Research & Publications

Ed Funding 101 (and what happened in FY25)

Vermont has one of the most equitable education funding systems in the country. It hasn’t felt that way lately, because there are pockets of inequities that hit some taxpayers and some districts more than others.

Public Assets’ Executive Director explains the fundamentals of our public education funding system.

Public education is one of the most important things the state does and there is a lot we can do to make the tax system simpler and fairer without losing what’s equitable about it, while ensuring that Vermonters can make good decisions about their schools.

Economic Security 101

What do we need to do to make Vermont affordable for all? Public Assets Director Steph Yu explains: we know Vermont has the resources to make the state affordable for everyone who lives here. Some of the solutions will take time, but there are also some that we can implement right now that will immediately improve family economic security and make sure that Vermont is affordable for all.

Vermont state budget 101

Curious about how the state budget works? Steph reviews the basics of Vermont’s budget including revenues, appropriations, and the so-called spaghetti chart that ties it all together.

Education funding: The three cliffs problem

Education spending saw its biggest jump in years in fiscal 2025, and school taxpayers are noticing the change in their bills. The increase this year was due to a lot of factors outside both schools’ and taxpayers’ control—inflation, healthcare costs, and the loss of pandemic-era federal support chief among them. All of that led to an increase in total homestead taxes of 12.9 percent, although the rate varied from town to town.

But taxpayers can see their tax bills suddenly balloon even when spending increases are modest. The reason: thresholds built into the system. A majority of Vermont resident homeowners pay all or some of their school taxes based on their household income, which better reflects their ability to pay. But the Legislature has imposed limits on these income-based taxes, which means some homeowners—and the number has been increasing—pay a combination of the income-based and property-based school taxes. The property taxes kick in when homeowners’ incomes or house values pass certain thresholds. These thresholds create tax “cliffs”—sudden rises in tax owed. Because the thresholds haven’t been increased or adjusted for inflation over time, more and more Vermonters have hit these cliffs and seen a jump in their school tax bills.

Vermont’s new Child Tax Credit: Improving life for families

Refundable tax credits are an important tool for reducing child poverty and advancing racial, social, and economic justice. They get cash to families efficiently, helping them meet basic needs like food, clothing, and housing. During the pandemic, when many people were out of work, the federal government used refundable income and child tax credits as quick ways of easing families’ financial struggles. Some states, Vermont included, followed their lead by passing state-level child tax credits.

What is the Vermont Child Tax Credit?
Vermont’s Child Tax Credit (CTC) provides $1,000 annually per child under 6 to families with adjusted gross incomes up to $125,000. It is fully refundable—families with low or no earnings can receive its full value. Families earning between $125,000 and $175,000 receive a partial credit. In 2023, over 95 percent of Vermont kids under 6—34,000 children—will benefit from the credit, making it the most robust in the country.

Vermont’s tools for education funding equity: Weighting and categorical aid

Vermont’s education funding system is built on fairness to taxpayers, to communities, and to students. The state has two tools to help mitigate variable costs so that all schools can afford to educate all their students, regardless of need: categorical aid and pupil weighting.m

This explainer shows how they work.

It’s time to raise Vermont’s minimum wage

The purpose of the minimum wage is to provide a floor for most workers’ hourly pay. Policymakers already agree that Vermont should continue to set a minimum. The question is whether now is the time to raise it. An assessment of economic indicators shows that low-wage workers, especially those making minimum wage, have lost ground compared with higher-wage workers and compared to the cost of living.

To make life affordable for all workers, Vermont should raise the minimum wage now.

For Reach Up families, basic needs are out of reach

Due to years of underfunding, Reach Up is not fulfilling the state’s fundamental obligation to ensure that families with children can meet basic needs.

• Reach Up benefits are not keeping up with the cost of basic needs.

• Reach Up leaves families in extreme poverty.

• Reach Up assists fewer families in poverty than it used to.

A fairer, simpler way to fund education

Eliminate the property tax on primary residences and base school taxes on income

How it works now
In 1997 the Vermont Supreme Court declared the state’s education financing system unconstitutional and required that the Legislature devise a system that provides substantially equal access to public education resources for all of the state’s children, regardless of the wealth of the community they live in. That is what Act 60 accomplished. Before Act 60, property-wealthy communities could raise lots of money for their schools with low tax rates, while property-poor communities had high rates and still were not able to raise much.

