WCUUSD and Vermont's excess spending threshold.

What the threshold does

Each district's homestead tax rate is set from its education spending per pupil: the budget voters approve, less the revenue that offsets it, divided by the state's weighted pupil count. When that figure is above the excess spending threshold, the amount over is counted a second time when the tax rate is set, so the district's voters pay twice on that slice. The penalty moves tax burden between districts; it raises no new money for the state's Education Fund. Some costs are deducted before the test. Through FY2024 these included voter-approved construction debt, a share of very high special education costs and a teacher retirement assessment; since Act 183 of 2024 only debt on bonds voters approved before July 1, 2024 is deducted.

Two ways of counting pupils

Through FY2024 the state divided education spending by “equalized pupils”. From FY2025, under Act 127 of 2022, it divides by long-term weighted average daily membership (LTWADM): enrollment averaged over the current and prior year, with extra weight for students from low-income families and English learners, for students in grades 6–12, for sparsely populated districts and for small schools within them. The new count is much larger. The state counted 84,414.79 equalized pupils for FY2024 and 142,809.77 LTWADM for FY2025, 1.69 times as many, so spending per pupil and the threshold both fell in dollars: $22,204 per equalized pupil in FY2024, $15,926 per LTWADM in FY2026. The Joint Fiscal Office says the two thresholds cannot be compared.

The extra weight does not fall evenly. WCUUSD went from 1,376.82 equalized pupils in FY2024 to 2,376.88 LTWADM in FY2025, 1.73 times as many: more than the state as a whole and the most of the five districts on these pages. Across the 43 Vermont units the Stanford Education Data Archive compares, the increase is larger where community incomes are lower (r = −0.46 against the archive's community socioeconomic index). The same dollars therefore read lower per pupil in lower-income communities. Spending per equalized pupil had no relationship with community income (r = +0.08); spending per LTWADM does (r = +0.47).

On the state's own per-pupil figure, WCUUSD ranked 16 of 128 districts in FY2024 ($23,022 per equalized pupil), 30 of 128 in FY2025 ($14,380 per LTWADM) and 27 of 128 in FY2026 ($15,272). Among the five districts here, WCUUSD was second-highest per equalized pupil in FY2024 and is third per LTWADM on the same spending.

WCUUSD against the threshold, year by year

Before deductions, WCUUSD spent above the threshold in every year from FY2020 through FY2024. In FY2020 it was at 101.9%, in FY2021 104.1%, and in FY2024, while the penalty was suspended, 103.7%. After deductions, the figure the test actually uses, it stayed under in every year the penalty applied: in FY2020 and FY2021 because construction debt on voter-approved projects was deducted, and in FY2026 with no deductions at all. FY2021 was the closest: $18,654 per equalized pupil against a threshold of $18,756, $102 under (99.5%). The district's budget forms show no excess spending in any of these years.

Against the rest of the state, WCUUSD has sat in the upper part of the distribution throughout: FY2020 rank 11 of 117; FY2021 rank 13 of 117; FY2022 rank 20 of 116; FY2023 rank 16 of 119; FY2024 rank 16 of 122; FY2026 rank 27 of 119. While the penalty was suspended, the 75th-percentile district rose to 100.3% of the threshold in FY2022 and 30 districts were over it, against 94.3% and 16 in FY2019.

FY2026: the first year back

The penalty applied again in FY2026, on the new weighted pupil count and a new threshold of $15,926 per long-term weighted ADM. Across the state's 119 districts the median used 86.9% of it and the 75th-percentile district 94.7%. 10 districts were over before deductions: Norwich (114.9%), Hartland (109.9%), Windsor Central UUSD 76 (109.0%), Thetford (108.6%), Jay (107.5%), Canaan (106.5%), Marlboro (102.7%), West River MUED A (101.1%), Hartford (100.7%), West River MUED B (100.2%). The Joint Fiscal Office counts six that paid, by $429 to $1,582 per pupil.

WCUUSD used 95.9%, rank 27 of 119 (77th percentile), with no deductions. Among the districts on these budget pages, Harwood used 97.2%, Montpelier Roxbury 92.9%, Mt Abraham 92.4% and Barre 72.1%. For FY2027 the threshold is $16,470; WCUUSD's approved budget comes to $16,373 per pupil, 99.4% of it, $97 under. The district's FY2027 budget notes put the same margin at $215,705 in total.

Spending and results, FY2024

Does spending closer to, or over, the threshold go with stronger results? The six charts below set spending beside results for each Vermont unit the Stanford Education Data Archive compares (a supervisory union or unified district, member districts combined), all for FY2024: spring 2024 tests, FY2024 spending and the FY2024 threshold of $22,204 per equalized pupil, calculated though the penalty was suspended. 2024 is the latest year the archive publishes its comparison with what communities like this one typically score.

