by Rep. Laura Sibilia
The heart of effective governance lies in the intricate task of problem-solving, an inherent aspect of policymaking, legislating, and governing in our democratic society. Regardless of our roles—whether on school boards, in the legislature, or as the elected governor—it is imperative to address issues in harmony with the majority perspectives of our constituents.
Diverse values come into play in the realm of problem-solving; some officials prefer minimal intervention, others advocate for fiscal restraint, and some emphasize comprehensive solutions. While disagreements may arise regarding the existence or nature of a problem and the inconvenience of proposed solutions, consensus on the problem itself is the catalyst for progress. The more diverse values engaged in problem-solving, the higher the likelihood of reaching a successful resolution.
On December 1, the Vermont Tax Commissioner projected a substantial increase in property taxes for the upcoming fiscal year, indicating expectations that are based on Vermont voters’ likely approval of school budgets and proposals from the legislature and governor. The pandemic spurred financial needs in schools due to virtual learning, health and safety repairs, and heightened mental health requirements for students, staff, and administrators. Federal funding, previously available, is diminishing, compounding the challenges now pressing on school budgets.
During the 2022 legislative session, Vermont also made substantial changes to the calculation of education property taxes by altering how student counts are counted, referred to as pupil weights. This adjustment was necessary to address outdated weights that had created equity issues, particularly for low-income and ESL students.
Vermont’s school finance system is complex and interconnected. The pupil weight changes mean that in the next fiscal year, some districts will increase school budgets and see tax rate reductions, while others might experience a tax rate hike even with flat spending. In addition, it has been nearly 16 years since Vermont provided school construction aid. We have also seen declining enrollments, district consolidations, and concerns about contaminants in school buildings. Some districts, lacking state and federal program funds, have independently managed repairs and maintenance, contributing to the burden on property taxes.
Huge cost increases tied to inflation, volatile fossil fuel markets, and staffing costs due to Vermont’s labor shortage have further added to the financial strain. The real estate boom has also caused grand list values in many towns to rise significantly, disrupting the common level of appraisal and triggering a tax penalty until reappraisal, which is a logistical challenge for numerous towns due to shortages in technical expertise.
In this challenging scenario, what is needed is leadership. At the highest government ranks, this involves acknowledging the irreplaceable value of a high-quality public education system to our children, communities, recruitment efforts, and to Vermont’s future. It requires a fully staffed Agency of Education with an innovative educational leader at the helm developing scalable solutions for addressing factors beyond local control which affect our kids, schools, and taxpayers. New Superintendents and Administrators need technical support to navigate the end of pandemic spending and to address inflation and healthcare increases. Schools experiencing significant pupil weighting changes require technical assistance to make judicious decisions.
The governor’s call for school boards to contain spending is appreciated, but transparent forward facing leadership must also involve providing Vermonters with details about the state and national level pressures deeply impacting local school boards as they strive to balance budgets and deliver a high-quality education.
Government’s purpose is not to dismantle itself, but to solve problems. Vermont’s challenges encompass not only affordability but also safety, access, health, equity, demographics, infrastructure, and climate change. Addressing these multifaceted issues requires informed, strategic leadership and collaborative efforts at all levels of governance. Shorthand talking points to our constituents just won’t do. The intricacies of these challenges demand a comprehensive and detailed approach, one that better captures what good governance is all about.
Author has lived in Southern Vermont for more than 30 years. She is the Independant Representative for Windham-2 and Vice Chair of the House Committee on Environment and Energy.
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Categories: Commentary, State Government
So elder Vermonters are going to be home less because they can not find the money for property taxes ?
The first job
And ms. silbia will continue to obfuscate the reality of the situation. Her words:
“During the 2022 legislative session, Vermont also made substantial changes to the calculation of education property taxes by altering how student counts are counted, referred to as pupil weights. This adjustment was necessary to address outdated weights that had created equity issues, particularly for low-income and ESL students.”
Once again, the elitist factions of our legislature have monkeyed with a broken system, to break it worse. In the real world, people get fired for stuff like this. In Vermont, they keep their jobs and get praise.
Frank, what kind of dressing would you like on Rep Silbia’s salad?
May I suggest something with lots of vinegar.
