Education Funding Bill Update

This update is framed in part by a message to Northfield voters who will vote this week, for a second time, on a school budget. That budget decision demonstrates how messed-up our education funding system is, and how urgent the current reform efforts are.

As a Northfield resident, I will be voting “yes” on the Paine Mountain (Northfield-Williamstown) school budget. To do otherwise would be, in effect, to hand over our property tax dollars to other towns. That’s how gummed up the system is.

We know that in the legislature. The urgency of the need for reform efforts after last year’s soaring property tax rates made it a priority for this year and for the bill that passed the House last week. But the public is led to believe that we have local control because we vote on our own budget for our own schools. The reality is that most of the education property taxes go into a big statewide pot of money. Out of that state pot, school districts receive the money that matches what they voted for, whether that budget is high or low, above average or below.

Last year, Northfield’s property tax increase was higher than even the high average statewide increase by several percentage points, despite a major budget cut after a failed first budget, and even though the district is spending less than the statewide average on our schools.

How could that happen? How could a town’s taxpayers be required to pay more for spending less? It was because other districts were increasing their budgets much more than we were, and we had to contribute to their decisions to spend more.

This year, Northfield can regain a bit of that and make up for some of what was lost last year. The pent-up pressures that are causing its budget increase are higher than other towns’. They got their increases last year. If the Northfield budget passes, the schools will get 15% more for students at a 2% rate increase for property taxpayers. That is because other towns will be contributing to cover Northfield’s budget increase. It will be a bit of a payback for the increase Northfield paid last year.

Northfield will still be spending less per pupil than what the average district spends, but those other districts will refund some of its losses from last year. If it is voted down and the budget is cut,  it will benefit those other districts and hurt Northfield students. That is exactly how gummed up our current funding system.

A key part of the legislature’s efforts to remedy this is through changing from a pool of money that funds what each town decides to spend, into a pool of money that is paid out equally for each student in the state, so that each student has equal opportunities (including an equal amount extra for students who have special challenges in accessing equal learning opportunities.) It also improves the system for equity among what taxpayers in different towns pay in. All of this requires a change to large school districts.

This type of “foundation” funding is used in the major of states; our funding system has been one-of-a-kind. The legislature – both House and Senate – have been fairly unanimous on this change, which was first proposed by the governor as the core to reform. There has been disagreement on some of the further components, such as the size of the larger districts, the role of independent schools and the impact on rural districts, but not on the fundamental concepts.

The House passed its version of the concept in a bill last week. The biggest current flaw is that it won’t go into effect for four years. Four more years of funding inequity, and four more years of voting on (and fighting over) local budgets each year that don’t align with equality for either taxpayers or for students.

Last week, I tried to amend the bill to set a goal of making it happen a year more quickly. It was aspirational: if we are able to pull all the parts together sooner, we should try to do that. I urged that we needed to give the message to our constituents that we wanted, if reasonably possible, to address the funding system crisis with some degree of urgency. Opponents said that it was more important to give the message to school boards, administrators and educators that we were committed to making the changes thoughtfully. The amendment to change the intent language to aim for 2028 instead of 2029 was voted down.

The bill is now in the hands of the Senate. If you want to see faster relief from the inequities created by the current system – and which hurt Northfield so badly last year – contact our three Washington County Senators to urge them to expedite the timeline for reform.

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It is an honor to represent Northfield and Berlin. Please stay in touch with me (adonahue@leg.state.vt) and Ken Goslant (kgoslant@leg.state.vt). We value your input.