Vermont
Opinion — Former Vermont lawmakers: An open letter to the Vermont General Assembly
This commentary is by a group of former Vermont lawmakers. Their names are listed below the text of the commentary.
More than 50 years ago, Vermont recognized the hardship faced by homeowners whose property taxes were rising faster than their ability to pay them. Since then, state fiscal policy has moved, in fits and starts, toward a system where school taxes are based on Vermonters’ income, the best measure of their ability to pay.
We, former Vermont legislators, urge you not to abandon a half-century of progress. Instead, we hope you will fulfill the promise of Act 60, which we helped pass in 1997, and ask Vermont homeowners with the most income to contribute their fair share to the cost of education by paying based on income.
Vermont’s education funding system is committed both to fair taxation and local decision making, and we can strengthen both of those. Instead, H.454, the education reform bill that recently passed the Vermont House of Representatives, weakens them.
Income-based school taxes ease pressure on homeowners with modest earnings that don’t keep pace with rising real estate prices and property taxes. For high-earning homeowners, income is a more accurate reflection of their means than a single piece of property, so taxes based on income are critical to fair school funding for all.
H.454 as passed by the Vermont House takes the state in the opposite direction. The bill would repeal the law’s current provision allowing residents to pay some or all of their school taxes based on their income, which 70% of Vermont homeowners do. Instead, H.454 recommits the state to regressive property taxes that hit low- and middle income residents the hardest.
To temper the negative impacts of the property tax for those with incomes of $115,000 or less, the plan puts in place homestead exemptions, which provide relief for some but still rely on property taxes. Lawmakers have considered homestead exemptions over the last
50 years and repeatedly rejected them as too complicated and failing to achieve the fairness of income-based taxes.
H.454 does nothing to address the unfair tax break in the current funding system. Many of Vermont’s wealthiest homeowners pay school taxes on their property that are less than their income-based taxes would be. H.454 allows these homeowners to continue to pay property taxes instead of asking them to pay the same share of their income to support education as average Vermonters pay.
H.454 also brings back a foundation formula — state-determined and state-funded grants that can be supplemented by local school districts — which Vermont tried before the state supreme court declared it unconstitutional in 1997. The constitutional problems can be overcome, and H.454 attempts to do so. But this, too, is something the Legislature tried decades ago and found unworkable because it was overly complicated and made tax rates unpredictable from year to year.
None of the sweeping changes in H.454, the associated risks, nor the hassles to school districts are necessary. The sharp increase in taxes last year was due in large part to costs outside of school districts’ control and also to legislative missteps in the previous two years.
And while the governor likes to say the message from the election was that schools are spending too much, that’s not the case. School spending in Vermont as a percentage of the state’s economy has been a stable 5.5% to 6% for decades.
Unfair taxes anger taxpayers and alienate them from participation in decision-making about their schools — and that hurts students, teachers and communities. H.454 does not solve these problems. Rather, in reaching for elusive “efficiencies,” with promises of better education, the bill doubles down on school consolidation, which many Vermonters have rejected; that will alienate more citizens by taking budgetary decision-making out of communities’ hands.
There are immediate, affordable changes to the existing law that would make the system fairer for the Vermonters hurt last year. Instead of rushing to new and unproven — or old, proven-unworkable — financing mechanisms and an unprecedented move away from local control, the Legislature should adopt those changes.
We are proud that for 30 years Vermont has had the most equitable school financing system in the country, supporting schools that produce some of the highest test scores in the country. Not incidentally, our schools hold together many of the small rural communities that make Vermont an enviable place to live.
H.454 risks destroying much of this. Vermont deserves better.
Former Rep. Elaine Alfano
Former Sen. Susan Bartlett
Former Rep. Paul Cillo
Former Rep. David Deen
Former Sen. Matt Dunne
Former Rep. John Freidin
Former Rep. Martha Heath
Former Sen. Cheryl Hooker
Former Rep. Carolyn Kehler
Former Rep. Karen Lafayette
Former Rep. Gini Milkey
Former Rep. Donny Osman
Former Rep. Ed Paquin
Former Rep. Ann Seibert
Former Rep. Mary Sullivan
Former Rep. John Tracy
Former Rep. Michael Vinton
Former Rep. Mark Woodward
Former Lt. Governor David Zuckerman
QUECHEE, Vt. (WCAX) – Crews worked across the White River Valley on Friday to restore power and clean up debris after two EF-1 tornadoes touched down in Vermont, including one that swept through Quechee.
Joe Haynes stared over his yard in Woodstock, with chunks of his roof scattered across it, wondering about the next steps.
Reporter Connor Ullathorne: How long will this all take to clean up?
