Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Thursday, 05/14/2026. It's about 10:40 in And the we have a bill, which we have folks from Legis Council and Joint Fiscal and the Committee on Education. So that is great. Just before we get started, I just want to say a couple of other things. If you haven't already heard, Senate Finance passed out the education bill late yesterday afternoon. It is in Senate Appropriations today. They are supposed to pass it out of Senate Approach this afternoon, and then it would be on November 4, and it'll be on next week. The Ed Committee had a three-three vote, and it went to Senate Finance. It got committed to or transferred to or whatever to Senate Finance.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So explain Can anyone explain that to me, Scott, or anybody? Can you explain to me what happens when there is a bill that gets passed out in the Senate at three three, then other things happen to the bill. So the bill, the sort of policy portion of the bill is in the ether and

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, the whole bill got passed to Senate Finance, and we'll ask us, St. James, because I bet she knows all of this. But it did pass out to Senate Finance five two. So there was an actual clear vote. That's Yeah. Why don't you come to the table? That's Maybe you can fill us in on this before we go to this. You're all right with that. Do you have enough time for us to chat with us about this for a minute? Yes. Should be up to us all to hear this.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. The Senate Education Committee never took a formal vote if you were relieved of the bill. Okay. It was recommitted to finance. Finance passed it out with the work of the Senate Education Committee as part of a strike. So I do not believe it will be going back to Senate education.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: So Senate rules, they can take it from one committee and put it the other?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I am not their parliamentarian, but that is what happened. So they were

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: relieved of the bill as opposed to voting it out.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So they could have given it to Fish and Wildlife or transportation or something like that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's because the body agreed, I suppose.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I am not their parliamentarian. I would

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: think that Bloomer would say this is not germane to fish and wildlife.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: But I just I'm gonna use that just as a it's not germane to finance if there's no policy to finance. But I'm not senators, so let's not

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's the facts of what happened. Correct. That's what we need to know. And now it's in Senate appropriations, and I bet you'll be spending your afternoon there. Correct. Yes. Can you give us

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: a facial gesture? That would give you an idea of what

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: A rather large mortgage, so I would prefer not to. I hate my job.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Fair enough.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All right. So we are talking about an accolade being to provision of pre K education in geographically isolated school districts. And we have also rep Quimby, or maybe a geographically isolated school district or year one. Okay, so to talk if we have policy or like why did we do this questions, Beth will be here. So thank you for joining us as well. And I guess everybody's a Beth today in our committee. So, the whole thing one page? Yeah. Okay. Do you want me

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to share my screen?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Why don't you share your screen? And John, this is yours. I

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have sharing capabilities. Oh, no worries. Thank you so much. Okay. So we have s two fourteen is passed by the senate. Neither ways nor neither ways or mean ways and means nor your education committee made any changes to the senate version. K. You have the as passed by the Senate version. S-two 14 is an act relating to the provision of pre K and geographically isolated school districts. It is an amendment to Section eight twenty nine in Title 16, which is the pre K statute. This is it. Those three asterisks on line seven represent the entire statute. This amendment makes no changes to current law other than adding new language, which starts on line eight, adding a subdivision I, which reads, Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the NEK choice school district may provide pre kindergarten education to eligible pre kindergarten students by paying tuition pursuant to this section to one or more pre kindergarten programs operated by a public school in New Hampshire that is located in a school district within 25 miles of the Vermont border. The Essex North Supervisory Union shall be responsible for administering enrollment procedures and managing prekindergarten tuition payments pursuant to this section and state board rules. The superintendent may apply for and receive a waiver from the Agency of Education and Agency of Human Services of any rule provision that is impractical for the any K Choice school district or the New Hampshire program by demonstrating that a substantially equivalent provision is offered. And this would take effect on 07/01/2026.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so we're doing this because?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm going to defer to Rep Quimby a little bit. Sure.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That would be great. And then why do we have it? Would be the other question, which maybe Betsy can answer. We We all have joint fiscal. We'll have

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: time.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You feel free us about that. Feel free

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to throw to me if you feel like you're getting out

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: of your lane. So why are we doing this? So the NEK Choice school district, because this is specific just to that school district, is a non operating school district. It has absolutely no schools at all. So all of their students in K through 12 are educated through public tuition. And for some of those towns along the New Hampshire border, they tuition their students to schools in New Hampshire, because it's just the most convenient, it's ten minutes away instead of an hour away. So they already tuition K through 12, or have that option. So this is adding the ability for them to, if they so choose, tuition their pre K. There is a Head Start pre K program in Gilman, there's one in Island Pawn, and the public school, Canaan, has a program, but it's a pretty large geographic area, and that may not be the most convenient place. If you, in your car, have your third grader and you're going to Lancaster, New Hampshire, it just is more convenient to take your pre K student as well.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it's kind of a carve out because of a special unique geography. It's unique geography.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: Yeah, a very unique situation.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: A non operating school district, and that still has a superintendent?

