Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: You're live.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: This is House Education, 02/18/2026. We are discussing H eight zero two.

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: Excuse me. It

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: should adds an inflator to the census block grant for special education. I think it might just be helpful to very quickly have legislative council walk through this for us.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Good. Good morning. So good afternoon, everyone. John Gray, officer of LadderSetive Council. I'm going to screen share for you. Get the size right. That's pretty close.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: That's good. Yeah.

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: All right. It's pretty good. All right. Well done.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you for your H-eight02, this looks way more complicated than it is, but this is just adding an inflator for fiscal years '27 and onward, which had not been provided under section two thousand nine sixty one of title 16. First changes you see on the first page are just stylistic cleanup, this is not substantive, it's just conforming to modern usage in our drafting manual. The real piece that you're going to see here is on page two, which is updating the uniform base amount, which is a per pupil figure effectively under which the census block grants are calculated by multiplying by an excuse long term membership, but as you can see, if you look through the full of the uniform base amount definition, it has all kinds of transitionary measures. It was calculated in different ways at different times. I can walk through the whole of it if you're interested, but the basic thing is that you calculate an amount by dividing the average state appropriation for fiscal years 2018, 'nineteen and 'twenty for special education under these specified sections. So that's standard mainstream block grants, special education expenditures reimbursement and exceptional circumstances. And then we're adjusting those for inflation, and we have a specific manipulator that we're using. The language that you see struck out at the bottom of this page applied different inflators for different fiscal years. So for fiscal years '21, '22 and '23, it referenced NIPA. I will say that technically, if you followed the language exactly as currently as written there, it would not produce, I think, the intended effect because the annual change in NIPA, you're actually trying to get the change from '20 to '23, but it doesn't matter now that this language is struck. And then we have a different inflator or a different method of capturing the same concern for fiscal years '24, '25, and '26. This is on line 17. It just used an average inflation factor for those preceding three years, which had been inflated on the basis of NIFA. So you have different kinds of growth happening under these structures, and I think of these as transitionary measures effectively to get you to FY '27. So the real thing that you end up with just scrolling up and down back and forth, the uniform base amount is that amount determined by dividing that average state appropriation for FY '18 through '20 as adjusted for inflation by the statewide long term membership. So that takes a statewide appropriation, divided by statewide long term membership, and you can think of that as giving you a per pupil effectively figure. The specific inflator that is added here starts at the bottom of page two, and it's on like 20 adjusted for inflation means adjusting that uniform base amount by NIPA, and it's the standard title 16 inflator that we often reference, that implicit price deflator for state and local government consumption expenditures from FY '20, which if you think about it, is when that state appropriation would have been right. You're taking the average state appropriation for f y's '18 through '20, so you wanna inflate from that point to the fiscal year in which you're determining the amount. So that's what you see at the top of page three. Inflator is the adjustment from f y twenty through the fiscal year for which the amount is being determined, and then just to ensure that you get a whole dollar figure round upward to the nearest whole dollar amount. There's also a bunch of cleanup throughout the remainder of the section. You can see at the bottom of page three a specified amount for the census grant for fiscal year '23. Because we passed that year, there's no need to maintain this in statute. And you can see, and this is why I described these as transitionary measures, on page four, starting on line 13, it was contemplated that for fiscal year twenty seven and thereafter, the amount of the census grant for a supervisory union would be that uniform base amount multiplied by the supervisory union's long term membership, and now that uniform base amount is going to build in the inflator that you've just added, that inflator. And we basically just struck any of the temporary transitional measures in the language. I know that we sometimes do this so that people can look at the grade books and see what is happening across these given years. Whenever I am asked to draft something like the statute is currently drafted, I would propose putting these sorts of transitionary things in session law, in part so that when you look at the section, can see the logic behind it, what it's trying to get to, but sometimes there's a benefit to having these things codified. So the rest is really just cleanup. It's eliminating the off determinations for given fiscal years. So bottom of that page four, you see a specific determination for FY '24 through '26, and it has this idea of moving gradually their base amount to the FY '27 uniform base amount, but you didn't have a '27 inflator. Now you do have a perpetual inflator. That's what this adds. Takes effect 07/01/2026. So I hope I didn't overcomplicate something that's actually simple, but that's the explanation of the drafting, and I'm happy to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: answer your questions. So the overcomplication does present Why didn't this just simply say the total of the census block grant times the inflator, or one time?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Didn't think As