The first job of government is to protect the people…
How do we how do we protect ourselves from the people trying to destroy us..
Please say it louder, Rep Sibilia hasn’t heard it….apparently.
There is only ONE way to protect ourselves.
Word salads are not as nutritious as garden salads.
“it is imperative to address issues in harmony”
get on your marxist decoder ring and you find out this statement means….
“do what the government says, or you will be cancelled. We make the rules you serfs follow them or we’ll create some more disharmony in your life. See why we love democracy; the majority gets to take your money. We are a democracy no longer a republic”
Right out of the gate – word search for the wordcraft witchcraft: “The heart of effective governance lies in the intricate task of problem-solving, an inherent aspect of policymaking, legislating, and governing in our democratic society. Regardless of our roles—whether on school boards, in the legislature, or as the elected governor—it is imperative to address issues in harmony with the majority perspectives of our constituents.”
The Truth is this: ” We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” US Constitution
Vermont Constitution
Article 6. [Officers servants of the people]
That all power being originally inherent in and co[n]sequently derived from the people, therefore, all officers of government, whether legislative or executive, are their trustees and servants; and at all times, in a legal way, accountable to them.
Article 7. [Government for the people; they may change it]
That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community, and not for the particular emolument or advantage of any single person, family, or set of persons, who are a part only of that community; and that the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right, to reform or alter government, in such manner as shall be, by that community, judged most conducive to the public weal.
Article 8. [Elections to be free and pure; rights of voters therein]
That all elections ought to be free and without corruption, and that all voters, having a sufficient, evident, common interest with, and attachment to the community, have a right to elect officers, and be elected into office, agreeably to the regulations made in this constitution.
Contrast and compare the “representative’s” words with the actual Laws of the Land statement. Turning our representative Republic Nation and our State into a bankrupt corporation and a slipping on a banana peel democracy, is not found anywhere in the Law of the Land statement. Appears we are in a simulation, theater of the absurd, installed belligerent occupied bloodless coup. The question is now: are we going to get out of this disaster or die trying?
The main problem is that no one is actually trying. Our men have been emasculated; our younger generations have been indoctrinated & propagandized, our military might weakened & the remainder all sit about waiting for someone else to pull the proverbial trigger, so they don’t have to.
Yes, we all are grand keyboard warriors against the disaster we are witnessing before our very eyes with regard to our state, our country, & our collective freedoms being decimated before our very eyes. But how many are truly willing, truly able, & truly committed to truly fight against this tide of tyranny with our very lives before it is far too late? Our days are numbered now.
Jefferson stated clearly that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Jefferson was almost certainly not being theoretical here but envisioning that his words would be used and applied without constraint within an era or time when his then-burgeoning Republic would be almost certainly threatened from WITHIN.
That time has arrived. It all came upon us rather gradually in those days of the late 20th century when the right to freedom & liberty were believed as perpetual & eternal inheritances from the God who imbued our Constitution. Similar in manner then to a rather small & defenseless mammal who lets down its guard to innocently savor the ripened fruit fallen upon the ground of a fertile farmstead, it is then that the cunning predator spies his quarry. In the same way we watch as a domestic feline first toys with an often-unsuspecting rodent oft catching, releasing, pouncing again & then wounding until eventually inflicting such catastrophic injuries so as to immobilize and inflict the final & deadly assault, so were we the unsuspecting target on that fateful date of November 4, 2008 when we too were inflicted with the final deathblow on our own fertile homestead when we crazily agreed to fundamentally transform this Constitutional Republic.
We are witnessing firsthand the desecration and the destruction of the United States of America and tragically it appears as if we shall find neither a way out of the disaster we see unfurling before us – or even die trying. We will die instead as a result of becoming passive, immobilized, and helpless against the clutches of these predatory animals who have been pursuing us for years.
Melissa Casey: Excellent. Taking Representative Sibilia’s own words and dismantling her gobbledygook in black and white. One couldn’t ask for a better visual retort. I think Sibilia’s been taking lessons from her best bud, my district rep, Tristan Roberts, a useless individual. Reading his tripe gives me a headache.
