This commentary is by Doug Racine of Richmond. He has served Vermont as lieutenant governor, secretary of the Agency of Human Services, state senator and a school board member.
Alarm bells are ringing across Vermont as anticipated property tax increases have led to more than two dozen school budget defeats, with more likely to come.
The rollout of Act 127 contributed to the problem and has been adjusted, providing a small measure of relief. However, the underlying property tax problem still exists and continues to grow. Longstanding issues in our K-12 system and its financing mechanism need addressing.
The House Education Committee is focusing on possible long term systemic solutions. The financing issues facing our schools are complex, including health care costs, declining school enrollment, the number of small schools, class sizes and even the sustainability of the existing funding formula. A promising development is a possible new system for financing a state portion of school construction, a state role abandoned many years ago.
A short-term, partial but impactful remedy is possible.
Over the years, the K-12 system has absorbed ever-increasing expenses not directly related to classroom education. New responsibilities, unfunded mandates and other cost shifts have accumulated. One of the most significant cost drivers in schools has been the mental health and other social needs of children. This long-standing problem has only accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic to the point where it is a public health crisis for children and their educational outcomes.
The evidence of the crisis is easy to find. Frequent national reports of increased depression, alienation, suicides, poverty, and children falling further and further behind paint a clear and disturbing picture — and Vermont is no exception.
Educators in Vermont point to the mental health needs of their students as a major impediment to learning. They are lacking the support necessary to meet the complex social and educational needs of their students.
Children don’t enter our K-12 system until age 5 or 6. Then they spend less than a third of their waking hours in school. The rest of their time they are with their families, friends and communities. Educators see too many young children lacking in social, emotional and learning skills. Those children need extra support to succeed, support that schools either provide at great expense or simply cannot afford.
The recent Agency of Education survey of Vermont school districts reported 648 new mental health and behavioral positions have been added in just the past three years (with 43 of 52 districts reporting). Extrapolated, the additional expense to the system was $50 million, again in just the past three years.
State government has the responsibility to address the mental health needs of all our citizens, including our children. The state government role for children has instead been shunted off to the schools.
State-funded mental health services are largely focused on adults and young adults in crisis or with chronic conditions and not as much on children. Schools have absorbed a large share of the cost for children’s prevention, early intervention and treatment programs for lack of state-funded support. School-paid services are those otherwise funded by the state (and community partners) outside the classroom for the rest of the population.
Mental health services are a general government responsibility and should be paid for by the General Fund with its broad-based and more progressive taxes.
Are mental health services needed to help educate a child? Yes.
So are healthy families, stable housing, good prenatal care, a nurturing young childhood, good nutrition, parental involvement, strong community and opportunities denied by poverty. The goal of having children grow up happy, healthy, educated and ready for the real world is a collective responsibility. Schools play a particularly significant role, as do families and communities, but opportunity for success is part of the social contract involving all of us.
The House Ways and Means Committee seems ready to propose restoring to the tax code some of the historic progressivity that has been eroded over time by increasing the taxes of the wealthiest Vermonters.
Additional revenues raised can be added to the General Fund “contribution” to the Education Fund this year, thereby lowering the projected increase in property taxes. Additional state resources would carry with them the expectation that schools would have better opportunities to afford and expand services for students.
Mental health and behavioral issues faced by students result from various social and family factors mostly experienced outside the school setting. The symptoms land in the classroom.
Providing children with the help they need is our collective social obligation and not a responsibility for just our schools and property tax payers.
