The Choice Couldn’t be Clearer
On Wednesday, Vermont’s House of Representatives voted on the annual Property Tax Yield bill, H.949. This bill is the result of gathering the grand total of all voter-approved school district budgets, then applying a complex formula that determines the yield that is needed from property tax collections to pay for next school year's education. This process identifies the average statewide increase (or decrease) in property tax. A key step in this yield calculation process that the House voted on, is how much money from this year's general fund (taxes that have already been collected) the state has available to apply toward the total education budget to “buy-down” our property tax rates for this year.
Based on data from the now three-quarters complete current fiscal year, the Governor was able to identify and offer $105M from this year's general fund to buy-down Vermonters' property tax bills due later this year. That would bring us from what was projected last December to be an approximately 12% increase down to a 3.8% average increase in property taxes. Even a 3.8% increase is too much, but that's certainly better than 12%! As the Governor explains in his press conference, this is only intended to be a temporary bridge to the more stable foundation formula mechanism for funding education as put in place by act 73.
But wait! Unfortunately, the House Ways and Means committee that produces this yield bill thought it would be better to use half of the $105M this year and save half for next year since we really don’t know what's coming, and it looks rather bleak. Nice thought, but that decision means many towns would see increases in the double digits again this year.
Needless to say, I strongly disagree with this rationale. All the money the Vermont State government has now is OUR money! It's already been extracted from us in a multitude of ever-increasing ways. Why should you pay more property taxes when you’ve already paid sufficient money in other ways, and the state has it to use now?
After lengthy floor debate, two roll-call votes were taken to ensure everyone's name would be recorded as to how they voted. It couldn't have been clearer. One vote to apply all the $105M this year to minimize the average increase and a second vote to split the buy-down over two years thus boosting this year's average statewide property tax increase to 7%. In roll call recorded votes (viewable HERE starting on p.3568), the majority party voted “NO” on the first and “YES” on the second, thus unnecessarily saddling Vermonters with an average 7% property tax increase this year, with many towns likely to experience double digit increases again. I and my colleagues all voted to minimize your property taxes, twice. We tried desperately to convince the other members that their logic will continue to burden Vermonters with even more taxes, but to no avail. Mind you, this still needs to be approved by the Senate and the Governor, but relying on the Senate to fix it or the Governor to veto it is not good governance.
On a separate but related note, Friday I presented an amendment to Tax bill H.933 that would double the Social Security benefit exemption levels from Vermont State income tax. The Joint Fiscal Office estimated that this would save lower-middle income retired Vermonters $32.5M on their state income taxes annually. After my rational explanation of our need to improve affordability for Vermonters, most of my fellow colleagues and I voted “YES”. Even some of my Progressive and Independent colleagues joined me in that “YES” vote, but that was not sufficient to overcome the majority party, in unison, voting “NO”.
Immediately after that, my colleague Representative Galfetti from Barre Town, presented an amendment to the same H.933 bill that would freeze everyone’s property tax bill for the next 2 years until the Act 73 foundation formula for funding education goes into effect. Just imagine, no increases, guaranteed, for the next two years! But again, while most of my fellow colleagues and I voted “YES,” the majority party voted “NO”.
These examples continue to emphasize the need for the Vermont legislature to wake up and squarely address the affordability crisis in Vermont. The House majority party continues to block our efforts to do exactly this. Stay tuned as we fight the affordability battle for you. The choice couldn’t be clearer.
I remain honored to be your Representative,
Rob North
Addison, Ferrisburgh, New Haven, Panton, Vergennes, and Waltham
