Act 60 was crafted after the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that all Vermont school children were entitled to substantially equal educational opportunity.  Act 60 dramatically altered how Vermont funds public schools by creating a statewide property tax to fund education and by attempting to equalize the cost of educating Vermont’s children.

In so doing, the laws created a system whereby property wealthy towns raise funds, but only keep a fraction of those funds for the local schools. The laws have also created a system where schools must calculate per pupil spending and to keep those numbers as low as possible, pre-schoolers and tuitioned students are sought to keep enrollment figures as high as possible.

The state is undertaking a study of the impacts of Act 60/68 across Vermont.   In addition to economic and demographic impacts, the study will also evaluate the types of tax and revenues used to fund the education system, the relationship between per-pupil spending and the total amount spent for each community, and the extent to which spending is correlated to community income wealth. 

The town of Dover, concerned that the state study may focus too much on statewide data, at the expense of analyzing the local impacts of Act 60/68, is commissioning its own study to look specifically at the economic and demographic impacts on the area.

The Dover study, undertaken on behalf of the town and several surrounding communities, will evaluate whether the funding structure results in equal educational opportunity for area students.

Dover and the surrounding communities are similar to the Mad River Valley in that taxpayers raise far more funds for education than they receive from the state.

Local homeowners and business owners have been vocal about the impacts of draining so much of a community’s wealth from its coffers. The results of the Dover study will be welcome.

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