Mike Mrowicki has represented the Windham-4 district (Putney and Dummerston) in the Vermont House of Representatives since 2007.
PUTNEY-For those experiencing sticker shock from viewing their property tax bills this year, you're not alone. I get it. Or, I got it, as our tax bill soared on a 1,000-square-foot house on 2 acres, 5 miles from town on a dirt road.
My wife and I both work two jobs to keep food on the table and a roof overhead, and to pay our property taxes. Like most folks, any sudden increase, like needing a new medicine or a car repair or a rise in property taxes, just plain hurts and quickly unbalances our budget.
I know our district school boards work hard to present budgets that try to balance the competing needs of providing a quality education at a cost we can afford. Our schools are under a lot of pressure this year because when they put their budgets together, they are faced with line items like a 14% increase in health insurance.
What's the Legislature's role here?
Before the 2024 session concluded in May, we took the step of forming a commission to dig into the cost drivers that push school budgets and to seek a better way to fund education.
We can also look at the formulas and metrics used to calculate taxes and values in this quickly changing real estate market, taking into account inflation and other considerations.
But school funding is only one part of a big puzzle. We need a willing partner to work with us to solve the dilemma of affordability.
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While Gov. Phil Scott talks a lot about affordability - which, to many of us, includes the cost of food, shelter, transportation, health care, child care, and the like - we really haven't seen a lot of action. In the last eight years of his tenure, what has the governor done to address this big picture?
To bring property taxes down, we need a better plan than the governor's idea to borrow money, which would have to be paid back next year, on top of next year's tax, leaving a $230 million hole to start off next year. (Rule No. 1: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.)
Yet all we hear from Scott, or his office, is how the Legislature is the problem and taxes are the only reason life isn't more affordable. Health insurance companies were just granted a 19% increase for next year - an increase that will touch every budget in Vermont, be it state, local, or family. Where's the governor's plan to address this?
Despite moans of uninformed discontent from the governor's office to the contrary, clean heat is cheaper heat. This is summarized by the latest Department of Public Service report in which the agency's optimized scenario of implementing the Global Warming Solutions Act showed $2.1 billion in societal net benefits, on top of many families seeing lower heating costs.
Then there's housing, an issue that is hinged to so much of our economy, for the workers we need to keep our economy going to keeping people from being put out into the streets. We're still waiting for a plan from the governor, as tents are being handed out to families exiting the motel program and jobs go begging because qualified candidates can't find housing.
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The Legislature wants to work with the governor on these and other issues, but that means agreeing to show up.
Right before the veto session in June, the governor called a meeting with legislative leaders to hash out an agreement on school funding. When the governor blew off the meeting, it certainly raised the question as to whether he wants the issue to campaign on more than he wants a solution. (Now, where else have we heard that scenario lately?)
All this is playing out against a nationwide backdrop of the growing and ongoing disparities between the super-rich and, well, everybody else. With the Trump tax giveaways, they pay less, so we pay more.
That our economic landscape has devolved to a dichotomy of have-nots and have-yachts makes paying everyday bills - like local property taxes - harder to swallow. It's time we helped level this landscape with fair-share tax policy.
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In regard to property taxes and funding education, it's obvious that the largest part of that local bill is for educating our children, and our children are our future.
It seems to me that politicizing their education has proven to be counterproductive. Would it depoliticize education costs if we unhitched them from property taxes, with a straight income tax proposal? Would that also simplify the formula so that most Vermonters could understand how we arrive at their tax rates? We can do better, but I won't pretend there are easy answers.
We need to hear what the plan is from our very-well-paid chief executive, other than just vetoing bills. Veni, vidi, veto is not a plan.
We're ready to work together and find that balance between a quality education at a price we can afford - and all the other parts that comprise the big picture of affordability. Both we and our children deserve no less.
This Voices Legislative Update was submitted to The Commons.
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