Ways & Means reviews draft education finance bill, legislative counsel walks committee through property-classification flowchart

The Vermont House Ways & Means Committee met to prepare for floor consideration of a consolidated education finance and classifications bill (draft 1.1), hearing a step-by-step presentation of a property-tax classification flowchart from legislative counsel Kirby Keaton and discussing outstanding policy questions about the foundation formula, including a proposed 10% "above-the-base" spending bucket, transportation reimbursement, bonding and special-education funding.

The flowchart presentation by Kirby Keaton, legislative counsel, was intended to show how the draft language routes parcels into tax classifications. "I created this flowchart," Keaton said as he opened his demonstration, then walked members through the sequence of questions the draft instructs assessors to ask: exempt from state property tax; owned and used by a ski operator (resort); qualifies as the bill's affordable-housing definition; year-round habitable dwelling units with or without a homestead declaration; landlord-certificate status; industrial; commercial;…