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by Jack Valley
[Editor’s note: the following letter has been sent by the author to legislators and school officials.]
I am writing to you today not just as a frustrated taxpayer, but as a resident deeply concerned about the survival of Colchester and Vermont’s working middle class.
The current trajectory of our education spending is mathematically unsustainable, and the taxpayers of Colchester are tired of being the financial shock absorbers for Montpelier’s refusal to enact structural reform. We’re not delivering better outcomes for our kids — we’re delivering bigger paychecks, fatter pensions, and more power to administrators and unions.
The numbers don’t lie:
- Vermont has lost 25,000+ students since 2005 (98,000 down to ~73,000), yet we’re staring down another double-digit property tax hike for 2026-2027. Families are leaving the state…..
- Utilizing the general fund helps but it’s a band-aid approach.
- True statewide per-pupil spending now exceeds $27,000 per actual kid — with zero improvement in math or reading scores.
- Colchester runs somewhat efficiently with 2,119 real students and a ~$65 million budget — yet Act 127 and the statewide Education Fund force us to subsidize the waste everywhere else.
Subsidizing the State’s “Ghost Towns” Since 2005, Vermont has lost over a quarter of its public school students (dropping from around 98,000 to roughly 73,000). Yet, Colchester’s enrollment has remained incredibly stable. Because we all share a state checkbook through the Education Fund, Colchester taxpayers are absorbing double-digit tax hikes to heat, plow, and staff half-empty buildings in rural counties that have lost 40% of their students but flat-out refuse to consolidate.
The Administrative Bloat (52 for 73k) Vermont currently educates roughly 73,000 students statewide. In states like Utah or South Carolina, a student body of that size is managed by a single county school district with ONE Superintendent, ONE HR department, and ONE central office. In Vermont, we are paying the six-figure salaries and gold-plated benefits of 52 different Superintendents and 52 separate central offices to manage that exact same number of students. We are funding a bloated corporate bureaucracy that other states manage at a fraction of the cost.
The “Phantom Student” on Ballots. Colchester voters see a “per-pupil cost” of ~$14,391. This is not local math — it’s state-mandated. Our actual cost per real child approaches $25-29,000. While most states use weighted pupil formulas internally for fair funding, they transparently show taxpayers the true cost per actual student. Vermont does not. State law inflates Colchester’s pupil count by over 1,500 “phantom” students, hiding the real price tag so sticker shock never hits.
Chittenden County Is Carrying the State Our county represents about 26% of Vermont’s population yet generates a wildly disproportionate share of sales tax and rooms-and-meals tax revenue—all funneled into the $2.2+ billion Education Fund. Through Act 127’s equity penalties and Common Level of Appraisal adjustments, we are now being legally penalized for having stable property values and a strong middle class. We are already subsidizing the rest of the state through commerce—now our home equity is being extracted too.
The Solution: Free-Market Consolidation (Money Follows the Child) If Montpelier refuses to force the consolidation of its 52 redundant Supervisory Unions (which independent analysts estimate could save the state over $300 million annually), then we need to introduce free-market accountability.
Ironically, Vermont invented this solution in 1869: Town Tuitioning. We must return to Universal School Choice. Let the state funding physically follow the child. If a school is failing and half-empty, let the parents take their tax dollars to a better district. This will force natural consolidation. Failing, bloated administrative districts will go bankrupt organically when parents leave, and efficient, well-run districts like Colchester will be rewarded.
My Ask: I am officially requesting that our local and state leaders transparently quote “weighted” accounting fictions. We demand a freeze on all non-classroom administrative hiring statewide, and we demand that Montpelier enact Universal School Choice so our tax dollars actually follow our children, not empty buildings. Until this structural theft ends, I will be urging every neighbor in Colchester to vote NO on any budget that sustains this broken system. The middle class is leaving. Our towns are dying. Fix it now or own the collapse.
The author is a Colchester resident.
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Categories: Education, Uncategorized
The trouble all started with the Brigham decision and subsequently, Act 60. Education funding was deemed by the VT Supreme Court to be the concern and responsibility of all Vermont taxpayers, even though not all towns choose to have and fund their own police department or other services. Teachers and other education staff are funded by a statewide mandate, yet are not considered state employees. Some may consider it fundamentally unfair that some towns have more money than others, but not every town has a Walmart, a soccer field, a rescue squad or a library either. Perhaps it is time to revisit Brigham in the courts and consider that just because education is a “human right”, it doesn’t necessarily mean that equal money has to be spent on each student. Towns can vote on whether to spend the money to fund their own police or recreation fields, so why can’t towns make up their own minds on how much to spend on education. If you want to keep your small school open, then be willing to pay for it.
