It is important that we back away from the shift toward the implementation of a state-run education system.  Responsibility for the critical education decisions required to maximize student success while containing costs must be made at the local level. 

First, the state property tax implemented under Act 60 and modified by Act 68 must be dramatically restructured.  I support the further examination of the Vermont Local Education Affordability Formula (LEAF) introduced this past session.  LEAF would restore the Vermont tradition of local control while reducing the oppressive property tax burden facing all Vermont families.  It would add transparency and simplicity to a system that is now complicated and largely incomprehensible.  It would re-connect school budget votes with property taxes, a link that Act 60 obliterated.  LEAF would reaffirm confidence that local voters are better equipped than Montpelier to make the right choices for their children. 

If implemented, LEAF would:

• Eliminate the statewide property tax for residential properties
• Eliminate the Common Level of Appraisal (CLA) for homesteads
• Restore local control of school funding
• Eliminate excess spending penalties
• Eliminate the rural acreage penalty by eliminating the 2 acre limitation
• Pay for all special education from the state education fund
• Reduce the complexity of current education funding plan (Act 60/68)
• Increase the transparency of school funding mechanism
• Directly tie local education spending decisions to local tax liability

As a first, measurable step, in the upcoming legislative session I would propose legislation that would shift the governance and funding of two programs, Special Education and Early Essential Education, over which local districts have very little, if any, control to the State Education Department.

The underlying principle guiding LEAF is one that believes that what can effectively be managed, controlled and financed locally should be left to local communities; what cannot be should be managed, controlled and primarily financed by the state

LEAF was a skeleton around which to make the changes necessary to strengthen our local schools.  Details about LEAF can be found on the web at:  www.vermontleaf.com.