By Kolby LaMarche

Burlington School District Superintendent Tom Flanagan and School Board Chair Clare Wool took their case against Governor Phil Scott’s consolidation plan to every corner of Vermont yesterday, publishing a joint commentary in newspapers statewide.

The piece, headlined “Vermont doesn’t need a state takeover of education,” ran in the Burlington Free Press, Rutland Herald, Times Argus, and other outlets. It is a direct response to the Scott administration’s December 1 tax-rate letter that forecasts an average 12 percent jump in homestead property taxes next year.

Wool and Flanagan stress that only half of the projected increase — roughly 6 percentage points — comes from school budgets districts are voting on now. The rest is driven by factors outside local control: falling enrollment, double-digit health-insurance increases, crumbling buildings, teacher shortages, and growing mental-health needs.

They argue there is no evidence forced mergers of the state’s 119 school districts into larger regional systems will fix any of those cost drivers. Consolidation will not bring down health-care premiums, repair old infrastructure, or hire more special-education staff, the pair write. What it will do, they say, is take decision-making power away from local communities and concentrate power at the state level.

The commentary also calls out the administration for using the tax letter to “spread fear and create distrust in our education system” instead of treating it as the planning tool it has always been.

Governor Scott has repeatedly said meaningful property-tax relief is impossible without full consolidation and has tied any relief package to passage of his plan. Wool and Flanagan label that approach coercive. Major changes, they argue, should come from honest data and public input, not ultimatums.

The two leaders point to the bipartisan Redistricting Task Force that spent most of 2025 studying the issue. 

After reviewing research and holding hearings statewide, the panel rejected mandatory mergers and instead endorsed voluntary regional agreements for services such as transportation, food service, and special education — while leaving budget, staffing, and program decisions with local boards. 

The Scott administration dismissed the report and circled back to its original top-down plan.

Burlington already participates in several regional partnerships that save money and expand offerings without giving up local control. 

Wool and Flanagan say the district is open to more of the same, but they will fight any model that centralizes authority and risks undoing the equity gains of Act 127, the 2022 pupil-weighting law that finally sent more state aid to high-poverty, rural, and English-learner districts.

“Vermont’s schools are not broken; they are under strain,” they write in the closing paragraphs. “School boards are not resistant to reform; they are asking for a future grounded in equity, evidenced savings, and common sense. Public education does not need to be taken over. It needs to be strengthened.”

In October, the Burlington School Board voted affirmatively to declare their want to stay an independent school district. 

The op-ed lands as districts finalize budgets for March 2026 Town Meeting Day votes and as lawmakers prepare to return to Montpelier in January. Scott has said consolidation and property-tax relief will top his 2026 agenda.

Several other supervisory unions, including Champlain Valley and Addison Northwest, have issued statements in recent weeks echoing Burlington’s concerns. No consolidation bill has been introduced yet, but drafts are circulating on both sides of the issue.

Burlington, the state’s largest district with roughly 4,000 students and a $100 million budget, rarely sends joint bylined pieces to every daily and weekly paper in Vermont. 

Their full commentary can be read here.