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: Yes, you still have to have a board and superintendent. And it's part of the Essex North Supervisory Union. This school district is part of Essex North Supervisory Union, includes Canaan. Then that's why Essex North Supervisory Union would be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the one administering Okay. People understand that pretty well, Marty? But I do have a question regarding this very

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: last sentence. I thought so. That's what I prepared in my floor presentation.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: How would you please explain it? So, for

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: example, requirements in Vermont, to have a Vermont licensed early educator or to follow the Vermont Early Learning Standards. Well, if you're in New Hampshire, it may not be a It Vermont licensed may not be the Vermont Early Learning Standards because you're in New Hampshire, not Vermont. So that would be substantially equal provision, but you would need the waiver because like, oh, this teacher doesn't hold a Vermont license because they're in Lancaster, New Hampshire, they don't own a New Hampshire license.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Be a couple That of

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: would mean it could go to a private? No, that was the question I had when this was presented, because our pre K program in Vermont, you can go to, the parent can choose whether they go to a public school pre K or a pre qualified private provider pre K. So I wonder why that wasn't an option. It's mainly because of the tuition fees. Act 73, we can no longer send tuition out of state unless it's a public school. We don't tuition to independent schools outside of or providers outside of state anymore. They have to be a public school. And we did actually, human services took most of the testimony that there is capacity. And we had some testimony that the public school pre K has plenty of capacity for these. Great,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I can imagine they're

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: sending older children to a public school, if they are.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And it's not that many students.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: I think the JFO number is maybe up to 14, three and four year olds. The Essex North Supervisory Union superintendent came into our community and testified and said, Five kids, maybe. You don't know who might take advantage of it, but it opens an opportunity. And some of the numbers that I looked at, Vermont's a leader in pre K education nationally. But when you look across counties, Franklin and Grand Isle Counties have over 55%, 60% of their eligible students. Windham, Windsor, Chittenden have 93 plus percent. Essex County, only 11% of those It's that like, this is a door that may provide another opportunity for these children.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: for the whole generation I've served in this building, I've never had to deal with education across the border and how that works. Can you just give me a very quick rundown of what it means to be on the borders where you can send kids to New Hampshire? Mean, I know down in Bradford is it or, you know, there's there's schools along along the Eastern Coast that does this. So I can picture this if I have a pre K student and if I'm in the school district that goes from Canaan to wherever, that it's easier to go across the river, I get that. But what happens in K-twelve if you're tuitioning all the students out? It's just how do students where do they go to school? How do they get there? What's and I just want a shorter version of it, because all I have is Buell score to compare it to, and that's only six students.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: So the any K Choice School District, currently, the last number I heard is there's 40 different schools in that region, most of them in Vermont. Some go to Lunenburg, some go to Canaan, Island Pond, Concord, some go to Lancaster, New Hampshire. It's really where the family lives in that large geographic region. It has to be an approved school. Vermont public school, an approved independent school, which St. John's Great Academy might be a store Store we go

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: academies are fine. There are, we used to

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: have some New Hampshire schools, approved independent schools in New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts. And students that are there currently, there's a glide path for them to continue, but moving forward under Act 73, it has to be a public school that's out of state.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So these folks, will they I'm always going to assume that people are going to pick the school closest to them, if that's always the case, they might choose to travel 30 miles back and forth. That's parental choice. That's not a choice within the program that exists.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And they still could under this.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: I mean, it doesn't say they have to send their pre K students, it's just that they may. So if they happen to work in New Hampshire, which a lot of people in that area do, because it's the closest pace of industry, I'm on my way to work. I'm not gonna drive 30 miles the other way to go to Island Pond to drop off my three year old and then drive an hour to work in Lancaster, New Hampshire, and then in the middle of the day, have to go back and pick them up because it's a half day program. So they just don't enroll them or they don't work. And

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I think that's the point I wanted to get to was on the low uptake is this feeling of, because we talk about Act 73 has been about, oh my god, you're going to force us to close, and we know we're all working out that situation. But the notion that this particular county or this area only has an 11% uptake of preschool programs because of the distance needed.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: For a variety of reasons.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Variety of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it's expanding the options for people, which will hopefully increase uptake, which will be better for the kids and the parents. Yeah, yeah. Lynn? I just want

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: to address the cross state issue. We have, in our area, a lot of students in Alberg, in the islands, over to East Clinton and New York. They can either go to there or they can go to MU or they can go to BFA or in some cases, it's just more convenient. Some people consider it a better education to go to Northeast Clinton, which is a public school.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: But not Canada.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They can't go to Canada, right? Used to be able to. Well, it used

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: to go to Stanska.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Stanska. Yeah, interesting.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: Until this last year, you could go to had people up at the

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: North lot of people Port hearing up there from the Northeast Kingdom area.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Well, this is really helpful to understand. And so, Ezra, do you want to come up and tell us why this has come to appropriations? You're welcome to stay there.

