Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: And your lines.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Okay, we're back on the conference committee on H-four 54. Let us start by saying, we had not intended for that to be the shock that it came across as pain. That was And we're, like you, we're trying to get to yes. Okay. Thank you. And so But just a little bit of background on where the weights came from. And by the way, we're gonna make a proposal that goes back to where we were.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Okay.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Without the old weights

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: That's delightful, thank you.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Any of those issues. Because it didn't The intent was never to, but from the perspective, a lot of angst about this, both from the academies that have the CTEs, and the academies that have historically set tuition, they agreed to give up the ability to set tuition Mhmm. Which was you know, that's a huge thing after two hundred years of setting tuition and having a relationship with the communities. But they looked at it, but within the context of a wait for high school, it worked. And so the because we had there were always there were always waits in the high school waits in the bills as they went through. And that that that was back then Under

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: the senate.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yes. Yes. That's when they that's when the high school said, okay. That's fair. And then when the weights went away, it was, Oh my God, what have we, you know, this isn't gonna work. And so, it also relates to the two that have the integrated CTEs or the comprehensive CTEs, and the two that don't, that tuition then, giving up the ability to set tuition, without having a high school weight, is like panic material. And so what we would propose is that rather than do everything that was there, is just to simply say that the high schools before the the academies, those that's those schools that set tuition, those schools that set tuition, just continue to do so under this without a drop, without a date of which it stops. There will be the study that's coming that actually came out of the setup version, I think. And if you know, then we'll see what that means, and then that gets discussed. Just so it's just that there's the starting point of the status quo rather than changing before there's a knowledge of what is to come. So that's it.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: So let me just ask a couple questions here. So you would like the independent schools to be able to continue to charge tuitions? I mean, said academies, but I

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: assume it's all ones who set tuition. The ones that can set tuition. Those are all independent schools.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Well, a lot of them

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: do get get the output. Right?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: I mean,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: they bill they they send a bill.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yes. Yes. That extent, yeah. Just one thing I'll explain.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Okay.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: So, I mean, there's no anticipated change in that until we change to a foundation formula anyway. Okay. So then we change to a foundation formula, and what you're saying is, and you still want the status quo? Not necessarily. If the change comes,

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: the the study is done, the analysis is done, and in a sense study is Well, the the weight study is

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: in this bill.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Yep.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: And then, you know, that gets Yeah. If it makes sense. They all voluntarily said that's you know, we'll give up the ability because that looks like it's fair. And I would anticipate that would happen again or just happen by legislation. It's just that we'd rather have the starting point be that the status quo stays in place until it's changed. It's not saying it won't be changed or shouldn't be.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I'm a little curious as to what happens if the independent schools are unhappy with what the number ends up and they say, well, actually that's still not enough. We need to have the status quo continue. So we have districts receiving $1,516,000 dollars per student, for Inverting Academy charging $19,000 a student. Where does that happen? Where does the difference happen?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: The goal is we're dealing with trust here. Right now, they set their tuition. Right?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: With with a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We're set now we're going forward. We're setting their tuition. It it coming with the child. If you run a whole school disc and when we started this discussion, there was a wait for CTE, and there was a wait for high schools, for secondary school.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I I don't remember there being a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: There was a weight when the first Tammy Colby numbers were used. When she recalibrated, there was no weight going away because they didn't see there being any Difference cost. Reducing costs.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: But we don't replace.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Some you know, not everybody believes that everything she says is carved in tablets of stone. Okay. And that there is no CTE weight in this. If you don't run, it's the same deal we did with childcare. You use the money you made because you needed fewer people to supervise three year olds than three month olds. And when we took the three year olds off into pre k, they weren't able to support the the infants, and we had to deal with that. And what you when you

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: And that's what you're saying in a operating district, things balance out.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: They can balance of operating district. Other ones can't. And the other ones that are carrying a CTE can't either. They are nervous. I don't have any of those schools. It's not my issue. But I can we're doing a lot in this bill to offset present anxiety because no one can visualize the future state. And that's what they're asking, is until that weight study comes back and the weights are set, and I think if we will ask the weight study to look particularly at these schools, because they may well be different than independent, publicly operated schools.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: I think I understand the intent of where you're coming from, I think. I wanna offer that I think all schools in the state right now actually have the ability to set their spending. It's one of the, both the really fairly extraordinary things about Vermont and one of the things that have led to the very ever changing spending that we are tackling right now. And so right now in this bill, as passed the House and the Senate, we had all schools, whether they were public schools or independent schools, change from being able to set their own spending to moving to the spending declared. That was true across the board, right? Public schools are also changing that assumption under this. What I think was shocking to me about what you brought forward was less the intent and more that it was an enormous amount of brand new language that had not been vetted by either chamber, and some of which required a lot of mapping before we could get our heads around it.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: And

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: a lot of, like, geography of looking at maps. Right? Just understanding impact.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: We we saw the reaction and understood what had happened. Okay.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Yeah. And so when you say you wanna pull back to where we were before, are you saying that you're withdrawing I'm really just trying. I'm not trying to lay a trap. I'm just trying to understand where we are in the conversation. Yes. You're withdrawing at least three all three of these proposals?

