School bond: Participate in the vote

Over the past month, our community has been debating a $39 million school bond to provide needed improvements to its middle and high school facilities. That a bond has been proposed should come as no surprise.

Just two years ago 70 percent of Stowe voters supported the town’s withdrawal from the state-mandated merged school district. We knew then that our school facilities were in dire need of help and that the act of withdrawing itself was perhaps the only route we could take to be able to make these improvements.

I’ve watched the debate play out on social media and have been asked to weigh in on this local issue. Please know that I offer these thoughts as a citizen of Stowe who, like so many of you, is a working Vermonter, a homeowner, a taxpayer and a voter. What I can’t do is suggest how you should vote on the bond.

Today’s debate is about how best to reconcile the two competing realities of ongoing education excellence, one important aspect of which is embodied by the long overdue and necessary capital investment in a middle and high school facility still in use far beyond any reasonable estimate of its useful life, versus ensuring that Stowe remains affordable for its residents.

While this Rubik’s Cube of a dilemma plays out, its abundantly clear that regardless of one’s position on the upcoming bond vote, everyone seems to agree that education itself remains an unquestioned pillar of our free, democratic society.

That said, the tone of the community dialogue could lead one to conclude that how the bond vote plays out is, in fact, a referendum on one’s support for education. In other words, you are either pro-education or anti-education. This is a false dichotomy.

With so much of my public service dedicated to supporting public education, I’m decidedly and unabashedly pro-education. Support of education sat at the center of my recent campaign platform. Having served on our school board, I understand the need and support the proposed bond’s basic premise: that the current physical structure is entirely inadequate in providing the quality environment teachers, coaches, staff, administrators and volunteers require to configure and deliver the high-quality educational experience that we, the community, understandably expect and even demand for students.

At the same time, I subscribe to the idea that, in a society that for so many is rapidly becoming unsustainably expensive to live day-to-day, prudent fiscal management is an absolute standard to which all legislation and projects must held. Prudent fiscal management is not the same as fiscal conservatism and simply means let’s go the extra mile to make sure that we know the true cost as much as it is knowable; we understand the impacts to our citizens; and we can afford it.

That said, I witnessed firsthand how unpopular adhering to prudent fiscal management principles is as only a few months ago the Legislature levied over $500 million of new taxes on Vermonters.

Opposing realities

So, how do I frame these two potentially irreconcilable realities?

In advance of Nov. 7, I’ve attended public sessions hosted by the capital improvement committee, met in person with school board members and knowledgeable officials in the Vermont Agency of Education, read the recent overview in the Stowe Reporter and talked with many of you to hear your thinking and share mine. Here are my observations:

First, the issue of affordability is always at the forefront. Here locally, both our selectboard and school board have done a thoughtful job over time of putting taxpayers first whenever and wherever possible. Doing so takes an immense amount of effort and the associated work often goes unrecognized.

Second, I understand and accept that because of not investing in our school facilities over the past 50 years, we as a community must either renovate or replace the facility. While both courses of action will be expensive, the former will pale in comparison to the latter. Small businesses in Stowe invest more each year in their physical plants than we as a community have in our school facilities.

Third, while there is little substantive debate over the necessity of improvements, there are legitimate timing and communication issues at play. While I think that Stowe’s overwhelmingly pro-education electorate sees through the efforts of a vocal minority to either wrap a framework of fear around the bond or nitpick the underlying high-level plan, voters are taxpayers enduring generally challenging economic times.

They just want to understand the impact of the bond on their own personal financial situation. Clear and timely communication is the responsibility of the school board, which is hard at work explaining the case for why a bond vote must occur now as opposed to some point next year when more information will be available to voters as they consider and face additional debt.

Fourth, while it is true that a subset of Stowe residents, myself included, would bear more responsibility for bond repayment over its 30-year duration, according to the complicated manner in which education across the state is funded, every Vermont resident, every second homeowner in Vermont and every Vermont business will also assist in repayment.

Locally, a majority of homestead owners are, based on income sensitivity provisions set in law, eligible for up to $5,600 in educational tax credits to offset the impact of any (educational property tax component) increase required to pay for a local bond.

Fifth, it’s important to accept that ambiguity will always be present, regardless of when a bond vote is held. While clarifying information will come from the state over the next six to eight months, the answer to every detail and variable will not be known, even at that point.

This includes Act 127, which updates pupil weights and limits the degree to which homestead property tax rates can increase over fiscal years 2025 to 2029. If that somehow sounds unreasonable to you as a voter, know that is exactly how the Vermont Legislature conducts its business on behalf of all Vermonters.

Thank you to the school board, capital improvement committee and superintendent Ryan Heraty for all they have done to get our collective attention and get this important, yet-long-overdue community dialogue underway. I have no doubt that the facility plan put forth by the committee is sound and, once the voters are satisfied that the school board has provided the data that helps them understand the true financial impact to them, voters will overwhelmingly ignore the small, vocal contingent that seems to want to impose its educational philosophy on the community and exercise line-item veto authority.

Stowe is an exceptional community. That said, like communities everywhere, we are being challenged as we navigate complex change. But what distinguishes Stowe as a community is its capacity to come together to meet collective challenges. Most people I know in Stowe simultaneously support our schools, teachers and students, agree that our school facilities deserve investment and want to better understand the impact of bond debt on personal finances.

It’s a healthy and necessary discussion about affordability. While I will continue to advocate that Vermont be affordable for all Vermonters when the legislative session reconvenes, I wholeheartedly encourage you to participate in the democratic process by voting on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

Jed Lipsky, an independent, represents Stowe in the Vermont House of Representatives.