League of Cities and Towns recommends education reform
Toolbox
By Sarah Hinckley Rutland Herald - Published: September 30, 2006
A panel of municipal leaders from around the state, appointed last year by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, has put forth a series of recommendations for education reform.
The proposal, which was released earlier this month, has generated broad discussion statewide in the days leading up to the group's annual meeting Oct. 5.
"In northern New England, we're more reliant on property tax than anywhere else in the country," said executive director Steven Jeffrey. "It's been an issue for us as long as we've been an organization."
A year ago, a VLCT Education Finance Reform Committee made up of municipal officials was appointed and assigned to work on options for revising and simplifying the state's education funding system.
The committee came up with five recommendations that include reform suggestions it hopes will be adopted during the meeting at the Barre Municipal Civic Center.
A two-thirds vote of approval by appointed representatives attending the meeting will allow the reform plans to go before the Legislature early next year.
In the written statement Jeffrey wrote, "since the imposition of the state education property tax through Act 60, nine years ago, education property taxes have doubled … yet the number of students we are required to educate has dropped by 10 percent."
The following are the recommendations the committee offered, with ideas supporting implementation — all or some of which would be part of a reform plan.
They include, a system that:
According to the proposal, to rely less heavily on property tax the committee proposed three options.
One option would lower the base state education tax rate from $1.10 to $.30, imposing an education income tax of 1.5 percent on the taxable income of all residents and eliminating the "prebate."
The second option would expand the state sales tax to services and exempt items and then designate one-third of the additional revenue for the Education Fund.
The third option proposed a constitutional amendment that would cap the statewide education property tax rates and limit use of the Education Fund to local school expenses.
Two suggestions are offered for controlling education spending: providing significant financial incentives to school districts that consolidate governance structures and school facilities and services; the other is to require the state to provide non-property-tax revenue to be used for state legislative and administrative mandates.
Making it easier for officials to implement could mean having the state appraise property and provide a grand list or have all education property taxes billed and collected at the state level.
To provide schools with resources, the committee suggests differentiating between state-funded core education expenses and those that can be picked up and provided locally. The other option is encouraging the commissioner of education to reduce the number of state school districts.
The committee will present four options to fairly distribute resources and tax burdens:
The annual meeting includes a large trade show, educational workshops and a gubernatorial forum, as well as the annual meeting in which voting is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. A voluntary association, the League counts all 246 organized cities and towns in Vermont as members.
Contact Sarah Hinckley at sarah.hinckley@rutlandherald.com.
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