Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Development, being presented by our own representative Brady. It's all yours.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Great. Let me first say that I have nothing against skiers, even though I had become a fair weather skier in my old age. I lived with a household full of diehard skiers. I appreciate very much the ski culture and economy in Vermont. The intention here in this bill that was a collaborative effort from some other legislators is to decouple elite athletic development and perhaps economic development from the public education fund and our education system. Specifically, the bill would set up a Vermont skier development fund to provide scholarships to 20 Vermont high school students from any community in the state, not just certain communities, as is the case today, with a $25,000 tuition scholarship for four years at one of the Vermont ski academies. This bill acknowledges that these schools play an important role in advancing Vermont's ski and boarding economy and brand and invites promising athletes from across Vermont to be equally able to take advantage of that opportunity. And further, this certainly would need some work, but there's a proposal that there may be a couple of seats reserved for adaptive skiers to underscore the growing inclusive brand of skiing in the Vermont ski and board economy. Given that this is really more about economic development. It would be run through ACCD, where they would evaluate the return on investment of the program and decide within five years whether or not it's meeting the benchmarks and whether or not to continue it. And by moving to a scholarship based system for 20 students from anywhere in Vermont, it would actually reduce education spending from currently about 1,900,000.0 out of the education fund that is going to ski academies to 500,000 for those scholarships, plus a small amount for ACCD administer it. I will note that the bill also proposes some conforming changes to the rules for independent schools. And again, this was a collaborative effort among several legislators. And while I fully support those and think those are really important things as all of education is sort of on the table here that we need to sort out, I think the more important part of this bill is about particularly ski academies and that funding and that perhaps the discussion around some of the rules for independent schools beyond ski academies we can have related to other bills that are on the law or county. I will note a couple of things that have long drawn my concern about this. And then it came up again in the redistricting task force. One is that this bill increases the likelihood that this is a benefit for any Vermonter, not just people declaring residency, perhaps in a second home for the purpose of accessing the tuition subsidies, which is potentially happening in pockets of the state. It requires that students would have gone through eighth grade in a Vermont public school or approved independent school in order to be eligible. And it acknowledges that under the current construct, ski academies are obviously extremely expensive elite institutions. And it requires quite a bit of additional funding from families for students to go anywhere from 30,000 or more on top of the publicly available tuition. So they're not necessarily currently truly available to, in addition, just geographically students, but to all Vermont families, given the extraordinary additional amount needed to pay for them. And a couple of things really drew my attention to it during listening to some of the public meetings of the redistricting task force. One, they identified at one point in lots of the data that I think they were really great at just bringing forward, that according to data from the AOE, it looks like as of 2024, none of the students enrolled in the ski academies were economically disadvantaged nor had an IEP, which is certainly not an average cross section of Vermont students. And then in particular, there was a meeting that's caught my attention when they were in Rutland for a public meeting. And they were talking about Barstow School District, which sends majority of its students to Rutland High School, but has been experiencing tuition hikes and tax spikes driven by an increase in tuition paid to private schools. And the chair of the board from Barstow actually testified before the task force or shared before the task force and noted that in the last five years, the district had paid 122 private school tuitions, only half for students who graduated from Bar Sow's eighth grade. And they were increasingly concerned that families were moving into the district in order to access school choice, including to ski academies that required a significant 20,000 or more topping off by families. And there was some, I think, really good discussion at the task force around how can we put some pretty common sense guardrails around some of the programs and institutions that have some real merit and long historical ties in Vermont, like the ski academies and the ski industry, but do it in a little bit more logical way so that we are not incentivizing people who might be moving out of state to essentially get a $25,000 coupon to a ski academy. Certainly, this in and of itself does not solve all of our Ed Fund problems and challenges. But I think the work of the task force to start to point to some of the strategic changes we need to make, this is one of a suite of them that I know we are discussing and considering. But one, I think that for economic reasons and for access reasons for students is probably long overdue. I think we can certainly discuss and debate the size of the scholarship, the number of students, the rules around it. These are just ideas created here in the bill, but those would certainly require some further discussion and consideration.

