Like fellow school leaders from Alburgh to Wilmington, Colchester Superintendent Amy Minor thought her district had finalized budget plans for voter consideration this March Town Meeting season. Then the Vermont Legislature surprised everyone last week by proposing eleventh-hour changes to the state’s education funding system.
“It’s fair to say that the reaction ranges from dismay to discouragement, from anger to anxiety, with everything in between,” said Minor, president of the Vermont Superintendents Association.
School boards that drafted budgets under a current state act promising a 5% cap on property tax hikes have learned that lawmakers may drop that for a different, untested formula just weeks before scheduled public votes.
“This event and its consequences have created immense challenges for local school officials,” Minor said at a recent meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee. “They would not have predicted that in less than 20 working days before the vast majority of school budget votes that the 5% capping feature could potentially be removed, essentially changing the funding formula that schools have worked hard to educate their communities on.”
The House passed the bill, H.850, late Wednesday afternoon on a voice vote, sending it to the Senate and, if approved, to Gov. Phil Scott for his signature.
“H.850 is not yet law,” the secretary of state’s office wrote in a joint public letter with superintendents and the Vermont School Boards Association. “There is some chance that it will be amended or not become law.”
Then again, everyone involved acknowledges some sort of financial fix is needed to avoid a nearly 20% state-projected average increase in school property tax bills because of higher spending. As a result, educators and election clerks are preparing for the possibility of some districts revising budgets and rescheduling votes.
“It is a miracle if we’re going to pass school budgets this year,” Elaine Collins, head of the North Country Supervisory Union, told a recent joint meeting of several House and Senate committees. “It’s a mess, and it’s a mess I think not of the schools’ making.”
Collins was one of many educational leaders who noted that schools were wrestling not only with changes to funding but also with more state mandates.
“I can come up with at least $100 million in state programs that school boards did not get to vote on that we put into their budgets and that we’re now about to punish them for,” Norwich Rep. Rebecca Holcombe, a former Vermont education secretary, said at a Monday meeting of the House Appropriations Committee. “We’re making assumptions that everybody padded their budgets. I’m not sure everybody did.”
The Vermont Superintendents Association, which annually collects information about when and how school districts vote, cannot yet sum up local response to the last-minute bill.
“In terms of what’s going to play out district to district, it remains to be seen,” said Jeffrey Francis, the association’s executive director.
But many educators are speaking out, either in legislative committee meetings — 20 lodged complaints at one recent session alone — or through letters to the editor.
“Despite legislators’ promises to balance budgets ‘without placing an undue burden on taxpayers,’ many Vermonters approach Town Meeting Day panicked and distressed,” Ryan Heraty, head of the Lamoille South Supervisory Union, wrote in one letter.
“This new legislation will be finalized long after districts have warned their budgets, forcing school boards and town officials into a state of uncertainty,” Heraty continued. “Trust that has been long-established with voters is now at risk. Many districts also face an additional dilemma as deadlines to issue teacher contracts approach.”
Local clerks in charge of elections say they’re already maxed out by their regular Town Meeting duties, but nonetheless are taking a wait-and-see attitude.
“Certainly the initial reaction was, ‘Aaaaaaaaaa!’” said Barre City Clerk Carolyn Dawes, chair of the Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association’s Legislative Committee. “But I’m hearing from more and more clerks that their school boards are just going to move forward with March votes. I’m not sure how many communities will actually end up taking advantage of the law if and when it passes.”
The new bill would allow schools to postpone budget ballots at least a month, although officials stress that any delays won’t alter upcoming elections on municipal government matters or Vermont’s March 5 presidential primary.
Schools don’t have to wait for H.850 to become law to reschedule votes, according to state guidance to educators and election clerks. Districts can tap Act 1 of last year’s legislative session, which extends Covid-19-era options for deciding local leaders, spending and special articles until July 1.
Local school leaders are frustrated that lawmakers don’t have a schedule for how quickly they could decide H.850. But last year’s Act 1 is an example of how debating a bill can take more time than expected.
Back in January 2023, local leaders asked the state to fast-track an extension of Covid-19-era options before a deadline for alerting the public of any March Town Meeting changes. But the governor waited almost a week after House and Senate passage to review and sign the legislation, citing concerns about its temporary suspension of requirements for how schools report per-pupil costs on budget ballots.
“Towns are going crazy,” Middlesex Clerk Sarah Merriman said at the time of the resulting uncertainty.
