By Seth Henry
On June 7, each of our communities will be holding a very important vote to decide whether we will merge our school governance across Warren, Waitsfield, Fayston, Moretown, Waterbury and Duxbury. This vote has very serious implications on how we are able to operate our schools and our tax rates. Last Wednesday, I attended a community forum where the Act 46 Study Committee comprised of school board members from the involved communities presented their recommendation and plan for consolidation. The committee did an excellent job communicating the impacts of a merger and the governance structure and policies they designed to optimize community school protection and local representation. Weighing these factors and the fact that Act 46 is law, this decision is very easy for me. I will be voting for consolidation and advocating for my neighbors to do the same.
I have to start by saying that I vehemently opposed Act 46 before and after its passage. In my opinion, it is a very flawed piece of legislation that fails to address the underlying problems in our education funding system. It pits communities against each other and hands more control to the bureaucrats in Montpelier. The leaders in Montpelier who rammed it through gerrymandered the facts and bullied the opposition. I know there are many others who have a similarly negative view of Act 46. However, it is very important to understand that this vote is not an endorsement or criticism of Act 46. Act 46 is the law of the land, and based on the very protracted effort to pass it and the leadership support it enjoyed (and still enjoys), it is very unlikely to go away. This vote is on how we respond to that law. Voting against merger won’t liberate us from the law, but it will have serious consequences for our communities.
If our communities vote for consolidation we will create a single school board with representation from each participating community. While many feel this is giving up local control, the committee has carefully considered how to effectively form a board with balanced representation, improved transparency and the ability to take advantage of opportunities to improve our schools under this construct. For example, under consolidated governance students can easily go to a best-suited and most convenient school without the penalties and windfalls that exist under the current structure owing to Act 60/68.
The incentives for consolidation are significant. Under a consolidated system we will receive tax benefits in the form of discounted tax rates and specific and valuable protection from the punitive constructs of Act 46. If we vote to consolidate, we will receive a discount on the homestead property tax rate of 10 cents in 2017 stepping down 2 cents per year over five years. We also receive hold harmless provisions against the swings in tax rates that affect all of our small communities given the variance in declining enrollment. Finally, we receive protection of funding sources like small schools grants, which would benefit the greater good under the new construct. While the baseline for this financial case is a moving target as it depends on what other districts choose to do, the swing factor is huge. Based on 2016 property tax rates, the property tax discount represents a 5 to 7 percent swing in property tax rates. Combined with the ability to shore up our combined budgets and using the hold harmless provisions to buffer against annual “shocks,” our effective spending under the state’s formulas will be significantly lower, accelerating this effect. Conversely, if we do not consolidate, our communities will lose funding sources, we will foot more of the bill for other communities that consolidate and our taxes will go up while our schools will be forced to make deeper cuts that further undermine competitiveness and student enrollment.
Finally, like it or not, in Act 46 our lawmakers provided us with what I call a “you actually have no choice” clause. It provides that if we do not voluntarily consolidate by 2019, the state will have complete discretion to do it for (to?) us. If we choose to wait and have this decision made for our communities in the future, we give up the benefits as well as the latitude to shape our own strategy and governance around our community values.
I know there are individual concerns in each affected community. The smaller schools worry they will be forced to close. Involved community members worry that their local school initiatives will be hurt. There are well-thought-through protections the committee has provided to allay these concerns and preserve local control. In fact, I would argue that there is heightened protection for small schools and local representation merging than not doing so and having school budgets eroded further, suffering tax penalties and allowing the governance cards to fall where they may. Attending a forum, reviewing the materials (wwsu.org) or directly engaging a committee member will be very helpful in understanding the reasons we need to vote on June 7.
Finally, in closing, I have to say that attending the forum restored my faith in our ability to self-govern. While the political forces that created Act 46 are downright depressing, the incredibly thorough, well-thought-through and well-articulated response that our community’s committee produced to this challenge is inspiring. Please support their hard work on our behalf by showing up to vote June 7.
Henry lives in Fayston.