[Speaker 0]: Josh, go ahead. I have a

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: couple of questions, but first is probably a simple one. Page one, statement of purpose, line 13 says 21 students. Page two, line nine says 20 students. Sorry. So is it that's my bad. I got it wrong as we were talking. My apologies. Start off strong here. So question I was given that it's going to sunset in five years from when it starts. Right? You have you'll have freshmen, sophomores, juniors. What happens to them if they're in, like, year like, they start in year three, and now in two years, their scholarship is going to go away. What are they supposed to do without they no longer have that funding?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Well, think the sunset, as it's stated in the bill, the sunset is only there as a check back of review for ACCD. As this program ships and has more guardrails around it and a more careful scholarship program to see if this is viable, if the return on the investment is there, if it is truly encouraging the most promising athletes in Vermont and making this accessible to a range of Vermont students, that then we would get information back from ACCD in terms of whether or not to continue the program.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: But in the event of what

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: does it

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: continue, they just drop it. What do we do with those kids? Do they get to have a scholarship for the last couple of years, or are they just left out on the lurch?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I will defer any particular legal questions to alleged counsel. But I know that we have a pretty long history as we've made changes throughout the system to, for lack of a better phrase, so the grandfathering for students that as currently exists in the changes under independent schools in Act 73, students whose schools might have changed eligibility remain eligible through their high school career. So it's something we have quite a bit of precedent in doing here.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Mike, do want to comment, Brett?

[Speaker 0]: Well, let me just add to that comment. I think that we have been encouraged to use the tool of sunsets a little more frequently in legislation as a You real should evaluate this program, see if it should continue. And it's two actually really quick questions. Do you have any numbers on how many ski schools are we talking about? What's the enrollment?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: There are, I believe, four ski schools in or at least four. There may be five, but four that are still eligible under Act 73. And as of 2024, like 102, 103 students in the state that were students at those schools? Vermont students?

[Speaker 0]: I think you just answered that. Act 73 wouldn't take care of this whole problem. There would still be those four schools that would still follow. Well, guess sort of

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: my question too. Do we actually have a definition of what counts as a ski academy in Vermont to know what we're talking about? So you said how many? So that was one of my questions. And how many students are currently receiving public tuition? I am of course familiar with the one in my backyard that has 69 students attending yet, but I don't know how many of those 69 are receiving public tuition. Could do my own research.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Brady, can correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a lot of language in this bill about how we define what an independent school will approve for public dollars is, which would limit that further so that ski schools would no longer be part of it, hence the need for a scholarship program.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Right, so there's really two parts. There's the ski schools get no public tuition under this, And then there's other rules about all independent schools and what would happen with it. But specific to ski schools, I was wondering how many students we have in Vermont receiving public tuition for ski school. Think it's about a hundred and- twenty.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: As of 2020, I think the numbers I have are

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: twenty twenty. About four or five. That's great. Thank you. Rob?

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: Yeah, I guess

[Speaker 0]: I see what you're doing with the ski school, but when we get on page nine of 10, we start going down that we're strikethrough with supervisory unions. I believe it's going to hurt a lot of the schools that service a lot of kids. Right? So I guess that would be a huge concern. Yeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna pause that discussion because we have a whole other bill that that speaks directly to that. And maybe we can we'll take that deep dive either that built on separate board.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And I think there's interest in the committee to move forward on it that one, it will require some collaboration with the economic development, with the Commerce Committee, but also maybe we take just certain sections of it in order to keep our work on it incredibly narrow, we can decide on other bills on their merits on those.

[Speaker 0]: Let me do everything, and I'll get back to you. So Emily, and then Jana, and then Josh. So quickly,

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: jargon. I don't know whether

[Emily Long (Member)]: you have the answer or not.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: But do we

[Emily Long (Member)]: when I think about this, going back in my head to when my kids were in school and there was a child who was a good snowboarder and wouldn't get in. Does this seem like it's opening up an opportunity for Vermont students who don't have the financial resources to attend outside. That's what

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: it feels like to me. Really,

