Opinion
Rutland Herald
May 27,2015
Now that the dust is beginning to settle on
the new education reform bill, legislators may begin to have second
thoughts about what they have done. Panicked by taxpayer unhappiness
with high property taxes, they passed a bill that will raise property
taxes. Taxpayers are going to notice.
Not only that, they introduced a new element of inequity that hearkens back to the days before Act 60 created a guarantee that equal tax rates would yield equal per-pupil revenues in all towns. Now some towns will be burdened with a significantly higher tax rate to gain the same per-pupil revenues as other towns.
The rush for a solution at the end of the legislative session created a mess of a bill. That is in contrast to the painstaking and thorough quest for a solution back in 1997 when Act 60 established the foundation for the present system, guaranteeing equity in education finance among the towns. Gov. Peter Shumlin has frequently touted the present system as “elegant” and as “the best in the nation.” Now he is poised to sign a bill that will erode the fairness he has so frequently praised.
As lawmakers wrote Act 60, they labored over computer printouts showing how various versions of the law would affect all the individual towns in Vermont. They were working to end a system that allowed Stowe to raise abundant revenues for schools at extremely low tax rates while Waterbury next door had to levy high tax rates to raise even much lower revenues. As they pored over computer printouts, lawmakers saw that a small number of towns would have to pay higher tax rates than previously — Stowe, Killington, Dorset and other property-rich towns — but that all towns would get an equal yield of revenue for taxes levied.
This year we learn that last-minute changes in the law have introduced inequality that will punish some towns for the benefit of others. In a commentary on the opposite page, Jack Hoffman shows that, according to figures from the Agency of Education, the homestead tax rate Barre City residents would have to pay would be 26 percent higher than in Brattleboro for the same spending per pupil.
Did lawmakers know that? Do they know what the new system will do to Burlington or Rutland or Peacham or Readsboro? It is unlikely.
The entire reform movement has been motivated by purposes legislators and the Shumlin administration have sought to disguise. They have the idea that some small schools in Vermont are inefficient, wasteful and lacking in educational richness. So instead of focusing on those schools and working in cooperative fashion to remedy individual situations, they have subjected the entire state to an array of penalties that will drive up taxes for many towns and put punishing burdens on schools that don’t deserve them.
Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe has spoken the language of cooperation but has served the purposes of the governor, which are obscure. The coercive regime of penalties and higher taxes is the opposite of cooperation, and her willingness to further Shumlin’s plan shows the danger inherent in making the education secretary a political appointee.
Lawmakers have only themselves to blame. How many of them went before their town meetings this March and told townspeople: “We are working to create incentives and penalties so you will be forced to abolish the school board that is sitting right here, or at least to sap its authority”? If they had, they might have heard instructive words from voters that would have persuaded them to abandon their plans. Instead, most probably voiced lame platitudes to hide their intentions.
But school boards and voters will eventually notice what the Legislature has done. Maybe someone will be motivated to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new inequities legislators have introduced.
In the meantime, Republicans who are not wedded too firmly to the idea that Montpelier ought to force cost controls on local school districts are in a good position to challenge this flawed and damaging example of political overreach.
Not only that, they introduced a new element of inequity that hearkens back to the days before Act 60 created a guarantee that equal tax rates would yield equal per-pupil revenues in all towns. Now some towns will be burdened with a significantly higher tax rate to gain the same per-pupil revenues as other towns.
The rush for a solution at the end of the legislative session created a mess of a bill. That is in contrast to the painstaking and thorough quest for a solution back in 1997 when Act 60 established the foundation for the present system, guaranteeing equity in education finance among the towns. Gov. Peter Shumlin has frequently touted the present system as “elegant” and as “the best in the nation.” Now he is poised to sign a bill that will erode the fairness he has so frequently praised.
As lawmakers wrote Act 60, they labored over computer printouts showing how various versions of the law would affect all the individual towns in Vermont. They were working to end a system that allowed Stowe to raise abundant revenues for schools at extremely low tax rates while Waterbury next door had to levy high tax rates to raise even much lower revenues. As they pored over computer printouts, lawmakers saw that a small number of towns would have to pay higher tax rates than previously — Stowe, Killington, Dorset and other property-rich towns — but that all towns would get an equal yield of revenue for taxes levied.
This year we learn that last-minute changes in the law have introduced inequality that will punish some towns for the benefit of others. In a commentary on the opposite page, Jack Hoffman shows that, according to figures from the Agency of Education, the homestead tax rate Barre City residents would have to pay would be 26 percent higher than in Brattleboro for the same spending per pupil.
Did lawmakers know that? Do they know what the new system will do to Burlington or Rutland or Peacham or Readsboro? It is unlikely.
The entire reform movement has been motivated by purposes legislators and the Shumlin administration have sought to disguise. They have the idea that some small schools in Vermont are inefficient, wasteful and lacking in educational richness. So instead of focusing on those schools and working in cooperative fashion to remedy individual situations, they have subjected the entire state to an array of penalties that will drive up taxes for many towns and put punishing burdens on schools that don’t deserve them.
Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe has spoken the language of cooperation but has served the purposes of the governor, which are obscure. The coercive regime of penalties and higher taxes is the opposite of cooperation, and her willingness to further Shumlin’s plan shows the danger inherent in making the education secretary a political appointee.
Lawmakers have only themselves to blame. How many of them went before their town meetings this March and told townspeople: “We are working to create incentives and penalties so you will be forced to abolish the school board that is sitting right here, or at least to sap its authority”? If they had, they might have heard instructive words from voters that would have persuaded them to abandon their plans. Instead, most probably voiced lame platitudes to hide their intentions.
But school boards and voters will eventually notice what the Legislature has done. Maybe someone will be motivated to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new inequities legislators have introduced.
In the meantime, Republicans who are not wedded too firmly to the idea that Montpelier ought to force cost controls on local school districts are in a good position to challenge this flawed and damaging example of political overreach.
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