She states we need leaders… they wouldn’t recognize a leader if it jumped up and slapped them in the face. There are plenty of leaders and then there are those that pretend to be leaders but never do the hard thing because they are afraid they will lose their position and all that goes with it.
Disgusting.
Sibilia is panicking because she was the lead author and proponent of the change in ed funding law that is greatly responsible for the increased costs. Also noteworthy, she was/is a lead advocate of the Clean Heat Standard that will explode the cost of heating our homes. Anyone from Jamacia, Stratton, Wardsboro, Dover, or Sommerset going to run against her? There is a strong case to be made for her ouster.
Equity: Defined by the United Nations as creating more equal outcomes via taxation and public policy to make outcomes more equal.
The UN defines equality broadly according to the socialist and democratic socialist conventions. This will only get worst over time. Wait until Vermont gets those 200,000 migrants. Imagine what that will do to tax rates. For those who haven’t figured it out yet, the state is implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals under the Biden Administration and with the help of the State of Vermont.
She lost me in the first sentence. Me thinks she misunderstands the phrase “limited government” The governments job is NOT to solve our problems. That dear folks is on us.
Hi Rob,
I’m confident that I will be serving exactly as long as I’m willing and the voters in my district wish me to. That’s how democracy works.
Property owners in the town that I live in, Dover, like the town that you live in, Stowe, are major net contributors to the education fund. This is as a result of Act 60 in the 90’s, and was part of actions the legislature and Governor Dean took to meet Vermont’s constitutional mandate to ensure equitable education opportunities for all Vermont students – provide equitable funding per pupil.
As Dover sent more than 100 million dollars out to educate Vermont students, we could see our neighbors with our own eyes and feel in our own pocketbooks that something was very wrong. The voters in Dover voted to put money on the table three times over a decade to uncover what was happening and then to fight for it to be fixed.
Here are some of the posts I have made to my very well informed constituents over the years on this issue:
https://laurasibiliavt.com/2020/02/02/a-significant-equity-concern-in-vermonts-current-education-funding-system/
https://laurasibiliavt.com/2020/03/08/just-not-complicated/
https://laurasibiliavt.com/2020/08/20/change-the-school-funding-formula-or-children-and-taxpayers-will-continue-to-suffer/
https://laurasibiliavt.com/2021/02/19/vermonts-unjust-school-funding-system/
In order to fix this injustice, large wealthy district that benefitted for 20 years were promised to be held to no more than a 5% change in their pupil counts for three years. That is the weighting effect on property taxes. There are myriad additional factors.
Re: Clean Heat Standard which still has to come back to the legislature in 2025 in order to be implemented – the first research on cost, done by the administration, does not support the hyperbolic assertion that tax rates would rise in the ballpark of .70. I’m looking forward to learning more in over the next year, before we vote.
Somerset only has one m.
✌🏼
The ego is strong in this one, my fellow VDC readers. I wouldn’t spend any time discussing, arguing or even interacting with it (don’t know their pronouns). One must understand the fundamental psychology of the professional politician. Citizen leaders, as envisioned by the founding men of our country, are a rainbow unicorn. A lovely idea but not real. Power corrupts… etc., etc., etc..
If I’m not mistaken, Dover, like Stowe or Manchester, are considered “gold towns.” If Dover paid over $100,000,000, in what time frame was that figure calculated? How many property owners in Dover are full time residents employed in Vermont? I always thought Dover and other exclusive hamlets in Southern Vermont, Stowe, and Shelburne are playgrounds for super-wealthy New Yorkers, celebrities, bankers, and the DC bolsheviks. The amount the super wealthy pay in property taxes is grocery money to them compared to what an average full time resident in Vermont earns. Isn’t it worth their money to live in Vermont? Do they not enjoy looking down upon the valley peasants from upon high in their spacious, multi-bedroom, multi-bathroom, multi-acre estates plastered with no trespassing signs and all wired up with security cameras and locked gates. What is their carbon foot print? Are you advocating for the trust fund kids who spend their days making “art” and planning their next trip abroad for a banger weekend with their trust fund friends?
You also say “large wealthy district that benefitted for 20 years were promised to be held to no more than a 5% change in their pupil counts for three years.” Who promised them that? Where was that nugget buried and in what legislation? You mean the goverment reneged on a promise? Shocker.
