Dear Editor,
It’s happening again. Surprise, surprise!
In December 2025, the Vermont commissioner of taxes released the joint office education tax rate letter describing the property tax increase residential homeowners will face next year.
The letter projects property tax bills to increase by an average of 12% next year. This doesn’t include planned increases in local town spending.
With this new property tax increase, Vermont taxpayers will have seen a phenomenal 41% increase in property taxes over the last five years.
In his letter, Tax Commissioner Bill Shouldice said, “If we allow this landscape to persist, we cannot seriously expect young and growing families to buy homes and settle in Vermont; local voters to approve budgets; or seniors on fixed incomes to retire comfortably in Vermont.”
Vermonters already suffer the third-highest tax burden in the United States. Vermont has the highest property tax burden, finally surpassing New Hampshire, and now ranks last in economic momentum.
We pay income taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, payroll taxes, transfer taxes, meal taxes, cloud taxes, and even now our legislature is considering a new tax on gasoline.
For the 2024 legislative session, Tax Commissioner Craig Bolio rang the warning bell, writing, “For Vermonters and policymakers concerned about property taxes, housing affordability, or overall tax burden, this letter should sound a major alarm.”
Yet, here we are, two years and an election cycle later.
Our representatives in Montpelier are not getting the message.
A decade of spend-and-tax policies is not working and has taken Vermont to the edge of an economic cliff. A declining tax base is exacting a toll as prime earners leave the state and our population demographic ages.
Fiscal responsibility at all levels and affordability for all Vermonters must be the top priorities.
Our current legislature seems to have no problem in raising revenue by taxing Vermonters more each year to match spending increases. With a $9 billion budget, Vermont does not have a revenue problem.
We have a cost problem.
We have a spending problem.
In 2024, when school budgets were rejected across the state, taxpayers made their frustration known loud and clear, but it was then ignored, despite reassurances from incumbent legislative leaders that they’d got the message.
A deeper, focused message is required to get a lasting, corrective response. We must change attitudes and approaches and demand real action and strong leadership in the Vermont legislature.
Isn’t it time to cut up the Vermont General Assembly’s credit card and place a fiscally conservative majority in the Vermont Legislature?
No more excuses. Enough is enough.
Bruce Roy, Williston, Vt.
