Zuckerman: Governor: 1; Legislature: 0

May 29, 2025  |  By David Zuckerman

Once again, the Vermont Legislature has failed to stand up for Vermont’s education system and has failed to defend our rural schools. Instead, they have let the governor run circles around them, using property taxes as a weapon to make deep cuts to the education budget, rather than his own budget. Phil Scott has been moving human services costs onto the education budget for years and then blamed the legislature for cost increases.

Property taxes are too high for most Vermonters. But instead of focusing on fixing the funding system, the folks in Montpelier embarked on a broad revamping of our education system. Instead of proposing that we rebalance the burden fairly by including all homeowners in the income “sensitivity” scale to force wealthy folks to pay their fair share, and increasing taxes on second- and third-home owners, the legislature has caved on a plan that will surely result in the closing of small rural schools and will harm Vermont’s stellar education quality. With approximately 58,000 second homes in Vermont, at an average of $1,000 in additional property tax, that would provide $58,000,000 in tax relief for permanent residents in Vermont.

The political “setup” that the legislature just passed and the governor just signed will use one-time funds to keep property taxes artificially low in 2025, which will ensure that the property tax increases in 2026 (an election year) will be a bigger, more dramatic increase than they would have otherwise.   

I served in the Vermont Legislature for 18 years. Occasionally, they tinkered with the income tax.  But never once did they seriously consider many proposals to really reform the tax system to make it fair to working and middle-class taxpayers who pay a much larger share of their income than their higher-income neighbors. As costs inevitably rise (health care, school building maintenance and repair, computers, etc.), we are going to continue to struggle with these issues.  A fairer system, based largely on ability to pay, will help us weather these challenges.  

Of course, the real solution to Vermont’s financial situation is for more, and younger, people to move here, populate the schools, and share the tax burden. Over the next four years, as more people seek places to live where the politics are less toxic, the climate is more moderate, and the sense of community is thriving, many of them will choose Vermont, if and only if our schools continue to maintain the excellent quality we have attained. 

David Zuckerman is a former three-term Vermont lieutenant governor, state senator and representative who ran under the Progressive and Democratic party banners. He lives and farms in Hinesburg and is a host on WDEV’s Vermont Viewpoint public affairs program.