What I gather from your veiled plea is the wealthiest property owners in Vermont are starting to see their “investments” circle the drain. Seeing the Rothchilds commencing a fire sale auction of their prized artwork and decor is definately a sign.
I assume the marching orders from upon high is stick it to the peasants through carbon taxes and make the peasants shoulder the burden of educating their useless eater children. Isn’t that the new world order reset directive afterall?
Come January, I look forward to the clown show and manic chicken dancing to commence in Montpelier. The real numbers don’t lie. The corporation is bankrupt, the DC welfare is drying up, and the big corporate seven-headed monster can’t seem to prop up this illusion much longer. By all means, keep up the deceitful tactics of emotional gaslighting and scripted talking points. It is all the politicians have left in their draining bag of fakery and trickery.
Representative government works best when we have competitive elections that hold incumbents to account for their records.
You can certainly make the argument that the current funding system for our public schools is screwed up (it is), but your bill just pours more money in to prop up a fundamentally broken system for educating children. I probably shouldn’t even say “prop up.” Really it’s just increasing the rewards for those people managing its continued decline. Money isn’t the problem. It’s the delivery system.
As for the clean heat standard, you were just a panelist for VNR’s legislative roundtable where you bragged to the activists about passing the Clean Heat Standard last year. So is it passed into law, or not passed into law? It’s law. Does the vote on rules in 2025 (conveniently after the next election) have the potential for repealing Act 18? No it does not.
The report you just received on CHS cost impacts actually shows an eventual impact on home heating fuel rates of $1.41 per gallon in 2045, and a 25 cent increase by 2030. But, the report admits it doesn’t account for some big necessary and potential costs.
Washington State just implemented a carbon credit market for home heating fuel, gas and diesel. They held their first auction in March. The immediate impact on gasoline prices Washingtonians are paying today has been estimated at somewhere between the mid 40s cents per gallon and high 50s cents per gallon. (One study I saw put it at 88 cents per gallon, but that was an outlier.) And, important to note, their system of issuing and auctioning credits is far far simpler and cheaper to administer that the system you helped to concoct of tens of thousands of people all over the state “minting” carbon credits by installing heat pumps, etc, every one of which needs to be verified and evaluated, ownership established, and then bought and sold in a financial exchange.
The same report you just received noted that in order to reach the GWSA goals it would require fully subsidizing — 100% — the clean heat measures for low income vermonters and 75% of middle income Vermonters. That’s a lot of money. Where’s it going to come from? And if the equity provisions in the law dictate that those folks get moved to the front of the line for these services, that lot of money needs to be raised in the opening phase of the program, no? Not in 2045.
Act 18 promises to help low income non-early adapters of CH measures stuck with oil propane etc systems to cover the cost impacts of the law. That number is also not accounted for in the report. What is it? Where does the money come from? Or are you all quietly planning on scrapping those social safety net provisions?
Apologies to the people of Somerset. Thanks for the correction!
Declining enrollment should equate to reduced budgets, ie; layoffs. One student is one student, that’s how I was taught to count at the public schools back in the day. Speaking of which, I graduated from BHS in ‘79, I have no health issues from the “toxic environment”, also back then if two students were fighting they were grabbed by the neck , separated, sent to the principal’s office, a white male retired military man…did I miss anything. By the time all the useful idiots awaken, it will be too late, it will be full blown communism, you don’t like police now? Wait until the police are the enforcement arm of a full blown Marxist regime!!!
try paying seven property taxes in this state. stop complaining ////
oh i forgot to tell you. there is no right to a public education in the vermont constitution. look at declaration of rights. no health care, they tried to amend the constitution. it never passed
https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/constitution-of-the-state-of-vermont/
See section 68
Yep. “Laws for the encouragement of virtue and prevention of vice and immorality…”.
Got it.
Then again, consider 16 V.S.A. § 1. Right to equal educational opportunity
“To keep Vermont’s democracy competitive and thriving, Vermont students must be afforded substantially equal access to a quality basic education. However, one of the strengths of Vermont’s education system lies in its rich diversity and the ability for each local school district to adapt its educational program to local needs and desires. Therefore, it is the policy of the State that all Vermont children will be afforded educational opportunities that are substantially equal although educational programs may vary from district to district.”
