Editor’s note: This op-ed is by John Zenie, a member of the Colchester School Board and a Vermont State Representative until January 2011.
Vermonters want the best quality educational system at an affordable price. Affordability is usually defined by two things: How much we spend and how we pay for it.
Did you know that if educational spending stayed the same from 2005 until today that your educational property taxes would still be higher? Recent reports show that property taxes covered 61 percent of educational costs in 2005, and in 2011 it will be 68 percent.
We need to examine how we pay for education. The Vermont Blue Ribbon Tax Structure Commission (http://www.vermonttaxreform.org/) has been charged with making recommendations to the Legislature on a wide range of tax policies, including revenue generated for schools.
Lawmakers enacted two bills in the last legislative session called Challenges for Change. The bills are designed to reduce government and education spending by increasing efficiencies and improving services. The Challenges for Change initiative, however, is flawed: Program funding was removed before state officials understood what impact the reductions would have on state services.
The part of C4C that addresses education spending dictates a statewide budget target reduction of $23.2 million for fiscal year 2012, which is about 2 percent of the education budget. There are several problems related to this part of the bill:
• School spending is a local issue. Although the reduction targets right now are voluntary they could become mandatory if the lawmakers choose to make them so in the next legislative session.
• The amount — $23.2 million — is arbitrary. Neither the consultants for the Government Accountability Committee or the Department of Education can explain what the target number was based on.
• This legislation directed the Department of Education to assign target reductions equitably across school districts based on prior year budgets. The department admits that it had never done something like this before and that some of the data they used was either bad or missing. The resulting announced targets are not correct due to inexperience and wrong data. For example, Colchester and Burlington are one of the lowest spending districts and they were hit with a larger budget cut than higher spending districts.
• The improved educational outcomes that are expected are documented starting on page 60 of Joint Fiscal Office quarterly report (http://www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo/10-1-10_C4C_Report_Final.pdf). It does not show how much improvement is expected so we will not know when we have attained the goal. Also, for some of the outcomes there is no data being collected so we will never know how we are really doing.
Historically, there are several ideas that have surfaced to reduce educational spending with little or no movement:
• There is the consolidation incentive bill to encourage voluntary school consolidations, but even national consultants cannot guarantee any cost savings. However, we could have savings if we consolidated some functions at the state level. The state could take over the following functions: purchasing, accounting/auditing, cash/debit management and personnel recruiting and selection support. This type of consolidation would save money through efficiencies without the angst of total governance consolidation.
• Statewide we have 234 teacher contracts. If we consolidated them for salaries and health benefits at the state level we would save money on legal and administrative fees associated with so many contracts.
• Income sensitivity for residential property owners includes a renters rebate which comes out of the education budget as an expense. But renters do not pay property taxes, their landlords do. The Renters Rebates Program is really a low-income subsidy that should be paid out of the general fund and not the education fund.
Reducing educational spending requires tangible and non-arbitrary solutions.
