WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — This past Town Meeting season was a particularly challenging one for public officials overseeing Vermont school budgets.

Anxieties over rising costs, expiring pandemic-era federal aid and confusion over the state’s new funding rules forced some communities to delay votes on education spending to give local officials more time to finalize proposed budgets.

Around the state, a number of school budgets were rejected by voters worried about the tax impacts.

In Hartland, voters needed three attempts to adopt a budget for the coming school year.

Residents petitioned for a revote after a budget passed that was projected to increase the town’s homestead tax rate by nearly 30%.

Petitioners were successful and the voters ultimately adopted a slightly lower budget of $1 million.

In the end, it didn’t add up to much a of break for property owners. The town’s new education tax rate — set last month by the state’s Department of Taxes — is just 2 cents less than originally, equivalent to a $70 difference on the tax bill for on a $350,000 home.

As is typically the case, the specifics of the tax rates set this summer vary widely from town to town, even within the same school district. (And while the education tax makes up the largest portion of an annual property tax bill, there are municipal budgets that contribute to the total bill.)

This year, two factors — rapidly rising property values and changes to the state’s funding formula — played a large role in determining tax rates that saw dramatic increases and decreases in Upper Valley communities.

Outdated property values

While some tax rate changes are attributable to increased school spending, many towns were more affected by the recent surge in home values or by the state’s recent changes to per-pupil funding, according to school administrators in Upper Valley districts.

Take the four Upper Valley communities — Woodstock, Pomfret, Barnard and Bridgewater — that belong to Mountain Views Supervisory Union.

In March, voters in the member towns approved a $29.8 million budget for the 2024-2025 school year, a 14.6% increase over last year’s budget. But Mountain Views’ member towns saw dramatically different tax rate impacts.

Woodstock’s new tax rate, $2.63 per $100 of assessed property value, is a 62-cent rate increase from the previous year. That’s the largest increase among Upper Valley communities in Vermont.

Pomfret saw an increase, but not nearly as much. Its tax rate, $1.66, was up 20 cents over last year.

But Barnard’s new rate, $1.60, was a 39-cent decrease from last year.

And Bridgewater’s new tax rate, $1.40, meant a 47-cent decrease.

Woodstock’s sizable tax rate increase is largely due to the property values the town uses to calculate tax bills being out of date. Real estate values in Woodstock have increased 100% in the last five years, said Jim Fenn, finance director of Mountain Views Supervisory Union.

In Vermont, the state uses a measure known as Common Level of Appraisal, or CLA for short, to measure how close a town’s total property assessments are to fair market value. In Woodstock, the CLA is just 64%, when the goal is closer to 100%.

Vermont towns send the taxes raised for schools to the state education fund, which then distributes the money to school districts to pay their annual budgets. A lower CLA causes a higher tax rate, to bring the town’s under-valued assessment in line with market values.

This adjustment is intended to ensure a municipality pays its fair share in taxes to the state education fund.

Woodstock, which last had a townwide reappraisal in 2016, is scheduled to conduct a new revaluation next year, according to the town listers. The reappraisal is expected to take two years to complete.

Barnard and Bridgewater were among six Vermont towns in the Upper Valley that completed reappraisals this year, according to the state Department of Taxes.

In Hartford, a single-town school district, the new homestead tax rate is $2.05, a 27 cent rate increase.

In April, Hartford voters approved a 7% increase in the district’s operating budget for current academic year, in addition to a $21 million bond for district-wide facility repairs and improvements.

As in Woodstock, Hartford’s townwide property appraisals are well below market rates. Hartford currently has a CLA of 66%, a drop of 11 percentage points since last year.

Hartford, which last appraised its properties in 2017, is beginning a new revaluation next year.

In Norwich, the new education tax rate of $2.32 per $100 of assessed property value — an increase of 33 cents from the previous fiscal year.

That represents at $1,650 tax increase on a $500,000 home.

In March, Norwich voters approved an $8 million budget for its elementary school, which serves pre-K through grade 6 — and a $30 million budget for the interstate district it shares with Hanover to operate Richmond Middle School and Hanover High School.

Norwich’s CLA is at 64%.

New funding formula

The three Vermont towns in the the Rivendell Interstate School District — Fairlee, West Fairlee and Vershire — all saw sizable cuts in their new rates, despite a 6% budget increase approved by voters in June.

Fairlee’s new rate, $1.35, is a 35 cent rate decrease.

West Fairlee’s rate, $1.78, is a 46 cent rate decrease.

Vershire’s new rate, $1.27, is a rate decrease of 94 cents, the largest drop in the Upper Valley’s Vermont communities.

The decreases in the Rivendell towns can be attributed largely to Act 127, a law that went into effect this year that changed the state’s per-pupil funding formula to direct more money to school districts serving a higher number of students who are living in poverty, learning English as a second language, or residing in a rural area.

The White River Valley Supervisory Union serves 11 towns, including Bethel, Chelsea, Royalton, Sharon, Strafford and Tunbridge in the Upper Valley.

In March, Royalton and Bethel voters, who share a school district, approved a $14.4 million budget, a 10% increase from the previous year’s budget. However, the budget’s impact was tempered by an increase in state funding through Act 127.

This academic year the unified school district has 1,095 equalized pupils, a rate used for determining additional funds — up 529 equalized pupils from the previous school year.

As a result, Royalton’s rate dropped 4 cents from last year to $1.52 per $100 of assessed property value. The tax rate for Bethel remained the same as last year, at $1.50 per $100 of assessed property value.

Meanwhile, the impact of the new law was just the opposite in Thetford.

In March, voters there approved a $10.1 million operating budget — an 8% increase from the previous budget year. But the new homestead tax rate jumped 26%.

The rate increase was necessary to offset a reduction in the district’s share of state funding, as a result of the formula changes made by Act 127.

According to the district’s annual report in February, Thetford’s per-pupil funding rate from the state was set to drop this year by 20%, due to the district’s lower percentage of students who require additional support.

A complete list of Vermont town-by-town education property tax rates can be found on the Department of Taxes website at https://tax.vermont.gov.

Patrick Adrian may be reached at padrian@  vnews.com or 603-727-3216.