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: No. The one about the the rates and rates.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: But not the the underspending stuff?

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: No, no, or available growth rates.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Okay, or the independent school language, or the removing the the ability to tax second home order to make sure that Vermont's tax rates don't go.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: I'll have that in the study once we say it yesterday. That's okay. That's good.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: That's Okay. So all of that's still on the table.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Should have

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: changed in the formula. You're withdrawing.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yes. And

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: you're adding that independent schools are not subject to all of this change until we study it.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Well, yeah, until the study or until things change. It's a matter of the starting point.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Until the weight is set.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: It's a matter of whether it starts one way

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: or the starting point is another. I wanna

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: offer that the part that was so The underspending proposal

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: was I need a clarification here. Okay. You are pulling back everything you put on the table? The weights.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Parts about the weights and no. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And the changed base and the weights.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Okay.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: I think I The underspending part also, I need a lot to catch up on that. What I heard from you all was maybe even not full agreement on what that proposal should be.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Oh, do you mean the default in particular?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Yes, the default, the default tax rate, whether it's gonna cover itself.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: If the default gets 100%, that's fine.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Okay.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: In the instance of a failed vote.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: They can't vote on anything. They can't percentage of the other 100. It's gonna happen. Only which are the population is the communities that want to.

[Sen. Jane Kitchel (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: And then we're going to put a simple ladder.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: And have you I don't want to put more pressure on staff in an ever changing environment. But have you had an opportunity to have it modeled whether or not on a district by district basis, this would actually cover the costs needed in the education fund if districts underspend? The answer it's not something that can

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: be modeled because we don't know which districts may or may not. We do know that if every district

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Yeah, of course, with every district that it would work. Yes, And I understand

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: we pretty much know that the districts that have lower income, lower property, wealth tend to vote for

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: That's actually not that's one of the things that's most striking to me about all of this. That's not strangely true.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: I would disagree with you.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Okay, I feel like we've said that research together a number of times. Okay.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: I'm pretty comfortable that if everybody did, it would be 113,000,000 to the good that

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Sure, but not everyone will do it.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: No, but I don't think that it would change it from a positive measure.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Okay. I'm bending over backwards to make sure the administration understands that what we're doing is not gonna cost more than current law.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Appreciate that.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: Great. Thank you. And so just the fact that you're saying that you feel confident about this is not enough spreadsheeting for me. And we've been I know we don't know what the districts are. We've been working in some cases with sample districts. In places where we can't work with sample districts, I think we're saying, let's study this because we have a few years in front of us. And make sure that the math works so that we don't wind up with a failed education fund.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: That several factors go up here. We need to reassure the third party not at this table, but we also have caucus members who are to think, whose towns have seen that spreadsheet that says if we put these base and weights in place you're gonna see Do a 30% tax increase. Nobody wants to go home and have their friends and neighbors screaming, what are you doing? And we've got the other group that are seeing a 20% spending decrease and all of which is totally, no one's proposing doing that, it's irrelevant. But that doesn't solve the problem. But I think some people in the caucus are looking for saying, see, we've given you this out. I would feel more comfortable waiting. To work on it next year. Yeah, but A, we have to get the votes to get this bill out of here this year, and B, we have to go home and be able to talk to people. And I I think that's the balance. We're in here with our charts and our graphs Yep. And our blinkers on. But either tomorrow or Monday or Tuesday, we're gonna be out there with them, and we're going to have to be able to explain either we're dealing with this or this is how we intend to deal with this, or there's no way any one of us is pulling the trigger on this if we're gonna see, you know, financially strapped communities see a 30% increase in their taxes. I appreciate that.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: I'm concerned that passing a completely unvetted proposal will also cause significant damage to people's property tax rates and trust in government and schools. And I'm concerned that also continuing to talk about the scale of the tax rate changes in dramatic terms is going to further exacerbate that fear when we are doing a great deal within the bill to mitigate that. And so I want us to be very careful about that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I just need to add that I think you're absolutely right. We need to go out and be able to talk to people tomorrow. I can't even tell my colleagues what the implications of this are and what it means. Mean, it's so far outside the, this would be the calculation of tuition all of what is in here and the ballot and what the voting means and all of that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: That's what we're here to deal with.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Yes. We've got a 147 other people who are gonna need to understand this.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Oh, I only have, what do I have, 27.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Yes, I'll tell you, we are the waning out, this is a significant proposal that we would normally take several weeks of testimony on, and we're receiving it at the eleventh hour. It was not in either of our proposals. So that's sort of, I would say, a major challenge. And I would echo what Emily said, is that I'm not saying that these aren't problems that are worthy of a very close look. I'm just saying that an unvetted, un sort of mapped out proposal at the eleventh hour like this is not something that I think anybody can be terribly comfortable So what do we do?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: I think I would like to go do some math and some thinking.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: If we can do the same. Okay. Who gets jewelry?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I'm concerned that we have basic process question. It's the problem. In that, this is big, it is untested, we've had no expert. Just chuck that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: How do we

