Editor’s note: This commentary is by Spencer Putnam, a community activist from Weybridge. Now retired, he is a past operations vice president of Vermont Teddy Bear Co. and former executive director of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.
[I]n the current budget impasse in Montpelier the stance taken by the governor and legislators who have voted to uphold his budget vetoes seems to be in conflict with traditional Republican values.
If you want to preserve local control over our schools, you should not be supporting the governor’s veto of our state budget. The governor wants Montpelier to mandate school staffing ratios. This kind of centralized decision-making suggests a one-size-fits-all mentality that overlooks local needs and is directly counter to the principle of allowing local voters to control their own school systems.
If you value a strong public education system, you should not allow policies that drain resources from public schools against the expressed wishes of the voters. Strong taxpayer support of our schools has been rewarded with high achievement scores, among the best in the country.
If you respect the voice of Vermont voters, you should listen to them. Voters in 96 percent of Vermont school districts approved their school budgets at their annual public meetings. Moreover, school boards across the state held overall cost increases to an average of 1.8 percent, beating the governor’s own goal of 2.5 percent. It seems reasonable to assume that voters and school boards recognized that their taxes would go up to cover this modest cost increase.
If you believe in the legislative process, you should be standing up for it. The original budget passed overwhelmingly in the Vermont House and unanimously in the Senate. The committee process involves taking testimony, examining reams of financial information, debating with legislators with differing views, and coming up with a proposal that a majority can accept. Party loyalty should not be enough to persuade Republican legislators to turn their backs on this thorough, deliberative process.
If you think fiscal responsibility is an important principle, you should not consider using one-time funds to cover ongoing expenses. Freezing property taxes is a short-term solution, at best. Property tax rates will have to make a multi-year jump the first year we don’t have a revenue surplus. Instead, the Legislature has proposed using surplus dollars to buy down long-term debt, a move that could result in as much as $100 million in savings to Vermont taxpayers, giving ongoing tax relief to ratepayers.
If you agree that politics is the art of negotiation and compromise, you should reject unyielding insistence on a certain point of view. Legislative leaders have presented a series of budget proposals to the governor, making concessions along the way. The governor has been adamant in his refusal to budge from his no new taxes stance. In the face of a looming government shutdown it would seem reasonable for the governor to make at least a small step in the direction of compromise.
The Democratic leadership has made good faith attempts to meet the governor halfway in this budget dispute. It’s time for Republican legislators to live up to their own principles. They should pressure the governor to show some flexibility, or they should join the majority in overriding the governor’s next veto.
