(Editor’s Note: This letter was sent to Vermont Governor Phil Scott.).
Sir, you really cannot sign the new education Bill H.454! It is a failure in so many ways, I will only enumerate a few.
First, let me say, school consolidation is in fact the only way to reduce our exorbitant cost of education by reducing education overhead, excessive administrators, excessive facilities. and staff.
Running for state representative here in The Valley, I did propose consolidation. I also recommended the way to accomplish it; hire a logistics firm like Amazon, etc. that knows how to optimize, how to distribute “things.” They would come up with appropriately-sized districts. The criteria would be the number of students and the combined wealth of communities in a district to support their student population.
Here are some problems with this bill:
- Doesn’t lower the cost of education
- Doesn’t require or mandate consolidation within districts. Without requiring consolidation, this law is useless.
- With only five districts, theoretically, about 110 superintendents and staff would be eliminated. Knowing Vermont they would be reassigned with no savings.
- Five districts won’t work. For instance, we in the Mad River Valley and other small towns are in a district with the largest and wealthiest school districts; Burlington, Essex, etc. We would be funding their bloated budgets, as we do today. Burlington has three academies, teaches seven languages. And we, have no academies, other than GMVS, and teach two languages.
- The bill attacks business and second-home owners, the engines that pay for Vermont. The Legislature’s concept of keeping costs down for low- and middle-income families is the very thing that will keep school expenses high – somebody else will pay. If everyone feels the pain of the cost of government in general, then that pain constrains legislators.
- The bill creates a constitutional battle by taxing out-of-staters at a higher tax rate than locals. There have been court cases that sided with the out-of-staters. So, let’s not put our eggs in that basket. One solution is to enable any American citizen with a home in Vermont a vote.
Recommendations:
- Exclud towns and school districts that can pay their way, like Burlington, Rutland, Brattleboro, Bennington, etc.
- End the Common Level of Appraisal. When the government can tax people arbitrarily, the spenders will spend more. Simply enforce the assessment laws.
- Again, hire a logistics company to engineer districts that have the economy of mass to pay their way; significant population, real estate, and businesses.
- As mayor of a village in NY (population 8,800) we paid for our schools/teachers with good salaries, a full-time 24/7 police department, municipal sewer/water, garbage/recycling pickup, snow plowing and road maintenance, a great recreation department, with a well-funded volunteer fire department. We also paid town and county taxes. All those services for about the same tax I pay in Warren, without those services.
Governor, something is wrong here.
