The yearslong debate over the future of Vermont’s education system took on renewed urgency Monday when the Scott administration announced that it’s projecting an average increase of nearly 12% in property taxes next year.
Should that projection come to pass, Vermonters would see their property taxes jump by about 40% on average in a span of five years.
“The rate of increase we’re talking about is simply unacceptable and certainly defines unaffordability,” Commissioner of Taxes Bill Shouldice said Monday. “The average young family getting started, seeing these types of increase is not in their budget.”
The projection, based on a survey of school districts, lands as elected officials attempt to execute one of the most ambitious education reform laws in Vermont’s history. Act 73, signed by Republican Gov. Phil Scott in July, seeks to improve student equity and reduce costs by changing how Vermont pays for and governs its public schools.
The future of that law is now in question, however, after a task force that was supposed to recommend new boundaries for significantly larger school districts instead told lawmakers that it favors voluntary mergers.
Chittenden County Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, the Democratic co-chair of that task force, said Monday that there’s “scant” evidence that larger districts would lead to cost savings. The group has recommended that Vermont instead adopt “Cooperative Education Service Areas,” which would, according to Gulick, allow districts to enter into regional contracts for services such as transportation, payroll systems and special education.
“If there are savings to be had, they can be had through the education cooperatives, without the tumult and the chaos of creating really large districts from small ones,” she said.
Scott, who has branded the task force a “failure” for not presenting lawmakers with proposed new districts, said in a written statement Monday that Vermont won’t be able to realize education cost savings until it has districts that can operate at scale.
He called on lawmakers to “approve a new, modern, equitable governance structure that reflects the fact that we are now educating 20% fewer K-12 students than we were 20 years ago.”
Only about half of the projected jump in next year’s property taxes is the result of proposed budget increases that school boards will put to local voters in March. The other half represents the delayed impact of increased education costs from last year; lawmakers and the governor temporarily shielded Vermonters from the implications of those increases by using more than $100 million in one-time money to buy down rates.
Brattleboro Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, the Democratic chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said it’s too early to say whether the Legislature will be in a position to provide short-term relief again in 2026.
Kornheiser said the regional cooperatives envisioned by the redistricting task force could deliver some cost savings.
“But they don’t accomplish some of the needs of having more unified grand lists across the district, or creating scale within a district that can deliver opportunities,” she said.
Kornheiser said larger districts can mitigate geographical inequities in the current education system. According to the Department of Taxes, per-pupil spending is expected to range across districts next year from a low of $10,846 to a high $19,089.
“That kind of unevenness in the system, both in terms of people’s bills and the opportunity for kids, isn’t fair,” Kornheiser said.
Senate Minority Leader Scott Beck said the new tax projections, coupled with headwinds to forced school district mergers, mean the Legislature will need to change tack. He said he’ll pursue legislation in January that would effectively force school boards to cut budget proposals before Town Meeting Day.
Under that proposal, school districts that exceed their allowed spending increase would be hit with a tax penalty. The goal, Beck said, would be to “signal to them that this is not acceptable, and the Legislature and the governor are going to take action, so get down to a much lower growth percentage.”
Flor Diaz Smith, chair of the Washington Central Unified Union School District, said that approach would undermine education services.
“We wouldn’t be able to serve our kids,” Diaz Smith said Monday. “If we truly believe that public education is the cornerstone of democracy, then we must stop framing public schools as the problem and instead become more creative and collaborative.”
School boards say the factors driving the approximately 6% anticipated increase in education costs next year are familiar — health benefits, deteriorating facilities, mental health supports and special education.
Sue Ceglowski, executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association, said her organization doesn’t believe that forced mergers are the best mechanism to address those pressures. The VSBA released a position paper on education reform last month that calls for a “unified vision and mission for Vermont’s education system.”
Ceglowski said the tax projections unveiled Monday could influence budgeting decisions at the local level between now and March.
“It … helps school boards estimate the effect of their budgets on taxpayers,” she said. “And of course we always emphasize that it is an estimate, because these numbers can change throughout the legislative session.”
