By Angelo Lynn
Editor’s note: Angelo Lynn is the publisher of the Addison Independent, as sister paper of the Mountain Times.
Early statewide conversations on school funding and housing offer some hope that progress on these two crucial issues will finally occur.
In his inaugural speech, Gov. Phil Scott hinted his administration will actually put forward a plan to change the state’s school funding formula as well as improve educational outcomes. For the past four terms he’s complained about how much Vermont spends on education but hasn’t provided any solutions or worked with the Legislature to make changes. Hopefully, he’ll be bolder in his fifth term and take a leadership role on the issue.
But expect plenty of controversial proposals. He’s long held that Vermont’s pupil-teacher ratio is too high and that consolidation of classes or schools is the likely answer — particularly at the elementary level — while never actually proposing a change. (He’s been hoping the Democratic Legislature would do the actual work and he’d avoid the political heat.) Other suggestions Scott made include “a simpler governance structure” and an incentive for school boards who contain their spending. He also said communities clinging to “local control” of their school budgets has been an obstacle in the past and that his proposals may include more state control of what school districts spend.
Such control could come with the adoption of a “foundation formula” whereby the state calculates how much districts spend on their schools and provide them grants to cover those costs. That could solve some problems in the current system, but a similar system was in place prior to Act 60 and was found to provide inequitable education to all students and ultimately ruled unconstitutional by Vermont’s Supreme Court.
Following the governor’s address, Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said she was excited to hear the governor would propose a plan to make educational spending more cost-effective.
“We’ve all been talking about how we need to work together to ensure that our kids have the best education that Vermonters can afford and to hear the governor talk about specific ideas around classroom ratios and school consolidation… we have to put them on the table, and we can’t do this alone. We need the governor with us in the room crafting solutions together,” she said.
That, at least, is progress. With the governor saying he’ll be a willing partner to find a solution, and actually take the lead on the issue, there’s hope compromise can be found to pursue viable solutions.
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On creating more affordable housing, the good news comes from a new, nonpartisan lobby called “Let’s Build Homes.” The group’s messaging, according to a press release, “mirrors that of the nationwide YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) movement.
“If we want nurses, and firefighters, and childcare workers, and mental health workers to be able to live in this great state — if we want vibrant village centers and full schools — adding new homes is essential,” said Miro Weinberger, former mayor of Burlington and the executive chair of the new group’s steering committee.
As we’ve reported in this space several times over the past few months, a housing needs assessment study estimates Vermont needs 24,000 and 36,000 new homes over the next five years to meet demand. The group says it will encourage the Legislature to consider a “housing infrastructure program,” to help fund the water, sewer and road networks that need to be built in order for housing development to be possible and will focus on reforming the appeals process for new housing that currently allows a single individual to tank housing projects that have broad community support. Both initiatives could spur real progress in addressing Vermont’s housing crisis.
Notably, in his Inaugural Address, Scott also suggested Vermont towns should use the state’s tax incremental funding system, or TIF, to address housing shortages, particularly of larger, multi-unit developments.
That the issue is getting such intense scrutiny so early in the session is an optimistic sign that the state will address the housing shortage as one of the state’s top priorities, if not the single-most important.
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Not discussed in the governor’s inaugural address (or just barely mentioned) was healthcare reform. That’s a huge mistake. The high healthcare costs Vermonters face (reportedly, the highest in the country) puts an enormous strain on our educational funding and on the effort to make Vermont affordable. Creating more housing for health care workers was a high priority in the statewide analysis compiled by the Oliver Wyman group last fall, so check off one of those recommendations. But the Wyman team offered several other important suggestions. While many of the report’s suggestions were tough medicine —unpopular with Vermont’s hospitals and many communities— if the state doesn’t heed at least the most essential recommendations, doing nothing will only make the state sicker.
Hopefully the governor will address that oversight in his budget address, and the Legislature will keep the issue front-and-center as well.