Joe Haynes: Oh, I have no idea.
He said he’s lucky he and his nearby neighbors are safe and are not blocked in.
“Some of the trees were down. They’ll be down for awhile but they can make their way out,” Haynes said.
Crews in Woodstock continued clearing trees and downed power lines along Route 4. That’s where Tiffany Miller was working inside the Mountain Creamery when the tornado passed right over the store. Nobody was injured, but their new walk-in storage ended up in the trees.
“It’s definitely a big setback for us. We were getting ready to have it wired up tomorrow. So I mean we definitely have a lot of elbow grease and hours to put in to get back up to where we were,” Miller said.
She said she was happy to see how many customers have checked in on them.
“It’s nice to see that no matter what, in some bad case– storms or indifferent– that we can still come together and be there for each other,” Miller said.
Farther east in Quechee, workers hacked away at trees and swept away debris along the golf course and roads.
“It’s crazy they want to see. Everybody cares about their community and all their assets and amenities, so it’s nice to see everybody come together,” Quechee Club General Manager Brian Kelley said.
Kelley said they were out early Friday, and many residents were shocked at the damage. He’s still hopeful the area can come together and support each other.
“We normally do about 200 rounds a day going into one of our peak weekends. We’ve got the balloon festival this weekend, so we have that population in town, so a little bit of disappointment but people have been great and supportive, and we’ll be back at it tomorrow,” Kelley said.
Kelley said it should be a few days until they are back to full force in Quechee.
Many others across the region told us they’re now focused on getting back to normal.
Click here for the latest forecast from the WCAX First Alert Weather Team.
Copyright 2026 WCAX. All rights reserved.
Vermont
New owners of Vermont Packinghouse plan for local growth – The Vermont Journal & The Shopper
NORTH SPRINGFIELD, Vt. – For years, limited meat processing capacity in Vermont has forced many farmers to sell their livestock out of state. A recent ownership transition at a meat processing plant in North Springfield aims to change that by helping ensure locally raised meats can continue to be processed, packaged, and sold in Vermont.
The Vermont Packinghouse (VPH), located at 25 Fairbanks Road in North Springfield, was recently sold in two subsequent transactions to a new ownership group led by longtime food service and distribution leader Louis Helbling.
The 50,000-square-foot United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) facility processes and packages beef and pork from small- and medium-sized farms across New England. The sale of both the business and the building marks a new phase of growth and stability for a key regional meat processing operation that has been managed by multiple entities in recent years.
Longtime Springfield businessman Mark Curran, of Curran-Birge, purchased the former Ben & Jerry’s manufacturing plant in 2013 with the goal of easing a major bottleneck for Vermont meat producers by expanding much-needed processing capacity. Curran and his former business partner Steve Birge worked with Temple Grandin, a renowned designer of humane livestock facilities, to develop a slaughter facility that minimizes stress on the animals.
The facility was operated by Minnesota-based Lorentz Meats from 2014 to 2020, and later by Walden Local Meat Co. from 2023 to 2026. Throughout that time, Curran maintained ownership of the building, carefully stewarding an asset he believed held long-term potential for the region.
On May 29, Curran sold the property to a new ownership group led by Helbling, a veteran of food service sales, operations, and senior management. Under the newly formed Vermont Packing & Trading, Helbling is focused on expanding market opportunities for locally grown meats while creating jobs and supporting local farms. With a passion for the food industry, Helbling was drawn to Vermont’s specialty food culture and deep agricultural heritage.
“With Louis’ decades of work in the New England food industry, there is real opportunity to open more markets for local beef and pork producers outside of Vermont,” Curran said. “Another initiative will be to retain more of Vermont’s dairy culls from leaving the state and keep more value-added processing here.”
Helbling and his team will continue to work closely with Curran, Black River Produce – a distributor with deep ties to the operation – and the owners of Walden Local Meat Co. to ensure a smooth transition of both building ownership and day-to-day operations.
“We have all worked very hard over the past six months to keep VPH open and in a position to rehire a very talented and dedicated workforce as quickly as possible,” Helbling said.
With a new management team in place, the facility is entering its next phase of operations focused on future growth.
Upgrades to the USDA facility are already underway, alongside efforts to expand cold storage capacity to meet growing regional demand. “Adding to the existing footprint with additional freezer and cold storage will give us the capacity we need to grow as a business and add to the local workforce over the next five years,” Helbling said.
He added that he and his team will continue working with Curran to revitalize the landmark facility and restore it as a source of pride for families, employees, and local farms.
“All of us involved in this journey are excited to be working and relocating to the great State of Vermont,” Helbling said. “We are operating and moving quickly to bring business from all over the Northeast to Springfield.”
