Ways & Means hears Joint Fiscal Office analysis of proposed foundation formula, per-pupil costs and tax mechanics

Montpelier, Vt.

The House Ways and Means Committee continued testimony Feb. 20 on the administration's proposed foundation formula and related tax mechanics, receiving cost modeling from the Joint Fiscal Office and draft statutory language from Legislative Council staff. Ezra of the Joint Fiscal Office presented prototypical school and district cost tables; John Gray of the Office of Legislative Council summarized a January 24 draft that would replace current yield-based property tax mechanics with a uniform statewide education tax and a separate locally approved school-district spending tax.

Why it matters: the proposal would change how K'12 funding is calculated and how education taxes are raised, shifting many decisions about base funding, local add-ons and equalization into a new structure that committee members said could affect property tax bills, school operations and equity among districts.

Joint Fiscal Office presentation

Ezra, a Joint Fiscal Office analyst, walked the committee through the PICUS-derived prototypical-school model and a prototypical district aggregation used to build a proposed per-pupil base. Ezra said the model treats custodial, maintenance and groundskeeping as the three maintenance-and-operations (M&O) staffing categories and that supply costs were set at $1 per square foot (the elementary-school example produced a $63,000 supply line). Utilities were modeled at $3.50 per student for prototypical schools. "So that's why this is more of an illustration rather than, I would say, like, the real cost of the schools," Ezra said, noting some maintenance staff are budgeted centrally and not at the individual school level.

Using the prototypical district in the presentation, Ezra reported a district-wide M&O total of…