Editor’s note: This commentary is by Nicole L. Mace, who is executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association.

[V]ermont’s school boards have risen to the challenge of building budgets that deliver high quality public education in a more affordable manner, while still meeting the complex needs of today’s students.

In November, Gov. Phil Scott sent a letter to education leaders asking school districts to hold FY 2019 growth in spending to no more than 2.5 percent. School boards and our administrative leaders responded to the call for fiscal restraint. FY 2019 budgets increased education spending by less than 2 percent.

When boards presented budgets to communities this year, they told communities that tax rates would increase. The anticipated tax rate increases reflected modest budget growth, as well as the need to raise funds to make up for the state’s use of one-time money last year.

While voters may not have known the precise tax impact of school boards’ proposed budgets, state law (16 VSA 563(11)) requires the budget article to indicate how much education spending per pupil increased or decreased over the prior year. Voters understand that as education spending per pupil increases, so do tax rates.

Despite knowing that property taxes would increase, voters approved 97 percent of school budgets.

With respect to the ongoing debate regarding whether to use one-time money to reduce property tax rates again this year, I offer the following observations:

Vermont’s education system depends on a partnership between state and local officials. Any solution to the current education funding debate must respect the role that local officials play in overseeing the education system. This includes raising the revenue needed to fund the budgets that have been approved through the local process.

Using $33 million in one-time money to pay for recurring expenses is flawed fiscal policy, and will place taxpayers, school officials and policymakers in the same position next year as they find themselves in this year. The perpetual education funding “crisis” makes it very difficult for school officials to implement the kinds of structural and operational reforms that will create greater efficiencies over time.

Under the current system, the state cannot dictate to local communities how much they can spend on the education of their children. The only way to guarantee level tax rates is to take direct control over school budgets. If that is what the governor is proposing to do, then he should say so.

Under the current system, school boards develop budgets that reflect the educational and fiscal needs of their communities. Voters accept or reject those budgets. The state’s role is to raise the revenue needed to fund the total amount of education spending approved by voters across the state.

If the state has concerns about rising property tax rates, then it can design a funding system that relies less on the property tax and more on other sources of state revenue, such as the income tax or the sales tax. Vermont is more reliant on the property tax to fund education than most states. If the state has concerns about rising property tax rates, then the state can stop enacting new laws and regulations placing fiscal and operational demands on school budgets. New requirements without offsetting state revenues increase the property tax.

If the state has concerns about the rate of education spending growth, then it can provide school boards and administrators with tools to bend the cost curve. Tools such as standards for factfinders in the collective bargaining process, staff-student ratio targets, and statewide bargaining of health insurance hold promise to do just that.

The governor’s proposal to level-fund tax rates and “manage the education fund” would require the state to take greater control of school spending and operations. This discussion isn’t about taxes – it’s about who should decide how much we spend on our children in our public schools. It’s time for Vermonters to weigh in on that question.