Against the backdrop of major education reform efforts in the legislature and rising property taxes, the vast majority of Vermont voters said yes to their school budgets on Town Meeting Day.
More than 80 percent of school budgets were approved on Tuesday, according to preliminary results compiled by the Vermont Superintendents Association and Vermont School Boards Association. Districts where budgets went down tended to be those that have historically faced challenges in convincing voters to approve them.
The results indicate that Vermonters value public schools, Vermont Superintendents Association executive director Chelsea Myers and Vermont School Boards Association executive director Sue Ceglowski said in a press release. The pair also held a media briefing on Wednesday about the results.
“Even in a time of economic pressure and policy debate, communities continue to show their commitment to supporting public schools and the students they serve,” Ceglowski wrote.
Despite cost drivers such as rising employee health care costs, aging school facilities and inflation, school boards worked diligently to develop lean budgets this year, Myers and Ceglowski said. The overall statewide education spending increase this year is projected to be around 4.2 percent. Meanwhile, legislative analysts now estimate that property taxes are expected to increase by an average of around 10 percent, though that could be mitigated by a tax buy-down the governor and legislature have both said they favor.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 89 school budgets were approved and 19 were rejected this year, according to a spreadsheet compiled by the two associations. Twelve additional budgets will be voted on in the coming months.
In Chittenden County, the only failure was in Milton. The Burlington, Winooski and Champlain Valley school districts approved their budgets handily. In Colchester and South Burlington, the margins were tighter.
Voters rejected budgets in the Slate Valley Unified School District and Barre Unified Union School District — communities that typically don’t approve spending plans on the first try despite relatively low per-pupil spending.
This year’s results were similar to last year’s but stood in sharp contrast to Town Meeting Day 2024, when voters rejected one-third of school budgets amid a projected steep rise in property taxes. Gov. Phil Scott and some in the legislature interpreted those results to mean that Vermonters wanted a major revamp of the state’s education system. The push ultimately led to the passage last year of Act 73, which calls for sweeping changes to the way education is governed and funded in the state.
But that law has stalled in the legislature as key committees in the House and Senate hash out what policy levers they need to pull to create a more affordable, equitable and high-quality education system. Deep disagreements between lawmakers about issues such as school choice and local control have raised questions about whether substantive reform can be accomplished this legislative session.
Myers and Ceglowski said the Town Meeting Day results indicate the need for a more incremental, thoughtful and research-based approach to change. One measure the school boards association favors is changing the way employee health insurance benefits are negotiated at the state level.
“If Vermont is going to move forward with education reform,” Myers said, “these results suggest we might need a more precise tool, rather than a sledgehammer.”
Also on Town Meeting Day, the communities of Marlboro and Readsboro voted to close their small elementary schools. And in Mountain Views Supervisory Union, voters approved a $112 million bond to build a new middle/high school in Woodstock after a similar bond failed two years ago. Construction of the school is contingent on the district raising 25 percent of the money from state aid and private donations and a legislative change that decouples the cost of capital projects from per-pupil spending. The school district announced last month that it had already secured $4.25 million in private fundraising pledges for the project.
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