Enrollment decline continues in Vt. schools
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By CRISTINA KUMKA STAFF WRITER - Published: April 1, 2009
Vermont schools lost more than 1,000 students by the end of 2008, making it the 13th straight year of declining student enrollment, according to a new report released by the state Department of Education.
The report showed a 1.64 percent decrease, or a 1,542 student decline, in the state's student count in fiscal year 2008.
As of last October, there were 92,572 students enrolled in kindergarten through high school statewide, compared to 94,114 enrolled the previous year, according to the report.
Since 1997, Vermont has experienced a 13 percent drop in student enrollment, according to the report.
Education finance experts offered different opinions Tuesday on what the implications of declining enrollment will have on individual school districts and the taxpayer dollars that go toward sustaining them.
The student decline this year is greater than expected — state financiers in the Legislative Joint Fiscal Office predicted the $1.32 billion state Education Fund would have to pay for 95,676 students, about 3,000 more than the education department's most recent calculation.
State Tax Commissioner Tom Pelham, a proponent of reforming the way education is financed in Vermont, questioned why, if student count was dropping, education funding was increasing.
Homestead education taxes to support the state Education Fund are expected to increase by $40.6 million by 2010, from $462 million to $503 million, according to early 2009 figures from the fiscal office.
"Now we are in hard times and the governor has been asking that the education community share in the sacrifices," Pelham said.
Paul Cillo, education finance analyst and founder of the Montpelier-based think tank the Public Assets Institute, said the toll education costs have on taxpayers' pockets is decreasing and it could be partially due to the drop in the state's student population.
"School taxes as a percentage of Vermonters' personal income has been going down the last 10 years," Cillo said.
Since 1996, the percentage of personal income consumed by school taxes has dropped from 5.4 percent to 4.8 percent, according to Cillo.
But he said inflationary costs such as health care for teachers and an increasing demand for social services, are working against school savings plans.
In Rutland, a slowly declining student population isn't as much of a concern as a steadily increasing one, according to Peter Amons, the chief financial officer for Rutland City Public Schools.
"Special education enrollment has doubled in the past 20 years and special education costs go up higher each year," Amons said.
Rutland's enrollment decline districtwide is projected to be minimal — an expected drop of 27 students out of a total of about 2,500 students by 2011, according to recent figures provided by the district.
The state's enrollment report also detailed an increase of 1,799 minority students since 2004.
Over a 10-year period, the school with the largest increase in enrollment was Grafton Elementary School in Windham County with a more than 7 percent increase while the largest decrease in enrollment occurred at Whitingham School with a 9 percent decline, according to the report.
Economists believe, and recent studies show, Vermont's student enrollment spiral will come to an end, according to Cillo.
The state is expected to have an "influx of people coming in who are young couples coming back to have their families," Cillo said. "But it will be 10 years before that impacts schools in any significant way."
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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