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: opposed to what is written on the bottom of page two and on to page three, when it says adjusted for inflation means, and we're back to using uniform base amount. So

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I think there is a policy question here as to what was intended at the time this was formed, whether it was thought that you would create a static figure or a figure that grows over time. I don't know if the if the legislature was taking a position on whether the figure should grow or not over time. You could make an argument that it was inflating for a given period, transitioning to f y twenty seven, and then saying, that's the amount you've got. That's it. And and you're just gonna receive a census block grant on that basis. I don't know if that was the intent or not, but this is capturing the FY '27 onward. The thing that has always been, I think, the concept is the core, which is on page four, the determination of your census grant block is what you see on lines 13 through 14. It was contemplated that in perpetuity, so FY '27 and subsequent fiscal years, no cutoff right forever afterward. The amount of the census grant shall be that uniform base amount multiplied by your long term membership. So I think that was always thought of as what you're trying to achieve, and then the question is what is the input for that uniform base amount? And if you didn't make an inflator change up here, it reads sort of nonsensically in a way. It says the uniform base amount is this total appropriation, this average state appropriation increased by, and then we only describe the factors by which it's increased for this period '21 through '26. So you could say it's not entirely nonsense, it would just mean nothing from FY '27 onward. It wouldn't increase by anything, which would have to me unintuitive consequence of producing a uniform base amount that is lower in FY '27 onward. So that's a long way of saying, if you didn't make this change.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think for me it was more of a terminology question where I was sort of conflating uniform base amount with census block grant, but the census block grant is the uniform base amount times-

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly, the uniform base amount is a per pupil, that's the way to think about it. The census grant is reflective of your student count. So the census grant is an aggregate and the uniform base amount is the plugin that we use to determine your grant.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think the inflator, I was saying, oh, why not just put the inflator on the Census Block Grant number?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That clears the doubt for me. Thank you. Glad

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: to have misunderstood the question given a lengthier answer. Any other questions?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You will be listed as the reporter, if that's okay with you.

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: Unless someone else wants.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll do it.

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: No sucks, John.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Are people ready to vote? Okay, I'll just say that I have talked with who was for somebody very much in the know who also saw this as an oversight, that there was no reason that the inflator shouldn't have been there.

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: This is also a bit of speculation on my part. Nobody seems to really know how come this didn't get included. But I think it's a good idea that we have things at the end so that we can have check backs. I'm sort of seeing this as that in a way. We're now starting to look at this now with the foundation formula and all that, this will shift and change if we move forward in the manner in which we've got it all put in place. But in the meantime, I feel good about us doing this.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I think we're gonna get an inflator report as well from from JFO folks. My dream, as just the person who's drafting in this space, is it would be nice to have one definition in title 16 for a generic set of inflators. You wanna inflate for this purpose, you use this inflator. You wanna inflate for this one, use for this inflator. And you would basically just pull those in whenever you wanted a given amount to inflate, and it would just be so much easier to read the statutes. But that's the dream for me, which is not you guys' dream.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Pretty, well, I'm gonna say, it's not really an awe inspiring dream. Why? That's gonna be

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: my marriage world.

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: Those are

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: the kinds of privilege. All

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: right, well, if we're ready to vote, the court can call the roll.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: All right, so are we making a motion to fine us?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, we are making Go ahead.

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: I have no idea. What is it? Eight zero Make a motion that we

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Find eight zero two favor.

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted to say. Right.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Do want to

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: second on that?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: If you'd like to second it, we can note that record. Alright, if we're ready. Rhett Brady? Yes. Rhett Brown? Yes. Rhett Dobrovich? Yes. Rhett Harple? Yes. Rhett Hunter? Yes. Rhett Long? Yes. Beth McCann? Yes. Bret Morgan?

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Yes.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Bret Quimby? Yes. Bret Taylor?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: And Bret Conlon? Yes. All right, eleven-zero.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright, nothing but 11 from now

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Okay,

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: guess we're done for the day. Good, it's an MRI.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Great. Why don't we adjourn until two and we'll be back

[Unidentified Member or Staff]: here