Editor’s note: This commentary is by state Rep. Mike Mrowicki, a Democrat who represents Windham-4 (Putney, Dummerston and Westminster) in the Vermont House of Representatives.
[T]his time of year, for baseball fans, is called the “Hot Stove League.” It’s wintertime for a summer game when speculation warms interest in the coming season. There’s all sorts of media speculation and conjecture among fans, about what team will do what next.
It’s kind of like that now as Vermont’s political season gets under way. Media, town school and select boards, and state legislators wonder what will unfold. We’re especially looking for what has become a somewhat regular “wild pitch” from governors in their budgets — a gimmick that looks like savings, but actually opens a big hole in the budget.
A decade ago, Gov. Jim Douglas offered up a memorable budget ruse that melted away like a January thaw: privatizing the Vermont Lottery by selling it to a Wall Street bank (one that went out of existence in the 2008 crash). What that budget charade did, was leave a $50 million hole that the Legislature had to scramble to fill.
Last January, Gov. Phil Scott left a $40 million hole in the budget, by proposing that the Legislature tell school boards across Vermont to tear up the budgets they’d already completed for town meeting — and instead level-fund their budgets. In addition, he proposed moving Town Meeting Day to May, which made as much sense to most of us, as moving sugaring season to May.
So what kind of wild pitch will the governor fire at Vermonters this year?
Will he propose closing schools, something he hinted at recently at the Education Summit he held on Dec. 17 at Norwich University, offering his opinion that Vermont has “too many schools for too few students.”
Many legislators, though — myself included — are figuring the governor will be booking fictional savings by mandating the Legislature tell schools what ratio of students to staff is allowed.
Vermonters are already having the difficult conversations about how to right-size their schools. If the governor wants to centralize that authority in Montpelier, and take it away from local school boards and voters, he should come right out and say that. Instead, I fear what he will do is toss a school closure proposal in his budget proposal, wrapped in shiny $40 million paper. Then he’ll blame the Legislature for not delivering that package to Vermonters.
At first glance, Gov. Scott’s homespun proposals can appear commonsensical, because who doesn’t want to save money? Inevitably, though, they unravel under closer scrutiny. His slick slogans don’t serve Vermonters well and, once again, the Legislature will have to do the heavy lifting of actually balancing the budget.
Sure, all this “hot stove” discussion about the coming budget debate might seem like so much political jockeying. But we need to be on the lookout for the governor’s inevitable budgetary wildness. It’s coming, and the Legislature will need to be sure Vermonters don’t get hit by the next wild pitch.