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Are you proposing that? The

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: question is, how can we give reassurance to all of those people and get enough votes to get this out, how do we what answer do we have when they waive that piece of paper and say, my taxes are going up 30%?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Do you believe passing this tonight is the right answer?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I don't know if that is the right answer. That was fifteen minute at lunch's attempt to come up with an answer.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Let me dig into it. I mean, the reason we're here is because I think we all know this. This is a bill that came up. It was a it it was a Democratic caucus bill in the house. It was a Democratic caucus bill in the the senate. Okay? Well,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: it was not vetted in the senate. It wasn't

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Well, I know. But it means it wasn't a bipartisan bill. Right. And now you've got a situation where you're probably gonna need votes from both party, and you're gonna need you're gonna need a governor who's from the same party as the the people that were not able to vote for this bill when it went through the the the house

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: administration bill include anything like this.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: And and so so here we are. You know, we had a we had a bill that was one caucus all the way through, and now we've got it squared up with both caucuses and a Republican governor. So I guess let's dig in. I mean, if you need help from JFO to understand it, just take the time to eat.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: I don't think there's any universe where understanding a change of this scale is gonna happen in an hour. I think that the problem that you are looking to solve is worthy of deep exploration and it's worthy of other solutions. And I wonder if you could find a way to solve that problem within the confines of the bill. I think there are significant opportunities for that. And so I'm not since it's the problem you brought to the table, I'm not necessarily interested in being the only one trying to solve it. So I'd ask you all during the break to think of other ways to solve it that are less dramatic than this.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I think that it is a problem.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: No, I think it's a problem.

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Absolutely a problem.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: 100% a problem. So that's why And I think there's a lot in this bill that helps solve it. And I think we could add more and more.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Yes, sorry. You're saying that it is if this bill does not seek to solve the problem that the way a foundation formula works is some people are, it's gonna be balanced and leveled, and some win, some lose. That is why there is proposal in here for a homestead exemption as why there is a proposal that you made that we agree with to phase things in.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: But we have not seen that the homestead exemption, what its impact will be. We know who the low spending towns are. We know who the financially challenged towns are. We just haven't had a chance to see that that homestead exemption will help them. Will it

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Okay. Maybe that's something we could look at after a break. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I need to go back to this concept of continuing to charge tuition in a world where the districts themselves that would be paying that tuition aren't receiving that amount of money. Your proposal, you didn't give us any paperwork, but you said what we'd like to do is have the academies and and all independent schools continue to be able to charge tuition. Current law. Let's go to current law. All I'm asking is is that in the future world where we have moved to a foundation formula, does that does that come to an end?

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Well, I think I think what we're waiting to see, I think right now what we're seeing, at least what's passed through the house, what's passed through the senate, is a set of weights that is geared towards a k through 12 district, a k through 12 system where money is fungible, whether it's secondary or CT or anything else. K? But our receiving schools are not K through 12 districts. They educate a certain grade. They might have a special CTE, for example. And so the basis and weights that are set up for K through 12 districts where money is fungible, wherever the money needs to go in the district, don't work for, schools that are grade specific or mission specific. Right? And so what we need to see is a set of weights that are not K through 12, but are actually a little more surgical than that.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: And Senator Beck, I don't wanna argue with you about this because I think we just have a difference of opinion about how the math works. But I just wanna say this in order to sort of correct the house record, that it was not designed as a system where the money is fungible. It was developed because there was no evidence that educating high school students was more expensive than educating primary school students. That is possibly because high school happens at a greater scale than elementary school. I don't know the exact reasons for it. I have not been able to do the research myself. But that is why those weights are set up that way, not because money is fungible. I think we should take a break. Let's go to the spot. Whoever

[Rep. Scott Beck (R–Caledonia)]: Yes. Okay. And they could have just gone over to AOE and looked at the data.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Sure. I

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways & Means)]: mean, the administration also did not propose a high school weight with their data. So Let's come