Another Opinion, Editorial, Montpelier

Real Start of Work Begins

Share article

MONTPELIER – The legislature convened in early January. But last week, the real start of our work began with the governor’s budget address.

The “consensus revenue forecasts process” estimates the coming year’s revenues for all of State Government spending. We use that process to estimate and establish stimates for available revenue for all three major state budget funds: Education, General and Transportation. We build spending for the next year’s budgets based on those estimates.

At the emergency board’s mid-January meeting, which happens each year, they vote to ratify the estimates of the state’s two economists.. That then sets the revenues available for spending. Based on those estimates, the governor’s office and the governor’s administration then adjust their spending plans to match the agreed-and-voted-upon estimates to create a balanced budget. 

It’s generally a complicated process, even in a year without change. It becomes an even more complicated and unpredictable process when suggestion are made to change the underlying funds as well as the systems we use to build our spending to address the state’s needs. With calls this year to overhaul education spending and with adjustments being called for by the Scott Administration to the flow of funds between transportation, the general fund and the education fund it’s not just a “business as usual” year.

In my view it’s past time we took a look at some overhaul. Without getting into what is being called for and what is being proposed, I find it helpful as a starting point to understand the key differences between the revenues underpinning each of our major funds.  

All three funds support, at their core, basic needs in our society and the expenses in each fund grow with inflation, time and with increased demands. Whether it’s the plowing of roads in winter by the T-fund, the support of the judiciary or a local home health agency by the general fund or the support of our K-to-12 public schools, these all-important functions grow in cost. 

What isn’t the same for each of these funds is how, over time, we’ve divided up the revenues that support each of the functions. In my view, one of the reasons it’s time to question and change the relationship between the funds is because of the inequity between the funds, their revenue sources and where, over time, we’ve seemed to land in the support of these funds with sources of revenue.

The education fund’s largest source of revenue is from the statewide property tax and, with the dramatic increases in property values recently, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in revenues from the property tax. The education fund also gets all of the revenue from the sales tax and, with the increasing cost of goods, we’ve seen a healthy increase in sales tax revenues to the education fund.

The general fund’s single largest source of revenue is the income tax. Needless to say, with increasing salaries and the growth in the economy, the general fund has seen healthy growth. any would argue that’s a good thing with increasing health care costs, higher education cost increases and with all the other expenses we expect the general fund to deal with. 

The transportation fund on the other hand relies on gas and fuel taxes, motor vehicle fees and two-thirds of the purchase and use tax on vehicles. ne-third of the purchase and use tax goes to the education fund and two-thirds stays with the T-fund. e all know that through Covid-19 and since then, construction costs have increased dramatically. At the same time, most of the revenue sources for our transportation costs have remained stagnant, making it hard to maintain our transportation system.

In short, it really is time for us to question the inequities and the relations we’ve created in our spending and revenue priorities for our general, transportation and education funds. ith questions about education funding and formula changes I welcome the opportunity it will create to think about the relationships between all of our spending.  t’s a good time for us to question ourselves about all of our priorities and our needs as we reorganize our thinking about education.  

Richard Westman  (R) is a  member of the Vermont State Senate, representing Lamoille District. He assumed office in 2011.

Sen. Richard Westman

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*


Advertising

The Hardwick Gazette

Newsroom: 82 Craftsbury Road Greensboro, Vt.

Hours: Mon. 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tues 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wed. 9 to 11 a.m., Fri. 8 a.m. to noon

Tel: (802) 472-6521

Newsroom email: [email protected]
Advertising email: [email protected]

Send mail to: The Hardwick Gazette, P.O. Box 9, Hardwick, VT 05843

EDITOR
Paul Fixx

ADVERTISING
Sandy Atkins, Raymonda Parchment, Dawn Gustafson, Paul Fixx

CIRCULATION
Dawn Gustafson

PRODUCTION
Sandy Atkins, Dawn Gustafson, Dave Mitchell, Raymonda Parchment

REPORTER
Raymonda Parchment

SPORTS WRITERS
Ken Brown
Eric Hanson

WEATHER REPORTER
Tyler Molleur

PHOTOGRAPHER
Vanessa Fournier

CARTOONIST
Julie Atwood

CONTRIBUTORS
Trish Alley, Sandy Atkins, Brendan Buckley, Elizabeth Dow, Hal Gray, Abrah Griggs, Henry Homeyer, Pat Hussey, Willem Lange, Cheryl Luther Michaels, Tyler Molleur, Kay Spaulding, Liz Steel, John Walters

INTERNS
Megan Cane, Brigitte Offord