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Update April 2010
In this issue:
-- Confused About the State Budget?
-- Former Officials Decry Cuts in Human Services
-- Tax Me More!
-- Don't Make Education Funding More Complicated and Less Fair
Confused About the State Budget?
Vermont Transparency, the joint website of Public Assets and the Ethan Allen Institute, can sort it out. We've posted the Vermont House's and governor's versions of the fiscal 2011 budget and provided graphics to help you compare them at varying levels of detail. Just click on the new "Current Session" tab and follow the instructions. Particularly enlightening is "View Individual Appropriations by Function" (below the pie charts). It shows the line items side by side—the governor's recommendations and what the full House approved. And when the Senate approves its version of the budget, Vermont Transparency will post it too.
Former Officials Decry Cuts
in Human Services
Three former officials of the Vermont Human Services Agency told compelling stories about the damaging effects Vermont's current budget policies are having on the state's most vulnerable citizens. At an April 7 State House press conference to release its latest report, 2011 Budget: Cutting the Commitment to Vermonters, Public Assets was joined by Con Hogan, agency secretary under Govs. Richard Snelling and Howard Dean; Tom Davis, who headed the agency in the mid-1970s under Gov. Tom Salmon; and Cheryl Mitchell, deputy secretary from 1993 to 2002. Video clips of the event, which received wide attention, are available at vtdigger.org.
Tax Me More!
The Tea Partiers were not the only people generating news around April 15. On tax day, Vermont Public Radio interviewed author Kristen Laine, who offered an eye-opening history of the federal income tax. She pointed out that for 50 years before Ronald Reagan became president, the top tax rate on the richest Americans never fell below 50 percent, and for 20 of those years the rate was at least 70 percent. On April 14, Vermont resident and Seventh Generation co-founder Jeffrey Hollender was among a group of wealthy people asking to bring back the old policies. "I do feel that I should pay more taxes—absolutely," Hollender said on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. "While I don't like how the government spends the money I give them, I do feel that I pay too little."
Don't Make Education Funding More Complicated and Less Fair
The Vermont House proposed a new complication to the state's education funding system that would make it less fair. The House wants certain middle income residents who pay school taxes to pay based on income to also pay property taxes if their housesite is valued at more than $425,000. The Senate has rejected the House proposal to assess the additional property tax, but it could return when the House and Senate negotiate a compromise bill. Paul Cillo testified before the Senate Finance Committee to outline his objections to the House plan. Read Cillo's testimony.
Public Assets Institute is funded by grants and donations. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to support our work.
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Fact: Vermont school districts have steadily slowed education spending growth: 6 percent in 2006 to near zero for 2011.
Source: Vermont Department of Education
Cracks in
the Public Structures
A Step Backward for Developmentally Disabled Vermonters
Challenges for Change, Vermont's government efficiency plan, has a tough act to follow when it comes to improving services for Vermonters with developmental disabilities—life-long mental impairment that usually makes independent living impossible.
In the early 1990s, the annual cost of care, in today's dollars, was $289,176 per person living at Brandon Training School. Vermont's community-based system now costs less than one-fifth that amount. More important, because people can now stay in their homes and communities, their quality of life is better.
Read More.
Calendar
Blue Ribbon Tax Commission
May 11, 2010
9 a.m.
133 State Street, Montpelier
More information
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