[Emily Long (Member)]: because my hip is in this one place with this one student, this is a real boost, it seems to me, than what we have currently in place today.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Obviously, these are really unique institutions and an important part of the Vermont economy and our tourism and our ski economy. But again, they're expensive endeavors. And so for a student to attend any of the ski academies on the top of the public tuition money that's following them, parents are paying somewhere between 20,000 and I believe about $37,000 additional per year, or families are, for students to attend. So this would take that piece away and say for these 20 students, they attending on this $25,000 scholarship by the state of Vermont, being seen clearly as some of our most promising young you know, snow sport athletes in Vermont. And regardless of that additional ability to pay, it certainly doesn't preclude, you know, families and kids who have a ton of promise and families have means to apply to and go to and pay, you know, to go to the ski academy. This is you know, that certainly exists. And I think, you know, there's just to me, this one is a there's, I know, a lot of challenging things around the independent school, history in Vermont. But in particular, these are ski academies. They are not your average academic sitting down for English for eighty four minutes and then math for eighty four minutes. They obviously provide diplomas and have educational programs. But these are very niche athletic, elite athletic programs. And I think we'd be better served to acknowledge that, treat them as such, keep them as part of our economy and culture, but not try to lump it with your general K-twelve education. You know, most kids are never gonna this is a very, very different type of education for a very different purpose, for extremely elite athletic competition, not just to get a high school diploma. Representative Brown?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I would say, even if we seek to drill into the most current data, think the fact that we're talking about 100 and change students and $1,900,000 at the Ed Fund tells a pretty compelling first glance story. So I appreciate that we're having the conversation.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: So, Dobrovich. Two questions, more so about the scholarship piece. Vermont Ski Academies, as far as my understanding, generally need based financial aid, not athletic scholarships currently. Wouldn't the institution of this scholarship plan, which doesn't make any consideration for an athlete's financial needs and the exclusion of ski academies from town tuitioning eligibility result in less equitable access for Vermont students? I mean, you're taking away something that's available to Vermont students currently, especially in that A

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: very small amount of Vermont students currently. You have to live in a tuition town.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: But still, you got Stratton Mountain, right? Stratton Mountain School. So if you don't tuition those kids, they're going to go to Burntboro. So that's going to be their next closest school. Why not give them that opportunity to go to that school in their area? And some of them in one of our most elite snowboarders came from the means of nothing and went to Stratton Academy. And it was because they prioritized need based. And this scholarship seems to just be based on your athletic prowess. And we're going to limit the access to kids going there, not expand it. Think we should expand options to everybody, not take away.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I think the program limits options tremendously. If an incredibly promising skier lives in Richmond, need based or not, there's not going to be 20,000 of Vermont public education dollars following that skier there. So we already have, I would say, a very imperfect way. It's very geography based. And again, I this came to my attention again in listening to the task force testimony and hearing superintendents and districts saying we are seeing families move in from out of state or establish a second home in order to avail themselves of Vermont's public education tax dollars, 20,000 coupon to the ski academy when they can purchase a second home. That, to me, says there was a good conversation at the task force about, wow, there has to be a better, more precise way to do this so that we aren't taking a few communities and hyper incentivizing potentially families with a lot of means, again, fully able to avail themselves of it should they choose, but not to use the Vermont Public Education Fund towards those schools.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: How did you arrive at the number of 20 scholarships? Is there a specific reason it's up to 20? Yeah, I think that's somewhat arbitrary.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I think to representative Brown's point, it's like, how much do we want to invest of what in what in education? So how much do we wanna spend on early college, on pre k, on universal meals, on, you know, kids going to ski academies? So here's a starting Volley, a half million dollars, dollars 500,000. That's a pretty substantial amount in economic development terms. Maybe that's not the right number, the right amount. There are other states, I believe, Montana, that do some similar things in terms of this as economic development tools, the elite training and niche things that a state might have and supports young people. But it doesn't happen through their education fund. It happens through an economic development means. And that was some of the early impetus of this as well. But I think certainly that is something worth discussing, investigating. I don't know much about how many applicants there are in a given year or what the pool of who's even qualified to attend on the athletic merits of these schools. Yeah, sure. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Just to be clear, this would be the way it's written, 20 students total, basically five per year, as opposed to 20 per year.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: No, it's 20 per year, up to 20 per year.

[Speaker 0]: Right, but everybody gets an award for four years, so therefore you would never have more than 20 receiving the scholarship per year.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: If 20, you're saying if

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: 20 got it in the

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: first year, nobody's getting one the next year.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Right, right. It's

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: 20 total, not 20 per year. Okay. I guess that's a nuance. Didn't notice. Interesting.

[Speaker 0]: 25 apiece.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I I think the better way to, you know, come at this, if we're talking about the dollars, is to think about how much do we want to invest in a state and ski academies, and where do we want to invest money from in ski academies? Is that education fund dollars? Are those general fund dollars? What purpose are they serving?

