Lawmakers have returned to Montpelier, and education reform is once again at the center of the policy debate. In this year’s State of the State address, the governor devoted his entire speech to making the case that lawmakers must stay the course on Act 73 and to move forward with redistricting as the next critical step.
The governor is right about one thing. Vermont’s education system is placing increasing strain on taxpayers, and change is necessary. Questions about governance, district organization, and accountability deserve careful consideration. But as the debate unfolds, there is a real risk that we repeat a familiar mistake by focusing almost exclusively on how schools are organized, while failing to address what is driving education costs in the first place.
One of the largest and fastest growing pressures on school budgets is employee health care. No amount of redistricting or consolidation will make that cost disappear.
When Vermont families face rising household expenses year after year, they start by looking closely at their budgets to understand which costs are growing the fastest. When a single expense begins to crowd out groceries, childcare, home repairs, or savings for the future, it demands attention.
Public education is facing the same reality. Health care costs are growing far faster than overall education spending, diverting dollars that should be going to classrooms and student support services. As these costs rise, communities feel the impact directly through higher property taxes and fewer educational opportunities for students.
The effects are already visible. Education spending continues to increase even as student enrollment significantly declines. Much of that spending growth is tied to health care costs. School employee family health plans now cost far more than comparable plans in the private sector or for other public employees. These are not marginal differences. They are structural imbalances that compound over time and place increasing strain on local budgets and taxpayers.
Recent discussions about district size and governance have reinforced an important point. While organizational changes may address some inefficiencies, they do little to reduce healthcare costs. Avoiding this issue only guarantees that other reforms will fall short of their promise.
There is a more practical and balanced path forward. Today, public school employee health care benefits are set through a single statewide agreement that leaves local school boards with little flexibility, even though those boards are responsible for balancing budgets and responding to taxpayers. This disconnect makes responsible cost management harder.
The Vermont School Boards Association has proposed targeted reforms that would bring school employee healthcare negotiations more in line with how benefits are negotiated for most other Vermont workers. These include modest adjustments to plan design options, changes to arbitration rules, and expanding who participates in negotiations. The goal is not to eliminate health care benefits or shift the burden onto any one group. It is to slow the rate of growth before costs overwhelm school budgets entirely.
Addressing healthcare costs requires acknowledging a difficult truth. Rising health care expenses affect employers, employees, and taxpayers. Durable solutions require shared responsibility, transparency, and a willingness to examine how benefits are structured and paid for over time. What we are doing now is not working.
If Vermont is serious about putting public education on firmer footing, lawmakers cannot afford to sidestep this issue. Health care costs are an education issue, a taxpayer issue, and an equity issue. They must be front and center in this year’s debate.
Nancy Russell, of Hartford, is the Windsor Region representative to the Vermont School Boards Association.