Try looking from the other side

Spring is almost here and that means time is short for Montpelier to get in step with local communities on education funding. Montpelier wants to create a new system so it can control spending, and local communities are looking for help to cope with higher costs.

They aren’t the same thing.

Going into Town Meeting, vtdigger ran a story about the pressures local school officials were facing this year. They talked about the rising cost of healthcare, the effects of inflation on salaries as well as other goods and services they have to buy, and other financial demands that they don’t control.

The cost drivers they identified sounded a lot like the ones the Agency of Education cited two years ago when the state saw a spike in projected school budgets. That set off a panic over education funding reform, but we’re still in a muddle because current reforms being pushed from Montpelier don’t address the problems local communities are dealing with.

The governor and some in the Legislature are focused on redrawing school district maps. In addition to large districts, they are pushing for a new foundation funding system that would put Montpelier in charge of deciding how much funding students should get. It’s not clear how either of those reforms would address the high cost of healthcare, which is a result of both higher insurance premiums and greater demand, especially for mental health services for kids.

Dealing with the cost drivers local schools confront is not an easy task. As a country, we’ve been struggling with the cost of healthcare for decades. But finding a way to help schools tackle the actual problems they face is more likely to produce results than overhauling the education funding system. And in many cases that will mean providing different resources and tailored assistance to individual districts because their problems aren’t the same. Same bucket, maybe, but not the same problem.

The approach recommended by the School Redistricting Task Force seems better suited to Vermont’s real needs. The Task Force, despite its name, rejected the idea of creating mega-districts through forced consolidation. Instead, it recommended strengthening the ability of local communities and local school officials to work collaboratively to improve services and look for savings, including through voluntary mergers. For that approach to work, however, Montpelier will need to stop acting like local communities can’t be trusted and start recognizing their value in educating Vermont’s children.

Vermonters have approved more than 80 percent of the school budgets they have voted on so far, according to unofficial results. Most of the state’s 124 districts had voted as of Town Meeting Day; about a dozen remain.

While the news seems positive, we don’t have the full picture yet of what school boards had to do to keep their budgets within acceptable limits for their local voters. We know some districts cut positions, and at least one cut its music program.

What these budget votes will mean for taxpayers is a mystery because the Legislature hasn’t set the tax rates. There has been talk of making another one-time appropriation from the General Fund to the Education Fund to lower school taxes for homeowners and businesses. But that decision won’t be made until long after voters cast their ballots, which is another disservice to local communities.

Local school districts have been through a lot in the last 10 years, with consolidation—forced and elective, special education reform, a new student weighting system, and other changes. On top of that come cuts in federal funding and yet another major reform plan. Local communities are looking for help from the Legislature and the Agency of Education, not new directives. Maybe Montpelier could look at education from their perspective.