On July 7, a California firm specializing in education finance research was picked to do an independent study of Vermont's much-debated system of paying for its schools.
Lawrence O. Picus and Associates, LLC, of North Hollywood, Calif., was the unanimous choice of a special legislative joint fiscal committee overseeing the proposed study, which was sanctioned and given a $200,000 budget by the Legislature last session.
State Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, who chairs the committee, said Picus is a national expert on property taxes who has worked with many states to evaluate education funding mechanisms.
Based on the interview conducted behind closed doors last week at the Statehouse, his firm was a clear choice, she said.
“I think we were all pretty enthused,” she said after the meeting, noting that was true even though the interview, conducted via Skype on computers, had its share of technical glitches.
The panel chose Picus over two other consultants who were under consideration, and their firms: Bud Meyers, Ph.D., director, James M. Jeffords Center for Policy Research; and Dr. David L. Silvernail, director, Evaluation Team Center for Education Policy, Applied Research and Evaluation.
The idea of a major study had strong backing in the Legislature last session, according to Cummings, who said that the study must be finished and presented by Jan. 18, 2012.
”I think there's an ongoing concern over property taxes in this state,” she said.
Education financing has been controversial in Vermont for decades, going back to the so-called “Miller Formula” in the 1970s and 1980s.
A groundbreaking Vermont Supreme Court decision in 1997, which found that the existing education finance system violated the state's constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the law, forced the Legislature to step in and overhaul the state's method of education financing using property taxes.
The Brigham decision was driven by the inequity inherent in the ability of wealthy resort towns with large property tax revenues to support much higher budgets for schools than small rural towns.
In response, the Legislature enacted Act 60 in 1997 and its successor, Act 68, in 2003.
The system under those acts instituted a statewide property tax designed to counteract inequities and impose an income sensitivity threshold to limit the burden on low-income Vermonters.
But that system is now over a decade old, and lawmakers want to take a detailed look at how it is working, what Vermonters are getting for their money, and how changing demographics and economic conditions might be affecting the system.
State Rep. Janet Ancel, D-Calais, another member of the committee, said 1997 is like “ancient history” in terms of the changes that have occurred. She said it was high time to call in fresh and educated eyes to take a look.
“What we tend to do is get the same people [to do studies] and go over the same ground,” she said. “We tend to see the problems from the seats of our own perspective.”
Political debate over Act 68 has sharpened as Vermont school enrollment drops, class sizes decline, and per-pupil costs for education rise.
Vermont ranks fifth in the nation for per-student spending in 2011, according to the Children's Defense Fund, because of the small size of many of its rural schools.
The state has 96,000 students in its grade K-12 public schools, according to the Department of Education. This figure represents a considerable drop from 1997, when enrollment reached a high of 106,000.
Student population will continue to fluctuate between 90,000 and 100,000 for the foreseeable future, according to the department.
Recent efforts by former Gov. James Douglas to trim school costs have run afoul of cherished notions of local control. Vermont has some 280 school districts, an administrative structure that has been the target of cost-cutting without success for years.
Attempts at the state level to curtail local school spending have also run into resistance among local school boards and teachers.
Ancel said she encounters myriad opinions on what the state should do and what the problem is.
“There's sort of this knee-jerk feeling we need to do something but no agreement on what needs to be done,” she said.
Cummings said lawmakers hope a thorough and independent analysis will separate wrong assumptions and myths from the facts of how Vermont's education finance system is working.
“Is the system doing what we want it to do?” she said. “Where are the problems?”
“We may not hear what we think we're going to hear” - but that will be fine, she said.