Finance Commissioner Adam Greshin said the plan does not include a tax increase, because districts that beat the target would get a tax break, meaning the state wouldn’t be taking in more money overall — even though some Vermonters would pay more.
“What the proposal does is, it levels the average statewide property tax,” Greshin told the House Education Committee Tuesday.
Greshin and Brad James, the education finance manager for the Agency of Education, presented the proposal, which would not take effect until fiscal year 2020. James, who came up with the plan, predicted it would result in 930 school job cuts across Vermont’s public education system and $45 million in annual savings over the next five years.
Greshin acknowledged that the administration hadn’t “fully vetted” the proposal, and James indicated it was developed in a rush.
“This takes time,” he said of the policymaking process. “Time was not quite readily available for this.”
The plan would set a statewide student-staff ratio target of 5.5-1. Districts that don’t meet the target would be charged a graduated penalty on property taxes. For example, a district with a 4.5-1 ratio would be charged a 2 percent penalty. A district with a 5-1 ratio would be assessed a 1 percent penalty.
Scott has said since his election in 2016 that education cost containment is a priority for his administration. This proposal comes less than a month after education secretary Rebecca Holcombe resigned suddenly for, according to the governor, “personal reasons.” People close to her attribute her departure to policy disagreements with Scott.
Rep. Dave Sharpe (D-Bristol), the chair of the House committee, confirmed that the proposal would result in increased taxes for some.
“The effect of that would be to raise tax rates in communities that have low student-to-staff ratios,” Sharpe said to the committee, as it met with the administration about the proposal.
“Correct,” James said.
Rep. Dylan Giambatista (D-Essex Junction) asked Greshin if Scott, who has taken a hardline stance against any new taxes or fees, would actually support what his administration is proposing. Greshin said the increase on Vermonters’ property tax bills would not, in fact, constitute a tax increase.
“So we would figure out a way to not make it a tax, because it’s not a tax. It’s a penalty,” Greshin said.
Lawmakers were skeptical of the plan, noting that just a few weeks remain in the legislative session. Sharpe pointed out that the proposal, like Scott’s efforts to save on teacher health care costs, wouldn’t do anything to address funding shortfalls for education in the coming year.
“None of [those proposals] will save money next year,” Sharpe said, “and yet I still hear that we have to come up with $30 or $40 million before we get done here this year. So these don’t help. How am I going to come up with $30 to $40 million between now and the end of the session?”
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Let’s penalize small schools even more. First, get rid of their school boards. Then get rid of the Small Schools Grants. Now, tax them for having the audacity to teach their children as they see fit, REGARDLESS of the school’s budget. What a monumentally stupid idea.
Best idea is probably just to pass a state constitutional amendment to overturn Brigham and go back to the system of letting local jurisdictions control their own local schools, without all the monkey-wrenching from Montpelier. Let local property taxpayers vote on their school budgets, and know the tax money is going to their schools instead of first to Montpelier and then redistributed all around the state via a formula so complicated only 2 or 3 people in the entire state understand it (as several state legislators have told me). Since Montpelier got their hands on it, the money is not even used strictly for K-12 anymore. They have begun spreading it to other purposes. No wonder taxes keep going up.
Brigham seemed well-intentioned at the time but has not panned out as it was sold. Vermont student population has continued to decline, including in rural jurisdictions, and people like retiring Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe have used Brigham to increase inequity rather than reduce it, contrary to everything the Supreme Court said in Brigham. For example, Ms. Holcombe told Burlington it could not use its own money from payments in lieu of taxes program for the schools, in spite of acknowledged greater needs of student demographics in Burlington.
Scrapping Brigham and Act 60 and letting local jurisdictions control their own budgets would let Vermont rejoin the rest of America with respect to school financing. The income tax idea proposed by Democrats last month would have the same problems we have now since it retains control in Montpelier and would likely even jeopardize school budgets because of the variability and inconsistency of income tax revenue year to year.
Who the hell cares about student to staff ratios ? The real problem is with those districts with high per student costs – an entirely different figure ! Many small school districts have high student to staff ratios and yet have some of the lowest cost per pupil numbers in the state !
These fools have no idea what they are doing !
The problem is that it just plain costs more to provide a basic education at rural schools. It always has, and it always will. And large schools, instead of being encouraged to take advantage of their economy of scale and spend less, are encouraged to spend as much as small schools. This continuing scheme of punishing rural Vermont for being rural and rewarding urban Vermont schools for lavish spending is just going to compound the problem – transferring huge amounts of cash from poorest regions of the state to the wealthiest urban areas.
The idea upon which our education funding system is based, that a certain amount of education costs the same everywhere in the state, seems farcical.