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Thanks. We'll do the we'll do the the walk through now.

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: James, office of legislative council.

[Speaker 0]: So as you proceed through this, we'll stick to the sort of narrow areas that representative Brady stuck to without going into the long term definitions.

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: Got it. So we're gonna walk through H777 as introduced, which is entitled an act relating to the Vermont Sphere Development Scholarship Fund and Scholarship Program. So this bill proposes, I'm on page two, to add brand new subchapter to your scholarships chapter. Again, I think this language could live in a couple of different places, but I try and think about, I'm trying to find language, where am I going to look? And if there's a scholarship chapter and I'm looking for scholarship language, I'm probably going to start there first. We can put this, if you choose to take this bill up, the language can pretty much live wherever you'd like it to live. So Vermont Skier Development Fund is the name of the subchapter. And the first section in that subchapter would be 2,008 and 71 Vermont Skier Development Scholarship Fund and Scholarship Program. So the way this is drafted is introduced is the scholarship fund and the scholarship program itself are all in one statute. And it begins in subsection A by creating a special fund to be known as the Vermont Skier Development Scholarship Fund, which shall be used for the purpose of funding scholarships for up to 20 sponsored Vermont skiers and snowboarders to attend eligible Vermont ski academies. And then some of this is standard language that we speak in all of our special funds. For example, the fund shall be established and held separate and apart from any other funds or monies of the state and shall be used and administered exclusively for the purposes of this section. And then the monies are invested as permitted for the investment of funds belonging to the state or held in the treasury. And then the fund consists of sales and use tax and the amount specified in 32 VSA 97.14, and we'll get there. Such sums as may be appropriated or transferred thereto from the General Assembly, the State Emergency Board, the Joint Fiscal Committee during such times as the General Assembly is not in session. All interest earned from the investment of fund balances and any other money from any other source. The fund would be administered by Agency of Commerce and Community Development, ACCD. And the Agency of Commerce and Community Development has to administer the awards to comply with tax provisions. And that's the special fund. So the special fund is created. And then subsection B is the scholarship program itself. So ACCD shall establish a scholarship program to facilitate the payment of scholarships from the special fund to Vermont ski academies on behalf of 20 sponsored Vermont skiers and snowboarders accepted for enrollment in the eligible ski academy of their choice. Eligibility requirements for scholarship recipients. They have to have completed eighth grade in either a Vermont public school or an approved independent school to which the student's district of residence paid tuition on the student's behalf. So, basically, have to be a publicly funded student. They have to be enrolled in grades nine, ten, 11 or 12, so the scholarship is only for high schoolers. And then we're going get into a bunch of language regarding retaining the scholarship that is, in my opinion, as your education policy attorney, way outside of my wheelhouse, I am not a skier. So if I have gotten things wrong or I've phrased things oddly, please forgive me. If you choose to take up this bill, this would be a great area to spend some time honing it.

[Speaker 0]: Was the language that you're about to go through based on examples elsewhere? Nope.

