MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Another day and another school spending plan has been added to the growing list of Vermont districts where voters shot down their school budgets on Town Meeting Day.
Votes were tallied Wednesday night in the Washington Central Unified Union School District, which represents the towns of Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex, and Worcester. Voters ended up defeating the $43 million budget, bringing the ongoing tally of rejected school budgets to 30 statewide. The ripple effect of the failed budgets is sparking deep reflections about spending and has some, including the governor, calling for structural reforms in how the state funds education.
A historic number of school budgets are failing, and voters say property taxes are looming large on their minds. “When the governor said our taxes are going to go up 25% –or could — that kind of freaked people out,” said Tom Platner of Barnard.
Education spending is up $230 million statewide and property taxes are forecasted to increase by an average of 19% percent. That comes despite falling student enrollment and stagnant academic performance.
“Given how rare these no votes are, this should be a wakeup call for everyone,” Governor Phil Scott said Thursday. The Berlin resident, who voted down his own school budget, says Vermonters are being priced out of their homes. He took aim at Democratic lawmakers, criticizing them for rejecting his past proposals to contain costs, including staff-to-student ratios, statewide teacher health care negotiations, and guardrails for districts that overspend. “It’s a bit frustrating when I hear the Legislature say come up with new ideas despite all of the ideas I have put on the table in the past — which they rejected.”
Democratic lawmakers say there’s little they can do this year to bring down the tax rate. “We need to raise adequate revenue to fund school budgets and we only have a few tools to do that, and so we will do our best to work toward that. But it will be hard to do when we don’t know what the school budgets are yet,” said Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Brattleboro.
The Vermont Supreme Court ruled in the late 90s that public education needs to be delivered equitably, leading to the creation of Act 60 and letting local districts set their own spending plans and funding coming out of a single statewide pot of money.
Kornheiser says people need to understand the impact of their votes. “If people are voting on budgets locally, the relationship between tax rates and budgets needs to be more clear,” she said.
But some lawmakers, including the governor, say the formula is flawed and there’s no incentive for districts to control spending. He says the state needs to consolidate more schools and acknowledges that the state needs to take a more aggressive role in containing local school spending. “And that’s not going to be popular,” Scott said, “but it has to be on the table.”
With 30 school budgets that must be re-voted and over two dozen that have been delayed to “a later date,” it’s unclear what structural reforms lawmakers and the governor will be able to accomplish anytime soon.
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