Monique Thurston - Vermont Taxpayers Suffering in Cold and Silence

“I am cold … my arms … fingers … toes.  Fire and ice … the cold that freeze-sucks my body is matched by the heat it creates in the belly of my psyche — the heat of anxiety. After all this, how am I going to pay my bills?

This anxiety attack hit hard when I, and many homeowners throughout Vermont, received our property tax bills last summer and we saw the increase in the homestead education tax. That bill might as well have stamped on it: “You cannot afford Vermont!” (34 towns turned down their school budget this past Town Meeting Day. I was lucky I am so poor for I received for last year a hefty payback. Still, I’m behind.)”

The above words were written by the iconic Vermont photographer Peter Miller in a VTDigger commentary in 2014.

Ten years have passed, and the legislature has made no attempt to control property taxes in order to address the excruciating pain expressed by Peter Miller and multitudes of others suffering in silence.

Ignoring the looming property tax bomb that has finally exploded, the legislature has instead been obsessed with controlling Vermont’s carbon emissions.  

The first climate policy, the Vermont Energy Act of 2009, passed by the Vermont Legislature, established specific mandatory price setting requirements for renewable energy technologies which required utilities to pay solar developers five times more for their unreliable electricity than the utilities were paying at the time for reliable electricity from the grid operator ISO-NE.  

In 2016 at a legislative breakfast in Vergennes I asked Senator Chris Bray, a lead sponsor of these policies, why such ratepayer punishing policies were necessary, he responded, “I’m just trying to be a good steward of the planet.”  So much for being a good steward of his constituents!

In 2020 the super majority Democrat legislature forced the Global Warming Solutions Act into law over the veto of Governor Scott. This law made progressively greater emissions reductions mandatory, without regard to cost or the hardship they would create.  The GWSA went so far as to allow anyone to sue the state if emissions targets were not achieved. 

Four years later the legislature is poised to pass a law requiring all Vermont electricity to be 100% renewable by 2030.  

Another bomb that is poised to drop on Vermonters at the beginning of the next legislature session in 2025 is the Clean Heat Standard, which requires fuel dealers to charge their customers more for their heating fuel in the future.  How much more?  The DPS estimated 70 cents per gallon.  The goal is to replace all the conventional heating systems in the state with heat pumps and somebody has to pay for it.      

The irony of all this is that the promoters of the “transition” to renewables and heat pumps don’t believe it will make a difference, either to the well-being of Vermonters or to the planet.  Co-sponsor of the 100% renewable bill, Rep. Laura Sibilia put it this way on the House floor, “We have heard folks say that stopping all of Vermont’s emissions would do nothing to change the weather patterns that we are seeing with climate change. With apologies to my environmental friends, I mostly agree. If Vermont cannot stop climate change, then why bother bringing forward sweeping climate change legislation?”  

Adding to the absurdity of Vermont’s “all cost – no benefit” rush to renewables is the fact that Vermonter’s already have the 4^th lowest per capita carbon footprint in country!  As a state, Vermont has the lowest emissions of any state in the country. 

Fortunately for Vermonters, the Public Service Department, charged with protecting ratepayers from excessive or unnecessary costs, has sided with consumers against renewable energy policies from the beginning.  

In his 2021 Report to the Legislature, current PUC Chair Ed McNamara pointed out that investments in conservation and efficiency saved money for each ton of carbon removed by reducing consumption of fossil fuel.  

Unfortunately, the Democrats in the legislature have consistently ignored the PSD’s recommendations, including the most recent one concerning the “100% Renewable by 2030” bill.  Citing consumer surveys that prioritized affordability and reliability ahead of renewables, the PSD proposed a plan that cost $150 million vs their $1 billion estimate based on the draft bill language – for the same emissions reductions.

  The PSD’s proposal was rejected by the House Environment and Energy Committee, whose chair and co-chair, Amy Sheldon and Laura Sibilia sponsored the bill.  

One must wonder why the legislature even asks the PSD to do exhaustive studies, modeling various scenarios, hiring expert consultants and spending millions of taxpayer dollars, when their advice is routinely ignored!

The Democrat controlled legislature does not mind spending your money, or their time, to “bring forward sweeping climate change legislation” that provides no benefits for Vermonter .

So here you have it Peter Miller, while you wrote in anguish in the Vermont Digger ten years ago that you froze and worried about how you will be able to pay your property taxes, the Legislature has been focused on CO2 , while admitting it is a useless exercise, instead of addressing the soaring cost of education and the regressive way we pay for it.  

After less than a week of discussion, on April 24th, the Vermont House of Representatives gave its final approval to H887 which would raise property taxes 15% for homesteads and 18% for second homes, apartment buildings and businesses, while rejecting proposals aimed at containing costs. 

The icing on the education cake is a proposal by House Ways and Means Chair Emily Kornheiser that school boards could adopt a school budget without voters’ approval.  

Lest you think that the income sensitivity adjustment will solve the problem, Peter Miller despaired that the income sensitivity adjustment did not make his property taxes affordable in 2014.   Were he alive today, he would find that while property taxes have risen dramatically, the income level at which a property tax qualified for an exemption has decreased from 141,000 in 2016 to 128,000 in  2023.  While property taxes and home values have risen, incomes have not kept pace, and any benefit from the homestead exemption continues to be reduced by the legislature.  They need your money more than you do it seems.

In 2016 Peter Miller wrote another painful commentary in VTDigger called, “ I am Vermont Broke”, where he described his last attempt at financial survival, a book project called, “The Vanishing Vermonter…An Endangered Species”.  

It is time to repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act, to concentrate on cost effective and beneficial Conservation and Efficiency and to tackle the enormous monster that is the Education Property Tax.

The author is a retired physician living in Ferrisburgh.