Vermont Packing & Trading was formed after the April 2026 sale of the Vermont Packinghouse business and is seeking new partners and producers across the Northeast.
SHELBURNE — Norman Rockwell lived for a time in suburban New York City and died and was buried in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. But for 14 years in between, the artist spent perhaps the most prolific period of his career in Vermont creating his best-known works.
That’s how Shelburne Museum curator Carolyn Bauer sees it — and how the museum’s latest exhibition treats the artist.
“Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont,” which opens June 20 and runs through Oct. 25, displays 40 of the 175 covers Rockwell famously created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine during his time in Vermont between 1939 and 1953.
Also on display are prints of “The Four Freedoms,” maybe his most famed works of all, which represent American ideals spelled out by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. Paintings in the exhibition include “The Young Lady with the Shiner” and “The Tattoo Artist,” both whimsical, recognizable pieces used as covers for The Saturday Evening Post.
“It’s very accessible work and approachable,” Bauer said.
The display features the three paintings that inspired the exhibition, given to the Shelburne Museum by Rock of Ages, the Barre granite quarry and monument maker. Those Rockwell paintings filled a significant gap in the museum’s art collection, which includes works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Grandma Moses and Andrew Wyeth but, until recently, none by Rockwell, perhaps the best-known artist to have lived here.
“It feels like a homecoming in many regards,” Bauer said.
Moving to southern VT, finding ‘the every American’
The exhibition frames Rockwell’s time in Vermont around the tenor of the times in America. As the Great Depression was ending, World War II was looming and the nation was growing more urban and industrialized, much of the public was yearning for greater simplicity, Bauer said.
Rockwell was among them, leaving New Rochelle north of New York City for the quietude of Arlington in southern Vermont.
He was not alone. Contemporary artists including Mead Schaeffer, John Atherton and Gene Pelham would settle in Arlington too, creating what Bauer termed “the golden illustrator days” in Vermont.
Rockwell’s art, as the 152-page hardcover catalogue accompanying the exhibition notes, shows “how Vermont itself came to embody American ideals in the national imagination.”
Rockwell and his fellow Arlington artists used each other as models in their creations. “They really would work collaboratively,” Bauer said.
Pelham’s daughter, Melinda, is shown in the exhibition in two works: “The Babysitter,” a painting of a girl holding a crying baby that’s on loan from The Fleming Museum at the University of Vermont and an admission submission Rockwell sent to Kellogg’s of a girl clutching a cereal-laden spoon to her mouth.
Doctors, mail deliverers and shopkeepers from Arlington populated his work. Bauer said Rockwell usually gave models $5 and a can of Coca-Cola.
“He was recycling and using just about everybody in town,” Bauer said. That included himself: Rockwell added his own visage to the multiple faces in “The Gossip,” which shows him lashing out at a woman who’s started the rumor-mongering.
Bauer said Rockwell wanted to cultivate a sense of place by using Vermonters known for their austere self-reliance at the forefront of his work. He also found “the every American” ideal in town, Bauer said, though his art reflected a pronounced lack of diversity.
In later work, Rockwell would confront race and segregation as the Civil Rights Movement swept the U.S.
“He was progressive,” Bauer said.
Inspired by paintings donated by Rock of Ages
“Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont” was inspired by the 2025 museum acquisition of a trio of Rockwell works that once hung in the Barre offices of Rock of Ages. The granite company contacted the museum asking if it could donate the paintings, Bauer said, prompting staffers to wonder momentarily, “Is this real?”
Rockwell created advertisements for Rock of Ages and gave the paintings upon which the ads were based to the company. “Kneeling Girl” from 1955, making its debut at the Shelburne Museum, takes place in front of a gravestone engraved with the name Newton.
Rock of Ages donated two versions of 1963 work “The Craftsman,” a muted draft and a more luminous final version that were first displayed at the museum last year. They depict Rock of Ages stonecutter George Seivwright working in the shadow of a memorial bearing the name “Norwell,” a portmanteau of Rockwell’s first and last names.
Bauer called the paintings “incredible works of art that were circulated widely” in ads, brochures and pamphlets touting Rock of Ages and its world-famous Vermont granite. Though Rockwell had left Vermont for Massachusetts by the time he created those paintings, they do what Rockwell had done when he lived in Arlington — show the nation and the world what Vermont and Vermonters are capable of.
“We are just eager for our visitors to see these paintings,” Bauer said.
If you go
WHAT: “Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont”
WHEN: June 20 through Oct. 25
WHERE: Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education, Shelburne Museum
INFORMATION: $8-$25 museum admission; free under age 5 and for active military and Shelburne Museum members. shelburnemuseum.org
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@burlingtonfreepress.com.
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