FY 2027 Frequently Asked Questions

For more information, please visit our Budget page on the district's website, use the Connect with Us! Form or email the school board with questions schoolboard@stjsd.org.

Also, view FY 2027 Budget Information for the latest information on the budget.

A. With the proposed budget, the estimated homestead tax rate is projected to be $1.14, reflecting a $0.07 (6.95%) increase. This estimate is based on the most current information available and assumes the state approves the anticipated Education Fund buy-down. Without the buy-down, the increase would be approximately $0.03 higher.

A: Yes. Tax rates are subject to change based on updated information from the state, including yield calculations and legislative decisions. The final rate will not be known until after the state completes this process.

The estimated annual payment based on the homestead property value of a $100,000 home is $1,137.00 for FY27 which is an increase of $74 per year compared to FY26.

A: The district anticipates a one-time surplus from FY2025. The Board plans to:

• Apply $250,000 of the surplus as revenue in FY2027 to help offset the tax impact

• Ask voters, through Article 2, to authorize placing up to 50% of the surplus into a capital reserve fund for critical facilities needs

• Apply any remaining surplus in a future year to further reduce taxes

This approach helps stabilize tax rates while planning responsibly for the future.

A. A list of critical facility needs can be found on our Five-Year Sustainability Plan and are outlined in November's Facility Presentation here.

A: Surplus funds are one-time dollars and cannot sustainably support ongoing expenses. Using a portion to offset taxes provides immediate relief, while investing in a capital reserve helps avoid larger tax increases in the future by addressing critical facility needs proactively.

A. You may be eligible for an education property tax reduction if your household income is less than $115,400. To apply for a tax reduction, contact the Vermont Department of Taxes at www. tax.vermont.gov/property/tax-credit.

A. The Education Tax Letter is an annual publication from the Vermont Department of Taxes. It provides statewide projections of potential property tax changes for the coming year. These projections are based on assumptions applied to all school districts in Vermont and are intended as a general guide for the legislature to understand possible statewide tax impacts, not as an exact prediction for any individual district.

A: Last year, the Vermont legislature enacted a $100 million buydown to temporarily lower property tax rates statewide. Because the December 1 Education Tax Letter compares next year’s projected taxes to last year’s artificially lowered rates, approximately half of the projected increase is due to this one-time legislative action, not increased spending by Vermont schools.

It’s also important to note that future legislative actions can affect local tax rates between now and the final adoption of the FY 2027 budget. The district’s tax rate will ultimately be based on local enrollment, per-pupil spending, property values, and any state actions, not on the broad statewide projections in the December 1 letter.

A. St. Johnsbury’s local education tax rate is calculated using several district-specific factors, including:

• Student enrollment (long-term weighted average daily membership)

• District budget (approved by the School Board)

• Common Level of Appraisal (CLA), which reflects local property values

• Total statewide spending on education

• Other anticipated revenues, such as state grants or local fees

A. In Vermont, education tax rates are determined using student weightings, which take into account factors like household income. By completing your household income form, you help ensure tax rates are distributed fairly.

While the primary impact is on tax fairness, completing the form also supports other important initiatives:

• Sustaining Free Meals: Vermont’s Act 64 ensures all public school students receive free meals, but the data from these forms is crucial to keeping the program equitable and effective.
• Securing Funding: Your information helps our school qualify for federal and state funding for essential programs, from academics to extracurricular activities.
• Enhancing Resources: The data supports schoolwide benefits, improving education quality and access for all students.

A. Vermont has a state funding system for education that aims to fairly distribute the cost based on the needs of each town. One issue, however, is that towns reassess their property values at different times. This means towns with recently re-appraised properties (which may have a higher market value) end up paying higher property taxes compared to towns whose properties haven’t been appraised recently.

To address this, the state created a system to compare a property's tax value to its market value using something called the "Common Level of Appraisal" (CLA). The CLA is calculated by dividing the property’s assessed tax value by its market value. This helps make sure properties are taxed fairly and at a value that’s closer to their actual market worth.

However, last year, lawmakers decided to change how the CLA is calculated. Instead of comparing a town's property to its market value, the CLA now compares it to the average property value across the state. To keep things fair, the state lowered the "property yield" (the amount of funding for education) so that tax rates don't change.

