by Colin EllisGovernor Peter Shumlin addressed the issues of school funding and quality of education at a recent chamber legislation meeting. He urged voters around the state to level fund school budgets to try to keep property taxes down. He also wants school choice at the high school level.
‘If you don’t want your property taxes to go up at a time when our student count continues to drop and our costs continue to rise, there’s only one way to solve that problem. We all need to go out together and defeat school budgets that aren’t sensible,’ he said.
Speaking at the annual Vermont Chamber of Commerce meeting February 1 at the Capitol Plaza in Montpelier, Shumlin said that in a property challenged state like Vermont, the only way to keep taxes down is to keep spending down. He asked resident to go out locally to school board meetings and on Town Hall Meeting Day and vote to level fund the school budgets.
Shumlin then discussed the quality of schools. He said that by giving Vermont students better educations, there will be more qualified workers for the jobs available.
‘Our most important obligation is educating our kids.’
In order to provide better education, Shumlin proposed four legislative reforms. The first was early child education, getting children into school earlier. The second was public high school choice. Vermont currently has a limited school choice system, meaning that choice is limited between districts. By not limiting students to just their local schools, Shumlin claims that more educational opportunities would be provided based on each student’s academic needs. Third, every Vermont junior and senior should be allowed to attend any college course of their choosing to gain experience and credit. In the final legislative suggestion, Shumlin proposed giving $4 million to UVM and $4 million to all other state schools. The goal would be to help improve relationship between business and college students by creating internships and new campuses to foster business growth.
Education reform is only the first of a three step strategy Shumlin proposed to keep Vermont economically competitive with the rest of the states.. The next step of Shumlin’s strategy is getting Vermont completely connected with high speed internet by 2013.
‘That’s going to make a huge difference to job growth. We can’t compete if we’re not connected,’ Shumlin said.
By having high speed and reliable connections over the entire state, more jobs will become available all over Vermont.
‘If we can be the education state and we have connectivity, we win,’ Shumlin said.
The final part of Shumlin’s strategy is healthcare. His goal is to create the first cost containment system in America that works. Shumlin said that rates are going up every year faster than income is created. Vermonter’s spend $5 billion collectively. By 2015 at current rates of growth, resident will be spending another $1.2 billion. Each living Vermonter will be spending $2,500 on healthcare. By creating the system Vermont will be competitive with other states that have lower healthcare costs and healthier residents.
‘If Vermont can get this right, we grow the jobs, we grow the economic opportunities,’ Shumlin said.
He later announced the inclusion of a ‘bronze plan’ in the health plan, a proposal which would allow small businesses with more than 50 employees to remain outside the Exchange until 2016. The Exchange was established last year and provides residents the means to compare information on available private health insurance before purchasing. The Exchange is also being used as a platform for Vermont to have the first single-payer healthcare plan in America.
‘We want the Exchange to offer the same flexibility while we continue to design a single payer system that brings our skyrocketing health care costs under control. Our goal is to build an Exchange that offers consumers maximum flexibility as allowed under federal law,’ Shumlin said in a press release.
Vermont’s unemployment rate has fallen to 5.1 percent, down from the 7.3 percent it was at the peak of the recession in April 2009. The government is working together with unemployed workers give counseling, support and encouragement to go find a job, as well as offering an unemployment help fund. Shumlin said the state has a number of marketing techniques to strengthen the tourism base, and is taking a ‘rifle approach’ to job creating; meaning the state targets specific companies to come to Vermont, instead of the ‘shotgun approach’ of simply putting the word out and hopping those companies will come on their own.
Shumlin took a series of questions from the audience after delivering his plan.
When asked about using the space at an IBM building that the state government purchased, Shumlin said the costs of doing this would exceed the benefits. Renovating the inside, paying for electricity and finding adequate lighting (the building does not have any source of natural light) makes the building unsuitable for office workers, Shumlin said. Shumlin added that the purchase of the building by the previous administration was a mistake.
Shumlin was asked whether he would support a bill that would increase tourism funding.
‘We should insure that in a sector that does so much for job growth in Vermont there should be a permanent and stable funding source for it,’ Shumlin said.
He said that it is unlikely there would be a budget increase, but he wants to make sure there is no reduction, and create a dedicated funding source for the future.
‘We’re making great progress in Vermont,’ Shumlin said of the industry.
Shumlin praised the public and private sector for working together in post-Irene Vermont to continue a strong tourism industry, but that this partnership should be expanded to all Vermont industries.
Colin Ellis is a freelance writer from Colchester.