To The Editor:
First, I want to support Jim Tabor’s Letter to the Editor last week, “No option but no” regarding the upcoming Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) Board proposed $50.8 million budget for fiscal year 2025.
Like Jim, I’ll be voting no and here’s why.
The Valley Reporter published data showing that we could expect the impact of the recently passed H.850 on local education tax rates to increase by 30 to 40%, in other words between $570 and $790 per $100,000 of assessed value. That’s between $1,710 and $2,370 in additional annual taxes on a $300,000 home.
Who can afford this? Very few. And, the school budget is not the only taxes and fees that are increasing in this state.
In a Burlington Free Press article, Governor Phil Scott was quoted as saying that the changes with H.850 passing “will only reduce rates if school boards adjust their budgets accordingly and local voters support those changes.” He also said that a projected spending increase of $243 million would be unlikely to avoid significant property tax increases, even if every single school board makes adjustments to their budget.
We have an opportunity to reject this budget because it’s not affordable nor sustainable -- and equally important, lacks the details of what we are actually paying for and whether it’s a good return on our investment.
In contrast to Vermont, Michael Stack (a new board member representing Rockingham on the Bellows Falls Union High School (BFUHS) board in his commentary in the Brattleboro Reformer says this, “Massachusetts requires a voter override when property tax exceeds 2.5%. They also publish school report cards each fall that display current academic and social/emotional data in an easy-to-read format. These safeguards encourage efficiency and allow individual towns to have a strong say in what they are willing to pay in tax increases. The state also provides technical support, not just financial resources, to school systems that are underperforming.” Massachusetts has the best ranked public schools in the U.S.
He also talks about the fact that Act 60 made it so that even if some towns controlled their spending and others didn’t, the money all gets pooled together and then distributed. That means that those that do the right thing get penalized. He thinks that school boards figured that they better ask for what they want whether it’s needed or not.
According to Vermont’s Joint Fiscal Office the number of children ages 0 to 17 declined by about 14,000 from 2010 to 2022, or about 11%. Why are the school budgets climbing up every year with less students, particularly at a rate greater than inflation? We need to fix what seems to be a broken educational system before the majority of the people in this state can no longer live here -- and not by throwing more money at it.
Amy Todisco
Waitsfield