In short, even though the CLA values have gone up for most towns, the actual amount of property tax you pay stays the same because of adjustments to the property yield.

A. Both education and the town budget contribute to property taxes, but it's important to note that education spending specifically determines the homestead portion of the property tax bill. See the Vermont Department of Taxes FAQs page for more information.

A. The latest information on the FY 2027 budget can be found on our Budget Information Page linked here.

A copy of the FY 27 line-by-line budget is available on our FY 27 Budget Information website. This site also includes budget details, past budget presentations, and summaries of budget development meetings.

A. The primary factors driving cost increases in the FY 26 budget are:

• Salaries
• Benefits
• Regular Education Tuition

A. The St. Johnsbury School District (STJSD) does not operate a public high school. The St. Johnsbury School District operates under a school choice system for high school students.

This means:

1. STJSD does not operate its own high school.
   
2. Instead, the district pays tuition for its resident students to attend high schools of their choice.
   
3. Students can choose to attend public or approved independent schools, such as St. Johnsbury Academy or Lyndon Institute.
   
4. The district is responsible for paying the announced tuition rates for resident students.

The tuition rates are determined by each individual high school and are set annually. The St. Johnsbury School District covers these tuition costs, along with any applicable special education fees, for all eligible resident students who choose to attend these schools.

In the proposed FY 27 budget, high school tuition represents 27% of the total budget, based on projected tuition increases.

A. Staff are not provided bonuses at the St. Johnsbury School District. In 2021, staff were granted a one time bonus using pandemic grant funds under a different Administration.

Act 73, passed in 2025, is Vermont’s new education reform law. It introduces a statewide funding model, sets in motion the creation of larger school districts through a Redistricting Task Force, and adjusts how public tuitioning works with independent schools. The purpose of the law is twofold: to give all Vermont students more equitable access to education and to bring long-term stability to rising education costs and their effect on property tax rates. Changes include a shift to a statewide property tax system, new standards for class sizes, and redrawn district boundaries. To learn more about Act 73 and its implications for Vermont schools, please visit our Act 73 webpage for additional information and resources.

A. In 2024, Vermont passed a new law (Act 183) that will change how education tax rates are calculated starting in the 2025-2026 property tax year (beginning July 1, 2025).

In the past, each town’s education tax rate was adjusted based on its property values. Starting in 2025, the adjustment will be made using a statewide average instead.

The good news is that all properties will still be taxed based on their full market value. The only change is in how the tax rates are calculated. You can find more details at tax.vermont.gov/statewide-adjustment.

A. Act 127 is a funding model established in response to the Vermont Supreme Court's 1997 ruling in Brigham vs. State of Vermont, which found the previous education funding system unequal and unconstitutional. This law uses a weighted pupil value to allocate education funding to school districts, ensuring compliance with the court's decision.

Passed in 2022, Act 127 aims to provide additional resources to support students with higher needs, including multilingual students, those in poverty, and those in smaller or rural schools. It achieves this by assigning more “weight” to these student categories in the calculation of education taxes. Districts with a higher percentage of such students benefit from the law, making them “tax-advantaged,” while those with fewer are considered “tax-disadvantaged.”

• Education Quality Standards
  
• Education Tax Rate FAQ
• Frequently Asked Questions About Pupil Weights in Vermont's Education Funding Formula and Act 127 (2022) Changes
• How Does Vermont Pay For Schools? A video explainer and glossary of terms from Vermont Public
• New CLA Explanation from Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office
• Video from Vermont Public on how Vermont funds schools:

Here's a glossary of terms you might hear in Vermont related to school budgets and education finance:

FY: Fiscal Year. The St. Johnsbury School District budget year begins July 1 and ends June 30. We are currently in FY26 and the proposed budget is for FY 2027.

The yield bill: The annual property tax legislation that lawmakers pass to pay for school spending that’s been approved by local voters (usually at town meeting) that year.

The homestead tax: The tax that’s applied to your primary home and surrounding land.

The non-homestead tax: The tax that’s applied to all other types of property — including second homes, commercial facilities and rental buildings.

The education fund: The statewide pot of money that’s used to pay for schools. It is separate from Vermont’s general fund (although the general fund is occasionally used to supplement it) and represents about a fourth of all state spending. Homestead and non-homestead taxes provide about two-thirds of the education fund’s revenues. The rest mostly comes from consumption taxes — most notably the sales tax — but lottery profits and Medicaid funds also contribute.