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: Gee, that would have been a good place. So in order to retain a scholarship in subsequent years, you have to meet certain criteria. There has to be evidence of athletic And so for the sake of time, I'm just gonna go high level here. So there has to be evidence of athletic progress, then there's criteria to demonstrate athletic progress. Satisfactory academic progress, attendance compliance and code of conduct adherence, compliance with injury reporting and return to support protocols, and Vermont engagement, and then criteria for what Vermont engagement can be demonstrated through. So that's to maintain the scholarship. The ski academies, there's no definition necessarily of ski academy, but these are the school order to use your scholarship somewhere, the school has to meet the following criteria. They have to provide student support and equity, and then there are descriptions of what that specifically needs to be. I'm on page five now. There has to be transparency and financial accountability, including audited tuition and fee schedules. There needs to be academic integrity. And again, that is spelled out with some concepts that are included in academic integrity. There needs to be athletic program quality, and then again, criteria for what that means, data sharing and evaluation, and again, criteria for what that means. So you've got eligibility for the scholarship in general, eligibility to maintain the scholarship, and then Ski Academy school eligibility. ACCD, so I'm at the very bottom of page five, ACCD shall adopt rules to define selection prioritization criteria and requirements in accordance with a subdivision. And the rules shall use the following criteria to evaluate selection prioritization. This is giving very specific guidance on what these rules need to include, which is always a good idea when you were delegating your authority and through rulemaking. Just wanted to highlight that. So athletic performance and trajectory, again, criteria under that on how to evaluate athletic performance trajectory. Vermont connection and public return, which shall include demonstrated commitment to compete under Vermont affiliation or contribute to Vermont ski academy. Commitment, coachability and durability, which shall include an analysis of a potential recipient's attendance and training consistency, coach evaluation, standardized rubrics, injury resilience plan, and academic readiness, which shall be demonstrated by evidence that a potential recipient can meet academic requirements with support and a clear plan to address learning differences. I'm on page seven now. The agency, again, we're talking about ACCD here, not AOE, shall administer the scholarship program as follows. Program funds up to 20 scholarships to Vermont Ski Academies for sponsored Vermont skiers and snowboarders accepted for enrollment in the eligible ski academy of their choice. The agency can use up to $25,000 for administrative costs and marketing. And to ensure support for competitive adaptive skiers, they must prioritize the award of up to three scholarships to Vermont adaptive skiers. Thank you, May. And page seven, sorry. I think I said I was on seven before, clearly was six. Page seven, line 10, subsection C requires an annual report back to you all, and then I'll let the criteria for the report back speak for itself in the interest of time, which brings us to section two. So section two is an amendment to Section two for the statute that requires school districts to maintain a high school or pay tuition. You can see basically the entire statute remains current law. That's what those asterisks represent. And you're just adding on the very top of page nine, a new subsection D to say that a school board is prohibited from paying tuition under the town tuition program to a Vermont ski academy. Secondary students interested in attending a Vermont ski academy can apply for a scholarship through the Skier Development Scholarship Program that we just walked through. Section three is amending the statute that governs the amount of high school tuition that is paid. And again, this is just language to kind of keep everything one stop shopping. If you were just looking up how much high school tuition is, you would see that a school board is prohibited from paying tuition under this section through a remote ski academy. You wouldn't have to go to section eight twenty two to see that. And then section four makes a similar amendment to section eight twenty eight that under the town tuition program, an approved independent school is one that is other than a Vermont ski academy. And then do you want me to go on to section five?

[Speaker 0]: Yes. Okay. We're curious about section five.

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: Section five is where we're getting the money. Notwithstanding So 16 DSA 4,025, 4,025 is your Ed Fund statute. And if you take money out of the Ed Fund for something other than one of the enumerated uses, you repeal the property tax. We're going to not withstand that because we don't want to repeal the property tax. $525,000 in revenue from the sales and use tax imposed by chapter two thirty three of title 32, which is the tax title, will be deposited annually into the Skier Development Scholarship Fund established pursuant to 16 BSA 2,871, which is what we began walking through. So this is saying the sales and use tax that goes to the Ed Fund, out of that, dollars 5 and 25,000 will be taken annually and go into the Skier Development Scholarship Fund. Dollars 5 and 25,000 is 20 scholarships and $25,000 a pop, plus 25,000 for administrative costs. That's how you get to 525,000. And then there's some information about inflation. Section six is the perspective repeal of everything basically related to the SkiEr Development Scholarship funded program. And it is exactly as your chair, I believe it was your chair suggested, in order to force you all to look back on whether or not you wanna keep this program going, we're gonna repeal it. So you have to take action if you wanna keep it going. This is a pretty standard process. Sometimes we call them pilot programs. Sometimes we do it like the school construction advisory board. We sunset that in ten years so that it's a it's a kind of forcing you all to look at it and make sure it's still working. But that's all this is. It's totally a policy choice. And then section seven is that initial transfer. So once this act takes effect, section five will be an automatic transfer of money from sales and use tax to the Skier Development Fund every year. And we're gonna start we're gonna trigger that transfer on 07/15/2026 for the first time. And then the effective date would be 07/01/2026.

[Speaker 0]: I had a question for the sponsor of the bill, if you wouldn't mind. The funding for this coming out of the Ed Fund as opposed to the appropriation out of the general fund or whatever, we should talk a little bit about that.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Out of sales and use?

[Speaker 0]: Yes, which is the equipment that are coming out of the Ed Fund.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Well, don't know all 100% of sales and use

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: is now on the iPhone? No, sales and use.

[Speaker 0]: Purchase and

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: Purchase

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: and

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: use, yeah.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Not sure I understood your question.

