MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermonters are continuing to vote down school budgets nearly a month after voters on Town Meeting Day rejected an unprecedented one-third of budgets. It comes as lawmakers grapple with what to do about soaring school costs leading to massive property tax hikes.
With more school budget re-votes on the way, state lawmakers are still puzzling over how to address education funding and the impending property tax crisis. In budgets that passed, spending is up sharply, driving a double digit increase in property taxes.
School districts in recent weeks have been scrambling to cut spending before going back to voters. The latest budget defeat comes in the Addison Northwest School District where voters said no for a second time by a margin of 745 to 727.
The question is whether lawmakers will provide property tax relief by pouring other tax revenues into education. A key House committee is considering a $20 million increase in the cloud tax on business software. Even with that added cash, the statewide property tax increase would still be an estimated 16%.
“It’s going to be a journey and it’s going to take everyone coming to the table to roll up their sleeves and give their ideas,” Vt. House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said Thursday.
She pointed to progress to relieve local school budgets, including a fund to resurrect a state-funded school construction aid program and pause on PCB remediation — both are big drains on local school budgets.
Others, including Rep Scott Beck, R-St. Johnsbury, are pushing for cost containment and has a proposal to connect voters decisions on school budgets with what they will actually pay. “My proposal much more closely connects the districts’ spending decision with its tax rate and blocks the Legislature from affecting the tax rate with their decision without being transparent about it,” he said.
Governor Phil Scott last week said he could potentially support new taxes to buy down property taxes but only if lawmakers pass longer term systemic reform that controls spending, something that Senate President Phil Baruth, D-Chittenden County, says there could still be time for this session. He also says spending caps or excess penalties could be back on the table. “Pure local budgeting is going to produce the eye-popping figures that we saw,” Baruth said.
All of these are just ideas as of now and could face stiff political opposition from teachers, school boards, voters, and others.