In this regard, Ms. Sibilia, can you explain why students in certain school districts are afforded the choice between public schools and alternative independent schools, while students in other districts do not have that “…substantially equal access”?
“The heart of effective governance lies in the intricate task of problem-solving..
”
Found it!
Found it!
Our legislators have no clue about how to actually Identify or solve a problem. Our legislators are not problem-solvers and have never been trained as problem solvers, but carriers of their donor companies and PACs water.
Clear?
Crystal clear.
I thought they were sworn into office? Isn’t it a pretty clear mandate on what their duties are? To uphold and protect the constitution? Let’s look it up…
Text of Section 56:
Oaths of Allegiance and Office
Every officer, whether judicial, executive, or military, in authority under this State, before entering upon the execution of office, shall take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation of allegiance to this State, (unless the officer shall produce evidence that the officer has before taken the same) and also the following oath or affirmation of office, except military officers, and such as shall be exempted by the Legislature.
The Oath or Affirmation of Allegiance
You do solemnly swear (or affirm) that you will be true and faithful to the State of Vermont and that you will not, directly or indirectly, do any act or thing injurious to the Constitution or Government thereof. (If an affirmation) Under the pains and penalties of perjury.
The Oath or Affirmation of Office
You do solemnly swear (or affirm) that you will faithfully execute the office of ____ for the ____ of ____ and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons, to the best of your judgment and ability, according to law. (If an oath) So help you God. (If an affirmation) Under the pains and penalties of perjury.[1]
It seems like there might be a little mission creep? Now fascists, marxists, spocialists, theocracies and democracies all want to control people……. but what did our for fathers give us? What are we sworn to protect?
Huh……
I believe the oath or pledge is to uphold the corporation, not the People or the Constitution. Rumors going around there are no records verifying oaths are administered or even mandatory. Being they can remove swearing to God or can rest their hands on a NY Times Best seller if they want, seems plausible and most likely considering what we see and hear.
re: “Government’s purpose is not to dismantle itself, but to solve problems.”
THIS IS NOT the purpose of government expressed by our Founders. In fact, it is the polar opposite. Anyone who supports Sibilia’s position in this regard exemplifies the problem we now face – specifically, a misunderstanding of the basic tenants of the liberty and free enterprise our government is intended to protect.
Milton Friedman explained this as well as anyone has.
“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government– in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”
Ms. Sibilia, and likely, 95% of the legislature, including those of us who elect them, simply don’t understand the economic principles of our free market system.
Again, I refer to Friedman.
“The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”
And this:
“The key insight of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”
I challenge Ms. Sibilia, and anyone else who agrees at all with her, to explain why her vision of the ‘nanny state’ is recommended over the insights of our Founders and Nobel laureate Friedman.
My guess… Rep. Laura Sibilia will disappear into the darkness as is the typical response of the uniformed and tyrants.
I wholeheartedly concur Mr. Eshelman…. ” 95% of the legislature, including those of us who elect them, simply don’t understand the economic principles of our free market system.” I don’t have a stellar grasp on it, but I do have a strong conservative and stoic viewpoint on financing.
My own district rep, Tristan Roberts is a poster child for the cluelessness that abounds in our society. He couldn’t figure out how much it cost him to drive up to Montpelier every week to determine if his stipend that he receives for transportation covered his expenses. He could not figure out how to prorate mileage and gas consumption. He couldn’t or maybe I should say wouldn’t, figure out how to prorate his other expenses like tires, battery, oil changes etc. His exact words were: “I’ll let the government figure it out.”
He could even do basic math. I had to correct him on his multiplication. And he’s not smart enough to even hide is ignorance. His personal blog is rife with rambling psuedoliterary nonsense. And his obsequious behavior of/for Representative Sibilia is repulsive.
Representative Sibilia sadly will not disappear… she won’t come back here likely to defend herself but she will be slithering around Dover and wissspering in the ears of her “constituents”.
only people who wore masks for three years have problems thinking/////////
Imagine a new screenplay from Hollywood where the Ebenezer Scrooge character is re-written as a Vermont State legislator who’s shown the damage done to the people by their ways?