[Speaker 0]: So my question is basically, you can pick up a photo. This is sales tax, is that correct? That is

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: how I distracted, yes.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, so therefore if you take a half million dollars sales tax, that's half million dollars out of the Ed Fund, that would normally be going into the Ed Fund. I think that's what I was curious about, whether it was your intention to fund this scholarship program out of the Ed Fund, period.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: No, but again, I'm not sure.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I'm understanding, it's diverting it before it gets to the head fund because it's a property tax repeal, but it is money that would otherwise have ended up there. Correct. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Six or one half dozen, brother?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Well, the legal mechanics are important, but yeah, probably.

[Speaker 0]: It's funny they wouldn't otherwise be available to the Ag Fund.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: I I just really

[Speaker 0]: I I would because I was I was in my mind, referred to it as there's purchase and use and then sales tax. And purchase and use is in fact,

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: Ignore There's contingencies everywhere, thanks to Act 73. I would point out if something we are discussing is not actually law. But for the purposes of this discussion, Act 73 has not amended anything. So 25% of meals and rooms tax goes to the Ed Fund, one third of purchase and use tax, and all of sales and use tax. Thank

[Speaker 0]: you. Great. Josh?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Still have

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: a few questions. We didn't go over section four, but it's in there, I have some questions.

[Speaker 0]: That's fine. Actually thought section four was a little longer than this. So

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: in age 77, would this bill make all independent schools that don't follow educational quality standards under the public school rules ineligible for tuition? Does that mean that this bill makes schools like Bournemouth and St. Jay Academy and Linden Institute, which follow independent rule series 2,200, ineligible for public tuition as of 07/01/2026.

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: I have no idea which schools meet these criteria, so I can't speak to what schools would

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: be eligible for. Those $3 is why I'm asking for those in specific. So given that, should they not, and they don't have any interest in filing EQS, they would be ineligible under this bill. How would the students served by these schools who have no public options available to them receive an education the next school year?

[James (Legislative Counsel)]: This bill does not address that.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Unfortunate. That

[Speaker 0]: was a nice way of saying that's for you all to figure out.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: My question would be for the presenter. Did you guys contemplate that when you had that section right?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Again, this was a collaboration across several legislators. And I think that we should just focus on the ski piece as in terms of talking about ski schools. And I also do believe that this company needs to have a broader discussion around where we set our dollars and what the rules are.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: And so I think as part

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: of our work going forward and figuring out if we're going to how we're going to implement Act 73, the question about same dollars, same rules still remains.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: So my only concern is that this is in here, and based on the name and the statement of purpose, it doesn't feel like that's transparent. Because if that's based on the name and the statement of purpose, I would assume that wouldn't be in there. So I feel like that, you know, it wasn't as transparent those pieces weren't as transparent about what the bill really has in it as it could be.

[Speaker 0]: And these are all, you know, things that should be taken back That's for you to. So

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: mine is specific to the eligible ski academies, which is on page four, line 17. The eligible ski academies to receive these scholarship dollars must meet a certain set of criteria. Again, you could do my own research, but I don't know if you do. So if we have about four or five ski academies currently, do any of those four or five currently meet these requirements of having special licensed special do we know, or do we need to research that?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: These I mean, the criteria would need fleshing out for rulemaking, so it's not that these, like, automatically become the criteria exactly the alignment between what things they would need or whether these are even the right criteria, I think would be up to us to decide and drill down further. This is not. Mean, working with Beth on this and there were hundreds of requests in December, one of my directions was, let's get the concept and the skeleton here of the intention is to move to all Vermont students being eligible, to being truly Vermont students and not families moving in, and to trying to avoid for at least the Vermont funded students, the need to top off 20,000 or $30,000 There's a lot of detail on this that we could have asked far more hours of her time. But really wanted to get the concept in front of the committee to consider whether we flesh out all of those details. But before asking Beth to do like thirty hours of work on the concept. Yeah, so completely fair questions. Yes, I understand that. We'll have to figure This is not a fully baked, ready to go product, but I think it's an important concept in conversation in the basket of education transformation. And so that gives us at least a big starting point. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: I sort of look at the section that you brought up, representing Quimby, as more of a checklist of things that we should consider. Alright, we are going to pause. We're gonna take seven minutes. So let's get back at 02:35 and we're gonna get a refresher and kinda walk through of what we have for in the. See, miss Leanne said, Bill, is your timing okay?