The CLA, or the common level of appraisal: Municipalities in Vermont all appraise their properties independently, and on different timelines. That’s a problem if you have a statewide tax — people with outdated appraisals could pay more (or less) than their fair share. The CLA is the tax department’s analysis of how over- or under-valued properties are in every town in Vermont. It’s used to adjust homestead and non-homestead tax rates, so that the final tax rate applied in every town better reflects current market value.

The difference between tax rates before and after the CLA is applied can be jarring. Updates which will be in effect in 2025 aim to bake in some of this adjustment earlier in the tax-setting process, so that schools and taxpayers are less surprised when final rates come out. This change is partly a response to the common misconception that the CLA is responsible for tax bills going up.

LTW ADM, or long term weighted average daily membership: The state’s adjusted count of how many students there are in a school district. This is what is used to calculate per-pupil spending. Homestead tax rates are pegged to how much a district is spending per-pupil, but because some kids are expected to be more expensive to educate, certain students are weighted differently in the state’s formula.

Education spending: A technical term for all the spending in a district’s budget that counts toward spending per-pupil — and that therefore impacts tax rates. Not all spending in a school’s budget is counted in this number. Federal grants, for example, aren’t included.

Act 60: The landmark property tax reform law passed in 1997 that decoupled a school district’s tax rate from local property wealth. It followed the Vermont Supreme Court’s Brigham decision earlier that same year, which found the prior system to be unconstitutional.

The Dec. 1 letter: A document the Vermont Tax Department publishes each year that forecasts property tax rates based on preliminary information about proposed school budgets. School spending decisions are made locally in Vermont, but our funding system means that local decisions affect taxpayers statewide. This letter helps school boards understand the aggregate impact of their proposed spending while budgets are still in development.

Per pupil spending: Per pupil spending is a measure of how much a school district spends per pupil and is the basis for determining homestead tax rates. The pupil count used in per pupil spending is a weighted number because different types of students cost different amounts to educate. For example, a high school student is determined to be more costly to educate than a kindergarten or elementary school student, so a greater weight is placed on high school students in the weighting formula. Effective for FY25 (the 2024-2025 school year and property tax year), Act 127 of 2022 substantially changed the weights that are applied to calculate district pupil counts. Act 127 increased the weight applied for students in poverty and student who are English language learners. The Act also introduced new weights for students in sparsely populated school districts and small schools within those districts.

Duffort, L., Kinzel, B., Ambusk, K., Dunn, M., Mumford, K., & Stevenson, B. (2024, October 22). How does Vermont pay for schools? A video explainer and glossary of terms. Vermont Public. https://www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2024-10-22/vermont-education-finance-school-property-taxes-explainer-video-glossary?fbclid=IwY2xjawGFzpZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbGzAtHN6UW8HykCRUqi4oeGKP4r8cgH55slDSnr82VfzxZb20315FcoMw_aem_rMaW9dpA_fUiRtLQ6pMt-w

State of Vermont, Department of Taxes. https://tax.vermont.gov/property/education-property-tax-rates/faqs

A. St. Johnsbury residents will vote at the Town Clerk's Office located at 51 Depot Square, St. Johnsbury, VT. Polling hours are 8am-7pm on Town Meeting Day.

A. Tuesday, March 3, 2026.

When: Polling hours are 8am-7pm on Town Meeting Day.

A. Yes! Absentee ballots can be requested from the Town Clerk's Office by phone (802) 748-4331 ext. 1 or email townclerk@stjvt.com any time before Wednesday, February 25th, 2026. Ballots will be available in early February but may be requested anytime. Absentee ballots will need to be requested by phone, email or online through https://mvp.vermont.gov/.

A. Vermont offers online voter registration. You can register by mail to vote in Vermont by printing a voter registration form, filling it out, and mailing it to the Town Clerk's Office. You can also register to vote in person if you prefer even on election day.

Saint Johnsbury (Caledonia County)

Stacy Jewell, Clerk

Mailing Address: Office Address: 51 Depot Sq, Suite. 101.

St Johnsbury, VT 05819

Tel: 802-748-4331 FAX: 802-748-1267

Email: townclerk@stjvt.com

Clerk’s hrs: M - F 8am - 4pm.