David Clark is a member of Bellows Falls Union High School District 27 Board. However, the opinions he expresses are entirely his own.
Contact: david.clark@wnesu.com
Contact: david.clark@wnesu.com
Letter: Act 46 is fundamentally flawed
Posted Wednesday, April 12, 2017 11:39 am
Editor of the Reformer:
Act 46 is nothing more the Vermont Legislature's misguided attempt to solve the wrong problem. The basic logic being used in this situation by Montpelier could be equally well applied to the 251 historic Vermont inefficiencies known as the cities, towns and gores, all of which are deep in the sort of redundancies of resources for which the schools are currently taking the heat. Wouldn't it make a whole lot better sense to take those hundreds of road graders and the thousands plow trucks and have the counties run the show? You bet it would.
Act 46 is all about equity, transparency and accountability. I don't need to point out the Orwellian logic of the last two principals, so let's talk about that equity piece for just a moment. Because equity is the new mantra now that the bureaucrats have finally figured out that Act 46 has little actual promise of saving anyone any money, even though it will allow for some pretty nifty cost shifting as some of the more profligate former school districts shift their sometimes very substantial bond indebtedness off proportionally on to their more frugal, newly merged neighbors.
But what does that proportion look like? I've yet to find any language within Act 46, maybe it's there, just well hidden, which describes exactly how education in these new super districts is gonna get paid for. My assumption is that the formula would be proportionally by student count by town, but in the absence of language to the contrary, could it not also be by the combined grand lists of the new super districts?
Shall we now talk about the cost-push effect of creating that "educational equity"? In the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union where I live, the creation of that equity could very well mean a near seven figure addition to reconfigure the Grafton Elementary School, which serves both Athens and Grafton, to bring to up to the standards of Rockingham and Westminster.
In this era of school merger mania, it's worth noting that the essential school board merger in Windham Northeast has already taken place. The Grafton school is run by what is known as the Athens-Grafton Joint Compact Board. It is of note that we didn't need the help of (our well meaning but clueless) change to the Legislature to figure that one out.
And this brings us back to the fundamental underlying problem with funding education by the property tax. Forget just a moment about the fact that Homestead property tax rates in towns like Brattleboro and Dummerston actually subsidize the commercial property tax rate, and not the other way around. Why, in the 21st century are we using an 18th century funding mechanism, the property tax, which is absolutely no measure whatsoever of the ability to pay, which is of course your income?
So there you have it — a quasi-brilliant scheme to take the heat off a spendthrift legislature, which carries with it between little and no guarantee of actually saving anyone any money, although it will probably lead to some pretty long bus rides and a permanent diminishment of the sort of local control, involvement, and responsibility that attracted people like me to Vermont in the first place.
David M. Clark,
Westminster, April 17
Act 46 is nothing more the Vermont Legislature's misguided attempt to solve the wrong problem. The basic logic being used in this situation by Montpelier could be equally well applied to the 251 historic Vermont inefficiencies known as the cities, towns and gores, all of which are deep in the sort of redundancies of resources for which the schools are currently taking the heat. Wouldn't it make a whole lot better sense to take those hundreds of road graders and the thousands plow trucks and have the counties run the show? You bet it would.
Act 46 is all about equity, transparency and accountability. I don't need to point out the Orwellian logic of the last two principals, so let's talk about that equity piece for just a moment. Because equity is the new mantra now that the bureaucrats have finally figured out that Act 46 has little actual promise of saving anyone any money, even though it will allow for some pretty nifty cost shifting as some of the more profligate former school districts shift their sometimes very substantial bond indebtedness off proportionally on to their more frugal, newly merged neighbors.
But what does that proportion look like? I've yet to find any language within Act 46, maybe it's there, just well hidden, which describes exactly how education in these new super districts is gonna get paid for. My assumption is that the formula would be proportionally by student count by town, but in the absence of language to the contrary, could it not also be by the combined grand lists of the new super districts?
Shall we now talk about the cost-push effect of creating that "educational equity"? In the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union where I live, the creation of that equity could very well mean a near seven figure addition to reconfigure the Grafton Elementary School, which serves both Athens and Grafton, to bring to up to the standards of Rockingham and Westminster.
In this era of school merger mania, it's worth noting that the essential school board merger in Windham Northeast has already taken place. The Grafton school is run by what is known as the Athens-Grafton Joint Compact Board. It is of note that we didn't need the help of (our well meaning but clueless) change to the Legislature to figure that one out.
And this brings us back to the fundamental underlying problem with funding education by the property tax. Forget just a moment about the fact that Homestead property tax rates in towns like Brattleboro and Dummerston actually subsidize the commercial property tax rate, and not the other way around. Why, in the 21st century are we using an 18th century funding mechanism, the property tax, which is absolutely no measure whatsoever of the ability to pay, which is of course your income?
So there you have it — a quasi-brilliant scheme to take the heat off a spendthrift legislature, which carries with it between little and no guarantee of actually saving anyone any money, although it will probably lead to some pretty long bus rides and a permanent diminishment of the sort of local control, involvement, and responsibility that attracted people like me to Vermont in the first place.
David M. Clark,
Westminster, April 17
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