CALEB ELDER

The following five questions, along with a requested word limit, were asked of each local candidate in a competitive race for the Vermont House or Senate.

The questions are not repeated in the context of each candidate’s response, but are recalled by subject at the beginning of each answer.

Primary Election Day is Aug. 13.

1) PERSONAL BACKGROUND: My name is Caleb Elder and I am running for a Senate seat in the Addison District. I grew up in Bristol where I attended public schools prior to attending Middlebury College. For the past 6 years I have represented the Addison-4 District in the Vermont House. In that time I have served on the House Education, Ways and Means and Housing Committees. Prior to my time in Montpelier, I served on two local school boards for Starksboro and then MAUSD. In 2020 I was appointed by House Speaker, Mitzi Johnson, to serve 6 years as the Vermont House’s board member at the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation.

2) THREE ISSUES: In the coming biennium I feel that our most pressing issues will be:

• Charting a path for the sustainable future of our public education system, while restructuring our property tax system. We need to have serious, non-partisan, conversations about cost-containment, since we cannot solve this problem by simply raising revenues. I believe the future of public education, and how we pay for it, will be the single biggest topic of the coming biennium and is one of the main reasons I feel compelled to run for the Vermont Senate in 2024.

• Continuing our work on housing: bolstering the labor force, improving and streamlining regulation for housing developers and continuing to fund permanently affordable housing projects. We have made some strides in reducing regulatory barriers for new residential housing, but there’s a lot more we can do. Building out our downtowns and villages will require a sustained 10-year effort, so we should expect to keep engaged on this work for the foreseeable future.

• Supporting cities and towns affected by the 2023 and 2024 floods, and helping them to prepare for future flooding events. We don’t yet know whether Vermont will receive a federal emergency declaration for the 2024 floods, but I know we are all hoping for that as soon as possible. The FEMA support will be critical, but of course it only goes so far. After back-to-back years of catastrophic flooding, some Vermont communities are facing an existential threat. We put over $30M into flood recovery addressing the ‘23 floods and I anticipate there is just as much need in responding to the floods from earlier this month.

3) PAYING FOR SCHOOLS: Since the pandemic, we have seen an increase in social and emotional health needs in our schools. With the retreat of federal monies, these costs are now directly impacting school budgets. Some estimate that this “shift” is around $25M in FY ‘25. Efforts, such as the community school pilot in Vergennes, show us that wrap-around services in schools are a huge support to students and their families. However, these costs can’t be borne by the school budgets alone. We need to redesign the Agency of Human Services budgets so that some supports for kids and families are literally located in the schools. We have the space but we need more help, all under one roof.

FY ’25 school budgets saw a one-year increase of $50M in teacher healthcare statewide, bringing the new total to $300M per year. This benefit is negotiated at the state level and cannot be changed by local school boards. This annual increase is equivalent to adding a new child tax credit program every year. We need greater transparency for how this money is spent, since the same procedure can be priced very differently around the state. We owe it to taxpayers to make sure we’re getting predictable, transparent pricing for this $300M.

Finally, I know that we need tax relief. Property tax payers are struggling to keep up with the meteoric rise of school budgets and they require action. One approach I would favor is actually removing education funding from residential property tax bills altogether. This was a recommendation of the Tax Structure Commission from a few years ago. Our current system is already “income based” but is inordinately complex. Additionally, progressivity of this system is capped at about $140,000 in household income. If elected, I would push for this concept since I believe it has merit and could bring real relief to fixed-income homeowners.

4) HOUSING: For years, Vermont has had relatively little new housing creation. Now that there is more demand on the housing economy, this lack of supply is driving up prices and new housing simply isn’t coming on line fast enough. In order to counteract this trend, we need to focus on workforce development, affordable housing initiatives and streamlined regulations for home builders. We have an opportunity to build greater connections between our high school vocational centers and the building trades. For example, the VSAC Advancement Grant program provides students with skills they can immediately turn into job opportunities, as they add to their skills and knowledge.

If we want to attract more young people into the building trades, as employees or as business owners, then we need to support them with ongoing training and support. This should include education around starting and running a small business, along with the actual skills of the trade. Housing is an exciting sector of our economy, promising great demand for the coming decade. Building science is also becoming increasingly complex, and requires greater education as well as hands-on learning opportunities. If we have students showing interest and aptitude for building trades, we need to have education programs ready for them. And further, we should give them support in forming a business plan and developing their dream.

From a regulatory level, I think we need to make sure we are getting out of the way of our own ambitions. If we want more residential housing, then we need to think strategically about removing barriers to investment in this market. While publicly funded housing is a piece of the puzzle, it is a small piece. We need the private sector involved in our buildout of new housing and in order to do that we need a predictable and scalable regulatory environment. This could mean exemptions to Act 250 for certain types of residential housing development. We could even permit residential housing as a “public good” and remove it from Act 250 altogether. We take a similar approach with renewables, and it has been effective.

5) CLIMATE: Yes, I fully support the VCAP because it attempts to wrap our arms around the grave threat of climate change and to clearly lay out what steps we must take to reduce carbon emissions. Of course, it’s a massive document that is evolving and it necessarily has strong points and weak points. But the very endeavor of putting this problem, our collective task, into one document is powerful and important. In terms of the plan’s best features, I look to the promise of the workforce development section. This part of the plan aligns with my own vision for how we build out the necessary housing workforce. We need public-private partnerships with industry leaders, ongoing training and certification, and new investment in trade apprenticeship programs. Achieving the goals of the VCAP – whether through renewable energy generation, electrifying home heating or electrifying transportation – will require skilled tradespeople at every turn. Without that workforce, our ability to achieve the goals laid out in the VCAP will be deeply undermined. Additionally, by focusing on the workforce that will help Vermont accomplish this transition, we center the young people coming of age in this challenging time. I believe we can create opportunities for young Vermonters amidst this climate crisis, as we help them build and utilize the skills our state, country and planet require in this moment.

Read more Addison Independent coverage of Caleb Elder here.

Find our Q&As with the rest of the Vermont Senate and House candidates here.