Even Vermont’s low-spending school districts are struggling to pass budgets

Superintendent Lynn Cota imagined that, this year, the schools she oversees in rural Franklin County, buoyed by increased access to funding , could expand their outdoor education and athletics programs.

So after two defeated school budgets and a recent May evening spent brainstorming a lean third option for the Enosburgh-Richford School District, she was feeling frustrated.

“It was painful, because we’ve already cut quite a bit of money out of our budget,” said Cota, who leads the Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union. “We keep cutting away at this budget and cutting away at this budget, and it pulls our students further away from the opportunities that students in other parts of the state have.”

Enosburgh-Richford is one of about 20 school districts around Vermont that are still without a budget after multiple votes. But unlike some others facing that challenge, the district spends far below the norm.

Across Vermont, the average education property tax bill is expected to go up just shy of 14% next fiscal year, with actual bills varying widely town to town. Faced with that daunting number, about a third of school budget votes failed on Town Meeting Day — the largest number in recent memory. Since then, some districts have experienced two or even three budget rejections, even when the expected tax impacts fall well below the average.

Local budgets, a statewide perspective

At the local level, district leaders face a conundrum: They must win over voters concerned about local property taxes, yet Vermont’s statewide education funding system means district-level decisions are only one factor among many impacting local taxes.

And a statewide narrative of rising property tax rates, a topic frequently raised by Gov. Phil Scott, can alter perspectives even in districts seeing far lower increases than the average.

“You have conversations with people who are not coming to the informational meetings, who aren’t looking at what we send out, and there’s no convincing them that they’re going to have a relatively flat tax bill,” said Morgan Daybell, business manager of the Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union and president of the Vermont Association of School Business Officials. “What’s different this year is the narrative has been completely controlled by Governor Scott.”

Enosburgh-Richford, a district in Franklin Northeast, is expected to be one of the 10 lowest-spending school districts next year and among the lowest five that actually operate schools. The rural district has the lowest projected per-student spending of any district without an approved budget, according to the Vermont Agency of Education, and has one of the highest student poverty rates in the state.

When the two towns last voted on a budget, Richford property owners faced a projected 13% tax increase, while Enosburgh residents would have seen only a 1% bump. The third budget voters will consider would further reduce tax increases.

“We’ve got high transportation costs because we’re spread out. We’ve not got a lot of money that’s earmarked for things like field trips or athletics,” Daybell said. “It just pushes us a little quicker to cutting staff.”

The district’s second budget, which was defeated late last month, would have spent 20% less per student than the statewide average. The projected area tax rate, about $1.05, is also approaching the statewide floor of $1, the minimum tax rate districts must pay.

Now, the local school board is considering lowering costs through cuts to paraeducator support, the partial reduction of a teaching position and a change to the district’s nursing model, according to Cota, the superintendent.

Enosburgh-Richford isn’t alone among low-spenders still struggling for voter approval.

Slate Valley Unified School District is historically a low-spending district that often struggles to pass budgets. Last week, voters in Castleton, Fair Haven, West Haven, Orwell, Benson and Hubbardton rejected a third school budget, which would have spent about 15% less per student than the statewide average.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Grand Isle County voters in the Champlain Islands Unified Union School District voted down a budget that spent more than 15% above the statewide per student average, according to data from the Agency of Education. After two rejections by voters, the district remains without a budget.

Frequent no-voting districts have not escaped this year’s slew of rejections, either. Alburgh (an average spender) and Barre (a low spender that rejected a second budget May 14), the only two districts with failed budgets in 2023, faced a similar fate this year. Milton, which is expected to spend right around the per-student average and often struggles to pass budgets, still doesn’t have an approved spending plan for 2025.

Budget defeats an equity issue, interim secretary says

In a letter last week to chairs of the Legislature’s tax and education committees regarding the annual education property tax bill , Interim Education Secretary Zoie Saunders honed in on the wave of school budgets defeats from one angle in particular: equity.

“I write this having just reviewed recent data on the status of school district budgets. I wanted to take the opportunity to flag some serious and concerning equity issues among the cohort of districts who have failed to pass budgets,” she wrote, “which highlight deeper and more systemic educational challenges beyond our current financial crisis.”

At the time of her writing, May 9, Saunders pointed out that more than 60% of the districts without a budget have poverty rates higher than the statewide average. Plus, she noted that some of Vermont’s historically lowest-spending districts — Enosburgh-Richford, Slate Valley, and Elmore-Morristown — remain unable to pass budgets.

“I am sharing this information to reinforce that the districts harmed this year by our education cost crisis are districts that support some of Vermont’s most vulnerable students, and districts that often do this in the context of budget uncertainty year over year,” Saunders wrote.

Synthesizing the year’s budget failures, Saunders called the state’s education system “incoherent” and “inequitable” and said that she’d “heard the call to create a unifying vision for education and, at the same time, a need to focus on the pragmatic work of preparing for the next school year. We must do both.”

But the interim secretary did qualify her big-picture focus, saying “the equity and cost challenges” must be addressed first, as “only then can we fully focus on reframing and visioning.”

In the midst of multiple budget defeats, Cota, the Franklin County superintendent, was feeling the weight of inequities in Vermont’s education finance system.

“The frustrating part for me comes from we have a system that funds public education that’s so complicated, very few people can understand it in its entirety,” Cota said, adding that some people are pushing for finance reform by voting down local budgets. “That will ultimately disproportionately impact communities like mine.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Even Vermont’s low-spending school districts are struggling to pass budgets .