• Two yardsticks for results. The archive's comparison sets each district's scores against districts nationally whose families have similar incomes, education and employment. Vermont's proficiency rates (ELA and math, grades 3–9) are the state's own and are not adjusted for community.
• Two pupil counts for spending. Room under the threshold uses equalized pupils, the count in force in FY2024. Spending per LTWADM divides the same FY2024 spending by the FY2025 count, as the Agency of Education printed it for the House Ways and Means Committee on February 21, 2024; no FY2024 LTWADM count or threshold exists, so that axis is in dollars and its cost split is the statewide average, $11,972.
• Reading the charts. Results run across and spending up, with lower spending toward the top: the top right is stronger results for less money. The shading splits at the score reference (typical for communities like this one, or the statewide rate) and the cost reference.

The count changes the picture. On equalized pupils, spending and results show no relationship. On LTWADM the same spending shows a moderate positive one: units that spend more per weighted pupil tend to score higher.

Correlation across 42–44 units, each counted once. Spending per LTWADM is dollars per student divided by how much the new weights grew each area's pupil count. Taken apart, the dollars show no link with any of the three results. The link comes from the count: areas whose count grew more score lower. Most of the difference in count growth between areas comes from the poverty weight, and areas with more students from low-income families score lower on all three measures. The sparsity and small-school weights show no link with results. On the comparison with communities like this one, a single area, Winooski, accounts for about half of the link.

On Vermont's own tests

The same charts with the share of students proficient or above in spring 2024, split at the statewide rate (52.5% in ELA, 37.6% in math).

How the state sets the threshold

Act 68 of 2003 created the provision “to encourage districts with high per pupil costs to examine why costs were so high” (Agency of Education). The threshold has always been a fixed percentage of the statewide average education spending per pupil, raised for inflation; no document found ties the percentage to a measured cost of an adequate education.

The Joint Fiscal Office's 2024 modeling for the bill that became Act 183 charted thresholds at 116% and 120%; the legislature settled on 118%. No stated reason for 118% in particular was found. Act 169 lowers the percentage from FY2028: at the same base and inflation, a 115.5% threshold sits about 2.1% below a 118% one, so a district using 99.4% of the FY2027 threshold would be above a threshold set that much lower.

Sources and caveats

• District spending per pupil: Vermont Agency of Education, “School District Spending Per Pupil” workbooks FY2012–FY2026 (every district listed each year, including non-operating and tuitioning districts). The district count falls from about 270 to about 120 as districts merged.
• Thresholds: Agency of Education historical threshold table (FY2012–FY2021, listing FY2022–FY2025 as suspended) and line 23 of the Agency's budget form printed in WCUUSD's annual reports (FY2022–FY2027).
• WCUUSD's deductions and FY2027 figures: the same form, lines 13–25, in the 2020, 2023, 2024 and 2026 annual reports (latest print of each year).
• Statewide lines are before deductions; the Agency publishes no statewide deduction figures, so the count of districts actually penalized is lower than the count over.
• FY2025 is left out: the threshold printed that year ($23,193) is per equalized pupil, while spending was first stated per long-term weighted ADM. The Joint Fiscal Office says thresholds before and after Act 183 cannot be compared; within each period they can.
• Results: Stanford Education Data Archive 2025.2, community-adjusted fit for 2024 as used by the Schools tools (math and reading pooled, grades 3–8). SEDA reports Vermont by supervisory union or unified district, so each unit's spending combines its member districts (total education spending over total equalized pupils), matched by district and town names. 32 districts sit in units SEDA does not compare for 2024 (for example North Country, Windham Central and Mountain Views) and are left out of that chart.
• Pupil counts and spending per LTWADM: the Agency of Education's table of February 21, 2024 for the House Ways and Means Committee (H.850), FY2024 education spending over the FY2025 long-term weighted ADM for each district, with the statewide total in its first row; FY2024 equalized pupils from the Agency's per-pupil workbook. A unit is shown on the LTWADM charts only if every member district is in the table (43 of 44).
• Vermont proficiency: share proficient or above, grades 3–9, weighted by students tested, spring 2024, from the Agency of Education's dashboard files as used by the Schools tools; statewide rates from the same files.
• Correlations: Pearson r across units, each counted once, unweighted; Spearman rank correlations, in the page data, tell the same story. The community socioeconomic index is the archive's 2024 composite of income, education, poverty and employment.
• History: 32 V.S.A. § 5401(12); Joint Fiscal Office, “Excess Spending Adjustment” (House Ways and Means, January 14, 2026), 2023 Report on Vermont's Education Financing, H.887 threshold modeling (May 3, 2024), Act 46 threshold analysis (January 28, 2016); H.949 Committee of Conference report (Act 169 of 2026, signed June 18, 2026). The inflation index named differs between the Joint Fiscal Office (NIPA) and the online statute text (NEEP); the original Act 68 percentage was not confirmed from a primary source.