Since the publication of part one of my “Gathering Storm” column in December, many constituents have contacted me expressing concern about severe property taxes and interest in what needs to be done to change the unaffordable direction in which Vermont is headed.

On Tuesday, January 5, the first day of the second half of the biennium, I introduced S.252, a bill to reform the system of education finance in Vermont. The bill can be found on the Vermont legislative bill tracking system, and I am happy to provide hard copies to those who wish them.

The evidence is now more compelling than ever that the demographics of Vermont are collapsing with a rapidly downward birth rate and the beginning of out-migration of Vermont residents to other places. We cannot direct people to have families.

The recession has caused many to postpone having families and/or to have smaller families. Following the 2001 recession which lasted eight months, 46 months elapsed before employment returned to its level at the time the recession began. If the same ratio pertains to the current recession, 11 and one-half years will elapse before we reach the number of jobs existing at the beginning of this recession. The birth rate of 10.5 per thousand Vermonters in 2007 has dropped to 9.8 for 2009 and is falling further.

Despite all of this, however, we can take steps to stop the out-migration of Vermonters by providing an economic environment as inviting as our natural environment. Clearly thus far, and for several reasons, we have not done so. These include taxation policy, misplaced state policy priorities, and the need for far more efficient and coordinated state government.

S.252 recognizes a very significant part of the emerging crisis and addresses the single most serious detriment to economic expansion and security in Vermont, the property tax.

The bill calls for consolidation of supervisory unions along technical center boundaries and consolidation of Vermont’s more than 220 school districts into far fewer in a process to be carried out by the commissioner of education. The savings to be achieved are in the tens of millions of dollars statewide and are in the millions of dollars in my home county of Bennington alone.

In addition, there must be a better solution to the cost of teachers’ retirement and health care. The administration most unfortunately sought to transfer these obligations to the state education fund which would have resulted in the largest property tax increase in the state’s history with no underlying suggestion for education finance reform. Those who voted to support such ill-advised policy should be called to task. Vermont has no capacity left to support such taxation. Thus, the override of the governor’s veto of the legislative budget spared Vermonters an unaffordable future.

In addition to the first priority of reform of the system of education governance, the Legislature should examine whether or not business taxation is too high in Vermont and, if so, what can be done to change it. Next, we consider the recommendations of the Challenges for Change report prepared by the Government Accountability Committee. Just as with education finance, there is more than ample room for state government to consolidate like-functions between state agencies and coordinate a major marketing effort to attract new economic activity to an improved climate for business development and employment opportunity.

Then we should focus on the one area in which Vermont is clearly not overdeveloped, affordable housing. The administration has made a pastime of efforts to terminate the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, created in the late ‘80s to encourage land conservation and the development of affordable housing.

This approach is misguided in that one dollar of state money appropriated to VHCB is leverage for between five and six dollars of investment from other sources. We must change this and mount a full campaign to end Vermont’s shortage of affordable housing, a problem often cited by employers.

Broadband coverage to every Vermont customer who wants it must be a priority; our rural economy cannot be viable without it.

Finally, we need to step up our commitment to the professional training and development effort of the Next Generation process. Some very good people are helping Vermont to progress in this area, and it must be an absolute priority from now on.

All of our priorities for a stronger Vermont economy are in jeopardy if we fail to address unjustifiably high property taxes. S.252 moves in the direction of such control, and taxpayers should insist that the Legislature take definitive action before it is too late. Given current trends, immediate action is required.

The problem is very real and very severe but, like most problems, it presents us with opportunity to change the situation much for the better for all Vermonters and to attract new Vermonters.