This Town Meeting Day, Vermonters had to wrestle with whether they could shoulder significant property tax increases to support their local schools. Some towns faced double digit increases. Many school districts' budget proposals did not fare well, with nearly 1 in 3 school budgets failing on Town Meeting Day.
In Addison County, Mt. Abraham Unified School District's budget failed to pass by 228 votes. The school district's proposal to spend more than $1 million to buy their central office building in Bristol was also rejected.
"I think what our taxpayers are saying is simply, we have no more to give, even if we want to, we just don't have it to give," said Superintendent Patrick Reen. "Unfortunately, it comes at a time when student needs, academic needs, behavioral needs, and mental health needs are still high."
The school board for Mt. Abraham and other school boards across the state who saw their budgets fail will now need to develop new proposals to submit to residents in the coming weeks.
The budget for Slate Valley Unified School District, which includes Fair Haven, Castleton, Benson, and Orwell, failed by 534 votes. Superintendent Brooke Olsen-Farrell said she's disappointed, but not surprised.
"We have a very conservative district that has historically voted down budgets on and off for decades," Olsen-Farrell said. "We respect the taxpayer's voice and are looking forward to regrouping and moving forward."
Olsen-Farrell said the school board did a tremendous amount of outreach with the community, from having coffee at local diners to conversations at the town's transfer stations. She also said they struggle with misinformation on social media about how schools are governed and paid for.
"They are not necessarily understanding that when education spending increases in the state, it has a direct impact on our local school district," Olsen-Farrell said.
Superintendent Ryan Heraty of the Lamoille South Supervisory Union, which includes Elmore, Morristown, and Stowe, has been particularly vocal in the statehouse about the effects of the state's tax structure on local schools. The budget failed in Elmore and Morristown by 22 votes.
"There needs to be a lot of work done in the state around our public education system, and thinking about what is being put into that system and what districts are being expected to pay for on an annual basis" Herarty said.
Meanwhile, Stowe decided to postpone its budget vote. "In Stowe, we walked into the budget planning process with a 24% estimated property tax," Heraty said. "We ended up delaying our vote and making a reduction to our budget because, with the 5% tax cap removal, our property tax increases would have been around 40%. So now we're looking at a 27% property tax increase."
Legislation passed in February gave schools up to April 15 to reschedule their initial budget votes.
House Education Committee chair Peter Conlon believes this marks a major inflection point for Vermonters.
"We need to take a re-look at our funding system," Conlon said. "We need to look at what it is we think we should have statewide as a school system. We've gotten a very sobering look at our school facilities. So I think our mandate is to both look short-term and long-term at strategies to bend the cost curve."
Key cost drivers included soaring health insurance premiums, inflation, special education, and the winding down of federal pandemic-era aid.
Broadcast at noon on Thursday, Mar. 7, 2024; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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