Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unknown Senate conferee/co-chair]: Okay. It's June 12. This is the House I'm I'm sorry. The House Senate conference gave you on age four fifty four. We're back after a break. And we have in front of us something that the House has proposed or is proposing or to section of the bill.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So we'll have legislative council walk through this. I think what we are trying to do is address your concerns that It seems that what you are looking for is essentially a guarantee today that independent schools will get what they need as they see it.

[Unknown Senate conferee/co-chair]: Receiving schools. What's that? Receiving schools.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, topic before was about whether the independent schools would get what they need. I don't think receiving schools have come before us, if they are public schools, and said that they have asked for the same thing. And I think about sort of all the constituencies that we have heard from, that would like guarantees as well. Small schools, rural schools would like guarantees that the new world we're moving into isn't going to disrupt them or lead to the closure of small schools. Large districts that are at scale would like to know that, hey, we are already where we all should be. We'd like to know that we're not gonna be disrupted. We've got people out there who want guarantees that the future world is not gonna lead to an increase in the use of tuitioning to independent schools. I'm from Addison County. If you take Addison County as a whole, if it were its own district, we are going to be the financial loser in this, the biggest one in the state in terms of the amount of financing coming. I'd like to go back to my district, my county, and be able to say, I can guarantee you that you won't be disrupted by this. Everybody wants that. But we are only in year one of what is a multi year process. And all these other constituencies are sort of willing to say, okay, we know we're gonna be part of a bigger thing. We're gonna have to watch what the legislature does, the process, and assume that they will work diligently to protect the ability of all students to receive an equitable, high quality education. So that is essentially the basis of this, is to provide you with some more assurance that secondary weights will be looked at, they'll be taken seriously, and that's what's in there. But we would all like guarantees that nothing's gonna change and that we'll still have lower taxes. But the guarantees are only there in the faith we have that the work's gonna get done next year and the year after. And it's hard, it's gonna be hard, challenging, highly technical work, but it's gonna have to be part of this major transformation process. I think maybe with that, probably have legislative council walk through the language that we have here in front of

[Unknown Senate conferee/co-chair]: us. The only thing I'll say, just to say we don't agree with that framing. I think what we're talking about is default, not guarantee. But we can I guess that's semantics? But from us, we never thought that this is a guarantee. And I think and also we I I would say don't agree with that framing. But it is true that we're looking for a default that would fund and with the assumption that things will likely change as we go through those process. But that's anyway, that's yours. That's ours.

[St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I bet.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. Do you mind walking us through the lane, which would that'd be great.

[St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. I'm gonna share my screen. So the proposal here is a change to section 27, which is an amendment to section eight twenty three in title 16, which is currently in the elementary tuition section. But both the version passed by the House and the version passed by the Senate amended this statute to just be the tuition section for all grades. And the language on lines six through nine remains unchanged, which is essentially the money follows the student for tuition, the base and weights. The change comes in subsection B. We're going to keep subsection B. We're going to get rid of all the current law and we're going to add some new language, which reads, In addition to the tuition amount calculated in subsection A, a receiving school may charge and a sending school shall be required to pay an additional fee in the amount of the product of the base amount and up to 0.05 for each student attending the receiving school in grades nine through 12, only if all of the following conditions are met. First condition is that the receiving school is either an approved independent school functioning as an area career technical center or an approved independent school meeting education quality standards. The second condition is that the receiving school has received approval from the State Board of Education to charge the additional fee. And the approval would be granted in accordance with rules adopted by the State Board. And the third condition is that the electorate of each school district, with at least one student attending the receiving school, has approved supplemental district spending for the purpose of this subsection and an amount sufficient to cover the additional fee authorized under this subsection. A receiving school that elects and is eligible to charge an additional fee pursuant to subsection B is required to charge the same additional fee for each student attending on a publicly funded tuition basis pursuant to chapter 21. A receiving school is prohibited from charging different fees pursuant to this section to different school districts. The repeals language remains the same. There's a new section added to require the State Board of Education to make rules related to the approval process for a receiving school to charge an additional fee, and those rules shall require a receiving school to demonstrate that an additional fee is necessary to educate the specific students the fee is being applied to, and that the fee would be used to educate such students and not used to shift costs elsewhere within the applicable schools budget. This language, the state board language, would take effect on passage. So this would require them to get to work and have rules adopted on or before 07/01/2027. But in section 27, subsection A, which is the tuition language that remains unchanged, the money follows the student, this language would take effect contingently along with all of the other foundation formula language. So school districts are operational, new school districts. General Assembly has received the Section 45A report and has had an opportunity to enact legislation. Subsection B, the new language with their requirements necessary to be eligible to charge the fee, would take effect on 07/01/2028 with the following contingencies. New school districts would be operational. The Cost Factor Foundation Formula report required pursuant to section 45A contains evidence that it costs more to educate students in Goals nine through 12, but the General Assembly has failed to enact legislation to add a secondary student weight. And that's it. So what we're trying

[Unknown House conferee]: to get thank you very much. Mhmm. What we're trying to get at here

[St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do want me to leave or stay?

[Unknown House conferee]: Are you gonna have technical questions for okay. I wanna her the contingency stuff was complicated enough that we thought it would be helpful explained. But thank you very much for Understand your problem that you're trying to solve about trust. And I think Peter spoke to that question. Understanding that there's concerns about consultants and consultant choices, I'm happy to increase the appropriation to JFO for the consultant, and if that would ease any concerns about sort of a wider range of consultants that might be brought on. And with this language, what we're trying to do is say, to make sure that we have sort of a level playing field across the board. We're all in on this bill with all of our different pieces that we feel nervous about, different pieces that we trust, different stakeholders we trust and don't trust. And we're all here because we want all of our kids to have a real chance at a quality education. And an important part of that is to keep tax rates low. We're doing that with scale. And to make sure that all of our kids have the same opportunities. And we're doing that with scale. And we're doing that by setting sort of a level playing field for rules and for how much money is available. With the supplemental district spending that we have in the bill already in a fully operating district, a high school, that district could vote to increase supplemental district spending to spend more money on that high school if they so choose. This extends that mechanism for independent schools as well. But we want to make sure that whatever we're voting on as a final bill continues to really affirm those values of equity across the full system, equal opportunity for kids, quality education for kids, and that we're doing everything we can to make sure that taxpayers are better off on the other side of this as well. That it's like for all Vermont families, right? The older Vermonters that are in their homes and have been for a long time, for the new Vermonters that are moving here with their kids and want every chance to have a great education for those kids and for all the rest of us in the middle, right? We have, with this, as far as we can and still have the support of our caucus. And we need the support of our caucus to get this bill, to get this all done so that we have what we need to do this work and so that Vermonters can be better off on the other side of this. So this was a earnest attempt after many earnest attempts at trying to help solve the problems that are all in front of us right here. And I think it's really absolutely as far as we can go with this stuff. So wanna sort of leave it at that, I guess. And also make sure that in whatever reflections you're doing after this, please don't lose track of those, like, few sentences with the default tax rate in the bill that I feel like we haven't discussed, and I just don't want to be the only person thinking about. So I just wanna make sure that you remember that's in there. If you consent to it, great. But just wanna make sure we don't lose it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Did I answer anything? I don't think so. I don't think that was well said. If you have questions, questions. If you wanna set a new time to come back, we can come back. Do you wanna just play it by ear? We can play it by ear.

[Unknown Senate conferee/co-chair]: I think 04:00 would be great. Four? I'll play four soon.