Vermont’s schools are not the problem. Property tax is.

This commentary is by Paul Cillo, a former member of the Vermont House and co-author of Act 60.

In his 2025 inaugural address, Gov. Phil Scott decried rising education property taxes. He noted that if trends continue as they have, property tax bills will have increased by an average of 33% in just three years.

It is true that changes made in the Legislature to Vermont’s education financing system have propelled property taxes skyward. 

But instead of addressing education taxes head-on, the governor has used the problem to advance his pet education schemes: consolidation and greater state control. While talking about what he calls a “transformation” to make schools more efficient and better for children, he is pushing a Republican same-old, same-old: Cut taxes and “do more with less.” 

I’m not an expert on how to improve Vermont’s schools, but I know that spending less is not the first step to making them better for kids. 

The governor’s aim has been clear: Wrest control of school funding from local voters and take as much money as possible from public education to help cover other state expenses, without raising state taxes. 

Scott has been flogging this agenda for as long as he’s been in office. Reporting on his first budget address, in 2017, Vermont Public said the governor’s proposed state takeover of school funding decisions and a shift of K-12 public school funds to child care and higher education would constitute “an unprecedented legislative intervention in local education spending.” 

The following year, claiming again that Vermont spends too much on K-12 public schools, the governor got more specific: He wanted to reduce staffing in Vermont schools by 200 people a year for five years. 

But what’s unaffordable is not public education. What’s unaffordable for many Vermonters is the property tax itself. We don’t need knee-jerk cuts. We need to acknowledge why school taxes are a problem for Vermonters.

First, property tax is regressive. It amounts to a higher percentage of income and a greater tax burden to low- and middle-income Vermont homeowners than their upper-income neighbors. 

A home’s value doesn’t pay the property tax bill. The homeowner’s income does. While income sensitivity provided relief to nearly 70% of Vermont homeowners for two decades, changes in the law over the last 10 years to rely more heavily on property taxes have reduced the number of homeowners eligible to pay school taxes based on their incomes to 43%. 

The property tax subjects homeowners to the vagaries of the real estate market, over which they have no control. A homeowner’s property taxes can increase significantly from a higher appraised value even if the school district’s budget has not increased.  

Finally, property tax is an unstable foundation for public education. Every year we hear about another property tax crisis that requires a “one-time” $100 million or more infusion from state coffers. 

Vermont has an education property tax in the 21st century because the property tax was the only viable funding option in the 18th century. We have other options now. We need the political will to implement them.

It’s time to stop the disruptive nonsense about so-called education transformation and shift to property tax transformation. Once we’ve stabilized funding, the state can focus on how to make schools work better for our kids.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s schools are not the problem. Property tax is..