[Ezra (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Good morning, everyone. Essex, North Pittsfield office. Would you like me to share my screen?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: If it's easy, that's fine. I'm mostly doing it for the folks at home who are

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: listening to us. Well,

[Ezra (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: is pretty easy, so I'll

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: just stay on Okay, great, thank you.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: There we go. Alright.

[Ezra (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So as we heard, it's a pretty short bill. Essentially, this would allow the NDK Choice School District to pay tuition to a public school in New Hampshire for eligible pre k students. And I believe that you heard from Beth Saint James, they would have to be within 25 miles of the Vermont border. So joint fiscal office, we estimate that this bill would increase education fund expenditures beginning in fiscal year twenty twenty eight. The reason it's fiscal year twenty twenty eight is most school districts, including any K choice already have their budget for fiscal year twenty twenty seven. So any new expenditures would have to be born within that existing budget. Then fiscal year twenty twenty eight, that's when budgets could be built with additional expenditures. So we estimate that each year up to 14 students would gain access, and that is considering ages three and four. That's based on feedback from DCF as well as individuals in the field in any K choice. But it's up to 14 students. Pre k, you have to choose to enroll your child, so it could be zero students. Take advantage of this. Could be up to 14. So we just went ahead and settled on 14 to try and be a little conservative with this estimate. And so the estimated maximum fiscal impact would be about $60,000 which in the education fund, that's de minimis.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. And so I just did a little math, and it's about $4,286 per student. I mean, there Is that how

[Ezra (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: you got there? So is these students, their tuition rate is within the pre K statute. Right. And for fiscal year twenty twenty seven, it's about $4,100 And it tends to increase via NIBBA every year. So we inflated that by 3% to fiscal year twenty eight.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's just helpful to understand the logic behind.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: And do we think that this was this is back to representative Columbia, I think. Was this was this an oversight? Or was it just something that hadn't existed?

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: It has not existed. I mean, from what I've heard, it's about five years of advocacy from this area trying to get this done. Pre K is not required. Parents choose, I mean, kindergarten really isn't either. But when tuition was considered pre K, I think it's not required for parents to enroll in pre K. There are programs, as I said, in this area, there's one in Gilman, when the Gilman public school closed, it became a head start program, they repurposed the building. There is one in Island Pond and there is one in Canaan. But for some families, that just isn't convenient. But yeah,

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: so We've been

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: trying to get this done for a while, and that they're saying, well, could this be an option as well? And how pre K is funded, it's not really a tuition model in the same sense.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Someone No, but it's been in our conversations, maybe not in this, I mean, I'm sure it has in this committee, but I'm sure just all around about expanding child care. It's expanding pre k, the use of private public. You know, that's been a conversation in this building for for a lot of years. So I'm glad that it's finally being addressed. And it's only this that the addition of this is de minimis. And then in five years, we'll find out if you're going from 11% to at least 50%, which would be a deal. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm still not entirely sure that I see the Ed Fund part, but there's not a general fund piece to this, is there, that I'm missing? So I'm not sure. Do we know why it actually came to us? Just because Ed Fund stuff does?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's getting you off to the left for the council. I am not I am also not your parliamentarian. I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: didn't know if you had an easy answer. That's okay. The more people who lay aside, the floor, the easier I guess. I'm sure there may be some. Unless Esra, you have any thoughts There's on

[Ezra (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: no general fund impact. This went through Senate appropriations as well as Senate finance. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: it came through

[Ezra (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: all the committees.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Pretty sailed through everybody unanimously, I imagine. Anybody have any questions on this bill?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Of course, they could have. We may have a reputation. They might rather have us talk about it here than on the floor.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah,

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: just a quick question. So Health Net did nothing with this, right?

