Vermonters can expect a 5.9% average increase in education property taxes next year absent major changes, according to a forecast from the Vermont Department of Taxes.

The news arrived Monday in the form of the “Dec. 1 letter,” an annual projection required by law that represents the first public-facing estimate of expected education property taxes for the fiscal year starting July 2025. It relies on data from the state Agency of Education and local school districts, which are already engaged in their budget-making processes, and is produced in collaboration with the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office.

In a written statement, Gov. Phil Scott said that “with this projected increase, Vermonters will have seen a 33% increase in education property taxes in the last three years. This is the result of unsustainable costs, an aging demographic, and smaller workforce.”

Vermonters “simply cannot afford more,” Scott said, calling on lawmakers to work with his administration to reduce the tax burden. He also thanked school administrators and school board members, who he said “have made difficult decisions” to prevent more substantial projected tax increases.

Last year’s Dec. 1 letter forecast an 18.5% education property tax increase. Ultimately, after local school budget revisions, new taxes and injections of one-time funds to buy down the surge, the average increase wound up at 13.8%. Health care costs, student mental health needs, ailing infrastructure and inflation all contributed to last year’s increase.

For the next fiscal year, officials projected education spending would rise by about $115 million, or 6.1%. The use of roughly $69 million in one-time funds last year also added cost pressure, Craig Bolio, Vermont’s tax commissioner, wrote in the letter, a figure slightly offset by about $33 million of unused money from the current fiscal year.

Because lawmakers made few changes to Vermont’s education finance system last legislative session, and as cost pressures on schools have continued, stakeholders worried about a similar double digit spike this year. The worst fears appeared to be avoided, but officials cautioned the nearly 6% increase is still substantial, especially on top of multiple years of escalation.

“We know Vermonters are already struggling to pay for this year’s unprecedented increase in property taxes, I expect another projected increase will be difficult to hear,” Bolio said in a statement alongside his department’s letter. “It’s important that we continue to work together to find solutions to make our education funding system sustainable.”

He also said the Scott administration “will propose a framework for discussion during the legislative session that builds upon prior proposals and recent statewide discussions.” Scott’s team and Democratic lawmakers have sparred in recent years over whether the administration should develop new policy proposals or whether prior ideas remain as relevant as ever.

Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Brattleboro, who chairs the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said on Monday that the letter’s forecast would not change the work ahead for lawmakers.

“We’re going to need to look at new ways of doing things,” she said. “Certainly the number was not as high as some people’s worst fears, but that doesn’t mean that Vermonters can sustain continued increases.”

Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, said in a statement that the projected increase, though not the worst case scenario, is “not just unacceptable — it continues to constitute an evolving emergency that the Legislature must make its first priority come January.”

Republican leaders in the Legislature, meanwhile, signaled they would pursue “tax relief” this session, calling on their colleagues to implement “fundamental systemic reform” to Vermont’s education finance system.

“Some have proposed that education tax increases can be averted by simply dedicating additional revenue to the Education Fund or cost-shifting,” said Rep. Scott Beck, R-St. Johnsbury, who was recently tapped to lead Senate Republicans when he joins that body in January, and House Minority Leader Pattie McCoy, R-Poultney, in a written statement. “Others believe if we craft a correct system of penalties and thresholds, the problem can be solved. We strongly disagree.”