Editor’s note: This commentary is by Eve Frankel, chair of the Waitsfield Elementary School Board.
[E]ducation is the hot button issue of the legislative session. Rising costs and declining student populations have the average Vermont resident scratching their head and asking, “How could this be?” The head scratching is a result of a complicated, confusing and opaque system of funding which makes it difficult for an accounting professional to understand let alone a property tax weary Vermonter.
As a school board member, I have committed the time to understand the complexities of both our funding system and the demands placed on our schools on a state and federal level. I empathize with the frustration of steadily increasing tax bills — a result due to a myriad of factors that are layered and complex and that often have little to do with local spending choices (a topic for another op-ed). But I also know that the proposed spending caps are a political fix that do not address the real issues of cost drivers such as health care, unfunded mandates like universal pre-K, and a flat economy.
Schools are obligated to meet a variety of federal and state obligations that are never fully funded. We must provide a full spectrum of services for a wide range of special education needs. We have to adopt new educational initiatives that require additional resources such as staffing or professional development. There are skyrocketing health insurance premiums, volatile heating and transportation fuel costs, and infrastructure fixes. We must undertake contract negotiations under a challenging teacher negotiation construct where we have little power to impact any change. The list goes on.
Health care, special education and preschool, should be managed and funded on a state level. Collective bargaining agreements should be elevated to a regional or state level as well.
A 1.5 percent spending cap sounds like a reasonable, clean and transparent way to curb spending, but just this year our local high school had a 2.8 percent rise in special education needs that we were obligated to fund. The state Legislature has required universal preschool in the coming year; in the school where I serve the costs to meet this mandate alone are anticipated to be greater than 2 percent. There are also the unexpected costs that pop up year over year: a bus breaks down, a roof collapses, or a heating system fails. It is easy to forget all the related expenses that are tied to delivering education services. Therefore, a 1.5 percent cap would absolutely eviscerate programs such as languages, arts, music and extracurricular programming in the face of other costs that schools are on the hook for. Higher income families would opt for private schools due to anemic programming at public institutions, resulting in a further erosion of student population numbers and an increase in per pupil spending.
As it is, our local high school is far from rolling out the red carpet. We don’t have debate teams, robotics clubs, or computer programming — too expensive. Our science classrooms haven’t been updated since the ’70s and visiting schools decline to compete on our track and field facilities because they are in disrepair. We have right-sized teacher and student ratios with difficult terminations and every year we look to the next and wonder what we will have left to cut that will not impact educational programming. This year we saved Latin but will we be able to again? Or will our award winning music program be next? Our options are dwindling and we too are looking for leadership that addresses the real issues at hand — skyrocketing costs on budget line items that school budgets have virtually no control over.
The cost drivers MUST be addressed. Health care, special education and preschool, should be managed and funded on a state level. Collective bargaining agreements should be elevated to a regional or state level as well. By centralizing these core cost areas there would be greater room for negotiation and realizing efficiencies. Once removed from local budgets, communities would be able to have transparent and substantive conversations about student/teacher ratios, consolidation opportunities, and educational programming for their local schools. Spending caps are not a means to this end.