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: We voted out ten zero one.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: We didn't change anything.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: We did not change a single word of this. We're finding it favorable. We did not amend the Senate version at all. I did present ways and means last week, and it was nine eleven, if I recall correctly.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: I should probably have

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: to read it. I'm just

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: thinking more about the motion.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: Nine one. Right. About the motion.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So nobody's made any changes since it came out. No, it's

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: passed the Senate.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's passed the Senate.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: Not gonna have to go back to the Senate afterwards. We need

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to know the motion for a vote. So that's why we're asking. We're testing these questions. So does anybody on the committee have more questions about this? If not, I entertained a motion to support S-two 14 as passed by the Senate. Wayne John. Okay. Not John Wayne, but Wayne John. You never know which way to

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: learn things you're gonna go in.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So if I have no other questions, the court gets ready, he may call the roll, please.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: President Bluemle?

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: Yes.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: President Dickinson? Yes. Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Laroche? Yes. Representative Mrowicki? Yes. Squirrell, yes. Representative Stevens? Yes. Representative Yacovone? Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Ten-one. Okay. And John, I believe you have pre K-three as well. This one's yours. You're wonderful, I have to say. Thank you all for coming in. Good luck this afternoon, Scott. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in. Appreciate it.

[Rep. Quimby (House Education Committee)]: I've never been here before.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So committee, we're starting to get bills from House Ways and Means now. We've gotten three bills. We have a bill that's our vacation's sort of over in some cases. Tomorrow at 01:30, we're going to hear a bill. We assume it's going to be 01:30. The plan for the floor tomorrow is we're going to meet at 09:30 as usual, do all of our normal business, the calendar, and then recess until 01:00 because the Senate may be sending more things over to us. And so that gives the speaker a chance to redistribute bills before we leave and have them. And we may be getting more bills then. I don't know. We're getting a couple more from Ways and Means. I think we have two bills. We don't have next meetings on here, but I think Tuesday afternoon, we're going to have a couple more bills. Tomorrow, we're doing the DMV bill. There's a miscellaneous ag bill we're going to do on Tuesday. And one other bill that I can't remember that we just got yesterday. When I find out from Ottawa, I'll let you know what that is. And there'll be a couple more from Wayne's and Means after that. So next week is going to be a bit of bill week, as well as moving along committee of conference now that the Ed bill is out of the committees. It'll be on the Senate floor. So I think we'll all learn after tomorrow, how close it is. What I'm hearing from people is that the Senate has mostly stayed along the Quaker House version, so there may be agreement of both bodies on how we And the more agreement there is, the less time we have to take in a committee of conference. And last year's committee of conference was a bit sideways with new things brought in and all of that. So I think if there's more agreement, there'll be less

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: of that happening. Know, So, we're we're the deadlocked out of the policy.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, there's that, but there are more people now involved than that. Sure.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: We just never experienced that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I know, it's very interesting. Well, it just shows how hard it is to do anything with education, changing education. Keep your eye on the senate calendar, and you can talk to your own senators. I came out of finance five point two.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: We're in I'm sorry. So we're here taking testimony at 01:30.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, tomorrow.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: And the floor could be meeting in the afternoon too?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The floor is meeting at 01:00. We're recessing. We're meeting and doing all of the calendar business or as much as we can Friday morning.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: They'll let us leave the 01:30 if you are.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, well, we may if it's close to the end. Yes, I mean, the goal is that we'll do the regular business in the morning, recess to 01:00, More bills will have come over from the senate. They'll dole them out, and we'll adjourn, and then we'll

[David Yacovone (Member)]: just Okay. They're doling out as opposed to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. Unless there's something that's going on tomorrow morning that requires us to continue to go in the afternoon, in which case we'll just adjust as needed in the afternoon. So I can't give you an exact I can give you our hopes, Dave, but I can't tell you exactly. If

[David Yacovone (Member)]: you were telling somebody to pick you up in 04:00, would be smart.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think you could do it before then if you wanted to. I mean, if we have our bill, I I would think by 03:00, you'd be fine.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: She says.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I know these

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: are hard

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: things then.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We are also going to be starting on the floor next week. We are starting to meet twice a day. I think at 10AM and one And am perhaps maybe later if we need to, because now we're actually gearing up for real end of session. There will be token sessions. I think there might be a token session this Monday. Chair Wood's going to come in from Waterbury and do that one. So there'll be those kinds of things will be happening, and we'll start to enter our hurry up and wait time also. So it feels like it now is beginning to feel like we're gearing up for end of session. I wouldn't have said that a week ago, I or even three days ago, but I feel like we are kind of moving along. And the goal of the house is to be out of here before the May. You know, it would be lovely if it was next week, but I'm not sure that's physically possible.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I might be

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: a little optimistic. I don't think we want be

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: education bill time for Tuesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday, Friday. You know?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: If we concurred, if or they concurred with us, you know, we could be all done.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah. I can feel I don't think that's a little. I'm a little nervous.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Why don't we go offline, Scott? We'll be back live at

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: one of them.