Just saw an episode of Leave it to Beaver, where Beaver’s older brother was remarking that “teachers have it tough because how would you like to have to walk into a classroom with 40 or 50 kids every day”. In Vermont these days, that would be 14 or 15 kids. Such is the situation when the VTNEA owns the VT democrat party, lock, stock and barrel.
This is the most honest, and intelligent response to Education in Vermont…I hope more people take the time to read it, share it, act on it…
I love it…now to find politicians, who really want to make a difference…?
Searsburg was a gold town in the 1970 time frame and then came act 60 and the tax on my properties have gone up to about ten times more to support towns like Colchester and Burlington. This was called taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Now, what is the other word that caused this to happen????
WOW! Look at those numbers. We’ve locked ourselves into a failed system for providing schooling services to the citizenry. We extort ever increasing funds from the citizenry to maintain this monolith. It becomes ever more obvious that we should consider getting our government out of the schooling business. Return the funds to the people. They’ll do business directly with teachers to get the schooling services they want for their kids.
Where did this 12% raise come from. It’s the only figure we hear about. Everything they have discussed has no bearing on the magical 12%. Nothing changes, it’s still 12%. Even if they found something to reduce it by 3%, it would cost that 3% to study it.
It’s the entitled people moving to small rural communities insisting that their schools stay open with just a handful of students. It’s time to consolidate.
You must not have to worry about how long a student will have to ride a bus to achieve consolidation. It is a valid concern.
Well said Mr.Valley
Great Piece Mr Valley: I have said all along, that the efforts by the majority party are smoke and mirrors for an attempt by them to dupe the taxpayers into thinking something is happening that will benefit them. Why would anyone think that or worse, believe it, when over the years the outcomes have been in the ditch only to become profoundly worse as time goes on? How do we get accurate readings on property values statewide, when in their infinite wisdom, the VT tax dept proposes, or maybe already has taken over the reappraissal functions towns and cities were doing? Why would anyone believe this action would be an improvement when most everything the state touches turns to a mushy unappetizing brown material?
We have to be real, and do things realistically, which the previous writer, Mr Valley so eloquently points out. It is long past time for politics in these questions and concerns in our childrens’ education.
There should be a study ongoing as a parallel to the traditional concepts for privitization of the whole school system in VT. We owe it to the parents, children and all the taxpayers to provide all the options, and ultimately let the voters decide.
Thomas Jefferson once stated that the government that governs best is local, not 2 or 3 layers above that. How true.
The NEK takes almost all Vermont trash, though it generates very little of it. The NEK has chopped off their mountain tops to put windmills to allow people in Montpelier and Chittenden County to feel good and do some virtue signalling. The same goes with solar panels stuffed in farm fields across the region. Now the idiots in the legislature under the leadership of representatives from Chittenden County want to change the land laws and restrict what people can do with their land in rural areas. Many people from Chittenden County come up to the northeast Kingdom to enjoy the rural beauty. Maybe we should start putting tolls at the entrance to the kingdom and charge them for the right to do so . I think there are a lot of people up in the NEK that would be happy to be a part of New Hampshire, a state that is much better managed and is focused on doing what’s right for the people of the state, not the special interest groups like the VTNEA, VPIRG, conservation law foundation, etc. and all the other 6000 + nonprofits. So in some areas, the rural parts of the state are carrying chittenden county. Rural areas are also concerned about survival, the survival of their rural lifestyle.
Rather than trying to blame the education mess that Vermont finds itself in on people in the rural parts of the state, it should best be laid at the feet of the Progressive/democratic leaders of the legislature which a number of them come from Washington and chittenden counties, the blob (VTNEA, VPA, VSA), and a number of the 6000+ non profits in Vermont.
Mark, I couldn’t have said it better myself. I can certainly agree with every word concerning the NEK.
Hereks how Vermont Public covered it:
“Most school budget rejections were in “highly conservative, lower-income areas of the state,” according to Slate Valley Unified School District Superintendent Brooke Olsen-Farrell, who suffered her sixth budget defeat in nine years.
“It’s a cultural thing in our district, unfortunately,” she said Wednesday.
The decades-long trend of low-spending districts meeting with resistance from frugal local electorates has led to deep inequities in Vermont’s public education system. Per-pupil spending is projected to range next year from a low of $10,846 to a high of $19,089.”
Condescending doesn’t begin to describe it.
Wanna get mad?
https://www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2026-03-04/vermont-voters-approve-school-budgets-property-tax-implications
Chittenden County and MSM translation: Vermonts worthless backward rural hicks don’t want their children educated.