJE, for making known H.405 – An act relating to school choice for all Vermont students! Time is now!
A couple of reasons why school budgets will continue to overwhelmingly pass (I haven’t voted in favor of one in over 20-years) is because the 37,700 AOE employees all vote in favor of them. Secondly, many parents vote in favor of them because if the schools closed, who’ll take care of the kids? Whether they want to admit it or not, many parents want the schools open for no other reason than a childcare service.
On another note, we’ve home-schooled our children, and now grandchildren, for a cost of about 10% of what the AOE cost per student.
An often forgotten reason for overwhelming passage of school budgets is the Property Tax Credit ( formerly prebate program) which gives Vermont homeowners and voters a tax credit- and insulation from the results of their votes. Those with under $137,500 in household income will benefit from a reduced property tax bill, and not feel full effect of their vote for school budgets nor for fiscally reckless politicians.
Responding to Frank… those of us making less than $137,500 “not feeling the full effect” is a bit of an insult to some of us whose income is more like $20,000-30,000 a year while already owning our homes and on a SEVERELY restricted budget.
What I always find hilarious is that things always get THIS BAD in a state ONLY when the middle class begin feeling the pinch of inflation and insane tax hikes and when their neighborhoods are losing businesses and their homes are being broken into.
Again, I will say that I am not a liberal or on the Left. But I will say that I see what’s going on. Very few well-off people cry until their panties are being twisted. But even more hilarious is that the grand majority of you will not do anything. Few will write anyone. Even less of you will show up to make you voices heard. Almost NONE of you will run for office.
I have been paying into this ever-lousy school system from NJ to Virginia and now to VT for all of my working days of renting and owning, without ever having kids of my own, and so I rest my case. No one is going to save me or anyone else from this mess. I will eventually lose the ability to keep my house which I knocked myself out for over 45 years to live in peace. I have comfy people to blame while I was out there working 60+ hours a week. Those of you with more money ought to be smarter to know how to stop this, but you don’t.
Now you know why Leftists hit the streets and make their demands unapologetically.
it is very easy to vote no on a school budget. If enough districts reject their budgets, and continue to reject their budgets, that will reduce school spending. If a district rejects the budget three times, state law mandates a budget that is 10% less than the previous years budget.
So, as Nancy Reagan once said, “Just say no!“
it is interesting that schools feel their exorbitant spending is not part of the problem
There is no way!!! Seniors need an opt out! Parents need to get off their butts and get into the schools!!!
According to VT statute, all 7th thru 12th graders can request an ‘opt out’ from their local school board.
§ 822. School district to maintain public high schools or pay tuition
https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/chapter/16/021
Haven’t you been paying attention?
Understand too, that Marxist lawmakers Laura Sibilia and Rebecca Holcombe are trying to eliminate this option with H.634. Do what you can by telling your district representatives to vote against H.634.
And if you want to codify § 822. School district to maintain public high schools or pay tuition – tell your representative to vote yes for H.405.
But first, you have to start paying attention.
To add to your remarks, Rep Sabilia says her constituents are WRONG to want to keep S822 . But she is RIGHT to try and kill it. But then she is much more intelligent than the people who elected her. Just ask her.
Maybe be in schools good but….. better parenting even better .
School Choice makes parenting better too.
When will we see a detailed accounting of the existing spending? So much money seems to go into this black hole with little detailed explanation. I’d like to see how they apply that $25,000.00 per student to the student…we deserve this information before they add 20% to our taxes. How is this money being spent? I’m tired of taking their word for it….because this does not add up. Fewer students and lower test scores but bigger budget?
Not only do you deserve this information, you’ve been able to get your school district’s line item budget from your local superintendent anytime you want it. That you are only now raising this question speaks to the carelessness of most school district voters. Where have you been? Why are you only now asking this question?
Yes, Vermont deserves better.
Actually, I’ve made this request/statement several times. However, I doubt that anything I would get from my local superintendent would answer what I want to know. But, I will try your suggestion and see what I am able to get.
If you happen to be ‘spreadsheet’ enabled, request the budget in excel format.
16 tons and what do you get? another day older and deeper in debt. Well Saint Peter don’t you call my name…. I OWE MY SOUL TO THE GOLDEN DOME.
ACT 46. What happened? It was crammed down our throats with the premise that we would improve education at a cost acceptable to citizens, parents and taxpayers. NEITHER of these has panned out. So Chronicle, Digger, Vermont Public….anyone out there… please ask our overlords….the Vermont Principals Association, Vermont Superintendents Association, Vermont School Boards Association, State Board of Education Agency of Education and legislators just what the H happened here. And please, dear overlords, spare us the condescending insult of attributing all of this to COVID etc. etc. etc.
20 percent lets see /// yup/// that will use up one more social security check/// will not be buying any thing this year///
What a crock… I wouldn’t object so much if we actually educated the students
The schooling business is a government enterprise consuming obscene amounts of our confiscated resources and causing wide spread distress. It’s focus is the underwriting of organizations and their extensive infrastructure…not the learning of kids as the customers. Let’s emancipate ourselves from this failed business. Privatize it. Return education of children to their families. They can hire the teachers they want for the curriculum and school services they want for their kids.
No need to ‘privatize’, per se. Just give parents the where-with-all to choose the educational programs they believe best meet the needs of their kids. Let the public schools compete with independent schools and homeschool programs in an educational free market… and just watch the entrepreneurial juices flow.