Last year was a bad year for school budgets. And this year, things could be just as bad.
On Monday, Gov. Phil Scott wrote to school officials, warning them that, absent intervention, property taxes could spike again — and school budgets could once again fail in large numbers on the next Town Meeting Day.
“If we work together, we can stabilize the school budget process, reduce the risk of historically high school budget defeats and revotes, and create capacity for all of us to focus on improving student outcomes and implementing longer-term improvements,” the governor wrote.
But while most agree that another tough budget year is indeed upon us, Scott’s letter — and reactions to it — also underline how little agreement or trust exists between the parties involved in trying to solve the problem.
As Vermont’s school children return to class, two education funding conversations are taking place in parallel. Local districts are beginning the work of building their budgets for next year, which will be voted on by residents at Town Meeting Day in the spring. Meanwhile, a special panel created by lawmakers, the Commission on the Future of Public Education, has begun meeting.
That commission is charged with recommending a soup-to-nuts overhaul of Vermont’s school system, with final recommendations due in a year, as well as short-term cost containment strategies, due to lawmakers this December in time for their return to Montpelier.
If we work together, we can stabilize the school budget process, reduce the risk of historically high school budget defeats and revotes, and create capacity for all of us to focus on improving student outcomes and implementing longer-term improvements.Gov. Phil Scott
In August, associations representing Vermont superintendents, school boards and business managers sent their own members a memo. “Vermont cannot endure an FY2026 budget cycle like FY2025,” the groups wrote.
“Without successful efforts to significantly reduce the rate of increase in school district spending proposals” for this upcoming year, the school officials’ memo continued, “more budgets could fail, leading to statewide proposals designed to suppress spending rather than address costs.”
Next year’s health insurance rates for schools won’t be available until later this fall. But if rate increases are comparable to commercial rate increases, that alone could add about $42 million in additional cost pressures, school officials wrote. Vermont also continues to have the smallest staff-to-student ratio in the nation, and every 1% increase in salaries adds $11 million in costs.
But while school administrators generally agree with Scott that spending must be reined in, they did not necessarily find Monday’s letter productive, according to Amy Minor, the president of the Vermont Superintendents Association, and Chelsea Myers, its executive director.
Minor argued that Scott’s letter risked stoking anxiety — without offering clear solutions or a path forward. “I think that's why our memo wasn't one page, and it was six,” added Myers.
The Vermont NEA, the union which represents nearly all teachers in the state, was less diplomatic. Its president, Don Tinney, fired off his own missive to educators this week, calling Scott’s letter an “unprecedented intrusion” into the local budgeting process.
“On the racetrack, Governor Scott likes to be in the driver’s seat. When it comes to public education, however, he is a backseat driver, telling school boards and local communities what to do and how to do it,” Tinney wrote, adding that Scott’s letter was “just another example of him demanding that school boards bend to his austerity will.”
It has been a myth that we have this out of control education spending. There's no other budget in the state that is scrutinized as closely as a local school budget.Don Tinney, president of the Vermont NEA teachers union
The union leader’s letter also included links to two recent briefs from the Public Assets Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Montpelier, arguing that a lack of fairness in Vermont’s taxing formula, not spending, is at the root of unaffordable property taxes.
“It has been a myth that we have this out of control education spending,” Tinney said in an interview. “There's no other budget in the state that is scrutinized as closely as a local school budget.”
While Scott’s letter included no specific recommendations about where schools should look to for savings, he did offer the Agency of Education’s help “through regional planning, improved data reporting, and one-on-one support when requested.”
Myers, of the superintendents association, said that she welcomes collaboration from the governor’s office. But given Scott’s often fraught history with public schools, she said, it’s also hard to trust in that help.
“You can't signal collaboration in one letter after a longstanding absence of being at the table having these conversations with us, and with administrators and those doing the work in the field,” she said.
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