20 years ago, Act 60 fundamentally changed the way Vermont pays for public education

What problem were we trying to solve? Before 1997 Vermont had vast inequalities in education and tax bills from town to town. Towns with ski resorts, lakes, lots of stores, or high-value homes enjoyed well-funded schools with low tax rates. Property-poor towns had to tax themselves at high rates to afford barely adequate schools. For […]

A Step Backward for Developmentally Disabled Vermonters

CRACKS IN THE PUBLIC STRUCTURES. April 2010
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.

Vermont’s Bridges are Going Nowhere Good

CRACKS IN THE PUBLIC STRUCTURES. February 2010
Failing or closed bridges have come to symbolize our deteriorating public structures. They are the inevitable result of trying to balance a budget with cuts alone. Vermont has now closed 16 bridges to all traffic. Eleven more are closed for the short term, with a temporary bridge in place until the original structure is rehabilitated.

No Supper for Schoolchildren

CRACKS IN THE PUBLIC STRUCTURES. December 2009
A year ago the federal government said it would give Vermont funds to serve supper to children from low-income families at after-school programs. But because the state eliminated a key job, those kids will have to wait—indefinitely.

Vermont Judiciary

CRACKS IN THE PUBLIC STRUCTURES. October 2009
The Judicial Branch (courts) of state government was established under the Constitution to protect individual rights and to ensure everyone their day in court. In addition to providing Vermonters with a place to resolve legal disputes, the Judiciary helps to provide balance of state powers as one of the three co-equal branches of state government: Vermont’s Courts, Governor, and Legislature.

Office of Child Support

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. August 2009
The mission of the Office of Child Support (OSC), created in 1990, is to improve the economic wellbeing of children, under 18 or still in high school, from split homes.

Meat Inspection Section

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. June 2009
Meats bound for market get the highest level of scrutiny from meat inspectors. But whether the meats are for sale or personal use, their slaughter, processing and sale are licensed and inspected to ensure proper animal treatment and food safety.

Banking Division

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. Apr 2009
When a few predatory lenders struck Vermont in the mid-1990s, the legislature stepped in to protect consumers. New laws placed fiduciary responsibilities on mortgage brokers and required lenders to provide detailed disclosures. Those laws have been on the books since, and the Banking Division ensures they’re followed. Good regulation may have saved Vermont from the worst of the national mortgage crisis.

Community High School of Vermont

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. Feb 2009
The Community High School of Vermont (CHSVT) is the state’s largest high school. It operates within the Department of Corrections. The students are either serving prison sentences in Vermont or living in the community on probation or parole.

Immunization Program

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. Dec 2008
The nation’s first polio outbreak was in the Rutland area in 1894. Sixty years later a nationwide immunization program was in place. The widespread use of the polio vaccine has all but eradicated the disease in the U.S.; the last known Vermont case was in 1963.

Office of Home Heating Fuel

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. Oct 2008
Vermont’s Seasonal Fuel Assistance Program helps pay for home heating fuel—oil, gas, kerosene, electricity, or wood—for households at or below 125 percent of poverty, with funds from the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

Recreational Enforcement and Education Unit

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. Aug 2008
We’ve all encountered state troopers on the highways. But since the 1960s, troopers have also patrolled state waters and, more recently, snowmobile trails. These state police became the Recreational Enforcement and Education Unit, enforcing marine and snowmobile laws and running safety-education programs throughout the state and online.

Office of the Defender General

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. Jun 2008
For at least 135 years Vermont has recognized that equality is crucial to criminal justice and provided legal counsel to the indigent. In 1972 a statewide system of public defense was created: the Office of the Defender General.

Federally Qualified Health Care Centers (FQHCs)

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. March 2008
Doctors rarely make house calls these days, but half of Vermonters have access to the next best thing: affordable community health care. An FQHC is a community-operated nonprofit providing comprehensive primary care – including medical, dental, and behavioral care, and affordable prescription drugs – to anyone in the community who wants it.

Consumer Protection Section

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. DEC 2007
Vermonters have relied on the state’s weights and measures program to protect them from fraud for over 200 years. In its early days the program checked retail farm products – such as fluid milk, meat or wool – for fair measure. Now the Consumer Protection Section also regulates propane meters, gas pumps, heavy duty scales and laser scanners.

Vermont Department of Libraries

PUBLIC STRUCTURES SPOTLIGHT. OCT 2007
Within a few months of Vermont’s joining the Union in 1791, the state’s first library was organized in Brookfield. Now, 61% of Vermonters have a library card at one or more of the state’s 180 public libraries.