A coalition of high-need school districts has begun lobbying lawmakers to take up the recommendations of a new report that recommended sweeping changes to the state’s education funding system.
The study, commissioned by lawmakers in 2018, argues that Vermont has been substantially undervaluing the cost to educate low-income students and English-language learners when it calculates education property taxes. It also suggests new ways to account for rurality in view of widespread dissatisfaction with the state’s small schools grant program.
In an open letter sent to lawmakers late last month, the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative, a collection of seven supervisory unions stretching from the Northeast Kingdom to the Connecticut River Valley, pleaded with legislative leaders to act soon.
“Our school communities have some of the highest poverty levels and include some of the most sparsely populated areas of Vermont. We implore the legislature to take the recommendations of the recent University of Vermont weighting study seriously,” they wrote.
There is support for changes in certain urban areas as well. In Burlington, which has high rates of poverty and English-language learners, the City Council has adopted a resolution urging lawmakers to act on the report’s findings. In neighboring Winooski, the only majority-minority district in Vermont, Superintendent Sean McMannon said he and the board “strongly agree” with the study’s recommendations and have long advocated for similar changes.
A concerted letter writing campaign is also afoot in southern Vermont. Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, who first sponsored legislation to commission such a study, testified before her fellow lawmakers Tuesday.
“When I first started to read this, I was ecstatic. And then I was really angry,” Sibilia told the House Education Committee, her voice cracking with emotion. “Because as I said, I’ve been in this building testifying for more than a decade that there’s an injustice being done. And the study outlines that, very well.”
Gov. Phil Scott’s administration appears to agree. Secretary of Education Dan French told lawmakers last week he believed the study’s findings – particularly where poverty is concerned – suggested “a need for immediate action” from the General Assembly.
“I don’t think it’s something that I think you’re going to be able to wait to address, because it points to a fundamental lack of equity in the current system,” he told legislators in the House Ways and Means Committee.
Many districts – particularly small, rural schools – are especially concerned about the current formula being in place when the state switches over to a block grant model for special education, where schools receive a set amount based on their overall headcount.
The UVM study flagged that higher-poverty districts tend to have a larger proportion of special education students than do more affluent districts – something that the block grant scheme doesn’t adjust for.
“Without increased funding for schools with demonstrated high percentages of students identified for special education, the census block grant model will result in a significant transfer of fiscal support from districts with high needs to districts with low needs,” the Collaborative’s letter reads.
Senate Education chair Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, who is hoping to get the conversation going with a bill in his committee, speculated the state might even be subject to a lawsuit.
“Could you have a district that decides to sue over the fact that we’re implementing the census-block formula knowing from cutting edge data that our weighting formula, that is a component of it, is flat-out inequitable?” he said. “I don’t know.”
But more than one observer has noted that major changes to the weighting formula will create winners and losers, with wealthier towns seeing the greatest upward pressure on property taxes. For that reason, Baruth said he asked the Legislature’s financial analysts to craft proposals that would phase in the changes over several years – perhaps as many as six.
“What I’m looking for is ways to act on it quickly but create palatable steps that don’t cause spikes in tax rates,” he said.
