U-32 Closed Door Decisions & Wider State Education Failures


## Introduction

This post is about a small side project I worked on for the benefit of some of the government and residents in my rural town and some forecasting based on extrapolating the capabilities experienced in my anecdote.

## The Vermont Background

I bought a home mid-way through the pandemic in a small rural town (This puts my in a group of fortunate middle millenials that made it onto the first rung of the property ladder, and an even more select group of middle millenials who saw financial return on that purchase AND are happy with the lifestyle associated with where they bought property).

After a 3 year stint in the Bay area (I do not recommend going there for any length of time), I recently moved back to my town. For background, I live in Vermont and some readers may remember photos of a devastating flood that took place in 2023. There's a great picture by John Truly of two children standing on the top of a roof in Montpelier, with water upto the bottom of windows on the first floor outside below them, and a figure in the distance mid frame wading through the water. You can see it [here](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/interactive/2023/photos-northeast-storms-flash-floods-rain/). Floods like this were not common in Vermont for most of the 20th century. In 2011 there were two bad floods, that rivaled the worst flood that happened in the state back in 1927.

In 2023 there was the aforementioned photo flood, and then in 2024, nearly a year to the day, there was another damaging flood (this one was worst in the Northeast Kingdom area of Vermont, and central Vermont, where I live, was spared the worst of it).

Vermont is one of only 10 states that restricts the ways in which local governments can raise funds to solely property taxes (there is a relatively recent supplementary option reffered to as the "Local Option" tax, which I won't go into detail here, but will comment to say that it is a regressive tax and one where the state government keeps 30% of the revenue.)

This is a long-winded three paragraph way of saying that recent years (and I haven't even mentioned the pandemic or Vermont's shrinking labor pool) have wrecked havoc in local government budgets. Because Vermont does have a shrinking labor pool (Vermont's population is the third oldest in the U.S.A.), there is also pressure on town's retention of employees and volunteers.

To add even more necessary background into the mix, along with not being funded the same way, Vermont town's have to be governed differently as well. I didn't want to write out the gist of this, so I asked Google Gemini to generate a summary, and as far as everything I checked, its correct (I don't generally recommend reproducing content "whole-hog" from a consumer LLM chatbot, but theres relatively little misinformation about Vermont municipal rules outu there, so its a niche where I'm generally confident the result is good):

---

*The following section was generated by Google Gemini to provide background context on Vermont's unique governance structure:*

> ## Vermont's Unique Local Governance Model
>
> Vermont's local governance is distinct from almost everywhere else in the United States because it relies on direct democracy rather than representative democracy for its most critical decisions. While most of the U.S. has moved to professionalized local governments (Mayors and City Councils), Vermont towns still vest the ultimate legislative authority directly in the hands of the voters.
>
> ### 1. The Core Governance Model: Town Meeting
>
> The defining feature of Vermont governance is Town Meeting Day (the first Tuesday in March). In most of the U.S., voters elect representatives (City Councilors) who then vote on budgets and laws. In Vermont towns:
>
> - **The Voters are the Legislature:** Residents gather in a school gym or town hall and vote directly on the municipal budget, road equipment purchases, and other articles "from the floor" (by voice vote or show of hands).
> - **Binding Authority:** The citizens—not the elected officials—have the final say on how much tax revenue is raised and spent.
> - **The "Selectboard":** Instead of a Mayor, towns elect a Selectboard (usually 3 or 5 members). They act as the executive branch, managing town affairs and employees year-round, but they generally cannot pass ordinances or budgets without voter approval (unless the town has a specific charter).
>
> ### 2. The "Missing" Layer: Weak Counties
>
> A major structural difference between Vermont and the rest of the U.S. is the role of the county.
>
> - **Rest of USA:** Counties are often powerful governments that manage school districts, social services, public health, Sheriff's patrols, and arterial roads.
> - **Vermont:** County government is virtually non-existent. It is primarily a judicial district (Probate Courts and "Side Judges") and a Sheriff's department (which mostly does contract work for towns or prisoner transport).
> - **Result:** All burden for roads, fire, and schools falls on the Town or the State, with nothing in between.
>
> ### 3. Comparison: Vermont vs. The Standard U.S. Model

| Feature | Vermont Town Model | Standard U.S. Model |
|---------|-------------------|---------------------|
| Legislative Power | Direct Democracy. Voters approve the budget and major policies directly on Town Meeting Day. | Representative Democracy. Voters elect a Council; the Council passes the budget and laws. |
| Executive Head | Selectboard. A committee of equals. No single person has veto power or "Mayor" status. | Mayor. A single executive often with veto power and hiring/firing authority. |
| Budget Approval | Voter Approved. If the voters shout "Nay" at Town Meeting, the government has no budget. | Council Approved. The City Council votes to pass the budget; citizens do not vote on it directly. |
| County Role | Weak / Judicial. Counties handle courts and jails only. They do not pave roads or run schools. | Strong / Service. Counties often run schools, health departments, libraries, and utilities. |
| Legal Authority | Dillon's Rule. Towns only have powers explicitly granted by the State Legislature. | Home Rule (Common). Many US cities have inherent rights to self-governance without state permission. |

> ### 4. The "Budget Approval" Flow
>
> **Standard U.S. Model:**
> Voters → elect → City Council → writes & approves → Budget (Enacted)
>
> **Vermont Model:**
> Selectboard → writes → Draft Budget → presented to → Voters (Town Meeting) → approve/reject → Budget (Enacted)
>
> ### Summary of Policy Implications
>
> - **Slower decision making:** Because major purchases often must wait for the annual Town Meeting, Vermont towns can be slower to react to opportunities than US cities with strong Mayors.
> - **Higher engagement:** The system forces residents to confront the cost of services directly. If you want a new fire truck, you have to look your neighbor in the eye and vote to raise their taxes to pay for it.

---

The "tl;dr" of that is the *Vermont Model* bit just at the end. Town's have minimal ability to do anything without putting that thing up for a budgeting vote at the annual Town Meeting (I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to look up Town Meeting Day -- but it is what it sounds like and happens once a year).

So -- historic floods, a shrinking work and volunteer force combined with an annual checkpoint after which new plans have to wait until next year (outside of special meetings which have their own restrictions). The former stressors put a lot of strain on the functioning of a town, especially one that has to be governed in conformance with the latter.

## My Entry to the Town Budget Process

All of this is to say, my town needed volunteers and had a number of standing vacancies on the Budget Committee and Cemetery Commission. I won't go into the Cemetery Commission here as it was generally a common set of management and turnover problems. The Budget Committee, and the budgeting process, are the focus for this piece.

## The Data


Musings

Thoughts on life, civics, economics and policy.

U-32 Closed Door Decisions & Wider State Education Failures

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