STANNARD – I voted in favor of the yield bill on the floor, and to override the governor’s veto of the yield bill, H.887. The yield bill is a very important piece of legislation which comes up every year. This bill sets the state’s funding level for the state’s education funding. As you know most of the state is facing a large school property tax increase estimated to be 18% last December. Not many of us can escape this situation. I am a taxpayer and will experience this increase along with all other Vermonters.
On June 17, the House overrode the Governor’s veto of H.887 on a roll call vote of 103-42.
H.887 is a balanced bill that:
Fully funds the school budgets that voters have approved all across the state, invests tens of millions of dollars to immediately lower property tax rates, provides additional help for the many Vermonters who receive a property tax credit based on income.
The bill sets up a commission on the future of public education — with public hearings in all 14 counties to reimagine how Vermont can fully support our students and schools at a rate that taxpayers can afford.
The yield bill actually brought school tax rates down by 5%. We will be seeing our tax bills soon which will tell us exactly what our town or district increase will be.
We cannot have a logical discussion without the question, how did we get here?
Across all school budgets in the state, education spending increased substantially this year. There were numerous factors that drove higher spending, including: Increases in costs related to health care of about 4.5 cents on the tax rate, school-based mental health costs of about five cents and infrastructure, with about 5 cents more, due to aging infrastructure, increases in the cost of materials and in some locations, PCB mitigation.
In addition, the state brought down the tax rate for the last two years with federal COVID funds, creating a gap that needed to be made up this year of about five cents.
Those increases alone drove an estimated increase of about 20 cents on the average tax rate.
Keep in mind that the legislature does not set the rate. The property tax rate is set by school and school district spending levels.
Many people think that income should play a role in education funding, and it does. Seventy percent of Vermonters receive rebates through income sensitivity.
This yield bill appropriates $20 million dollars to expand this program to those who need it most. When property taxes go up and income does not, this bill will increase rebates.
The House Ways and Means committee worked on this bill for six months without input from the Administration.
In the last weeks of the session and after we adjourned, the plans presented by the Administration were determined to be fiscally irresponsible by the State Treasurer and the Joint Fiscal Office (JFO.)
The committee I serve on passes the capitol budget which borrows over $100 million dollars in bonded funds.
If we lose our good bond rating, as the Treasurer predicted, the state will pay much more in interest on bonded funds which finance all state properties.
In addition, the Governor’s plan would have drained $47 million dollars from the Education reserve fund. We were told by the JFO that would make things much worse next year.
The other piece of that proposal was to defund free lunches for our students.
Those are the reasons I voted to override the governor’s veto on H887 the yield bill, I hope this helps. I believe that those Vermonters who need help will see that help in the form of increased rebates.
Rep. Chip Troiano is vice chair, General Housing and Military Affairs Committee
