Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Welcome to House Education, Thursday, February 19. After a long morning with action on the floor and meetings throughout lunch, we are back having committee discussion. Just a few updates not related to the topic at hand. The budget letter, we are probably gonna be a little late on. There are a few things sort of behind the scenes I need to get some answers on. And then I just wanted to make sure one of the topics we talked about was AOE continuing to be the sponsoring agency for the CACFP thing. So that's what I did realize that what they also say is not just continue to get sponsored, but continue to fund it. There's no funding for it in the governor's request.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Didn't realize that was the case.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So it was funded last year by appropriations. And then so it was funded by in the legislative process last year, but it apparently wasn't in the governor's budget this year.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So just so everyone knows, it's roughly 182,000. It leverages. A bunch of money. Yeah, federal funds. Federal funds. So we don't leverage the federal funds without this, and then the money goes to provide. Food programs for essentially home childcare programs. And if you recall, we had testimony this year or last year, sort of about, I guess it was this year, sort of about how regions are divided, the challenge of not having a sponsor. So again, sort of with the caveat, knowing that money is tight, put down that we continue to support its continued funding because not only does it provide a valued service, but it leverages federal dollars as well. Payoff is better.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Does the Ag Committee weigh in on that one too or just us?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: They have decided, we should have communicated this ahead of time, that if it's an AOE budgeted item, they're gonna leave it up to us. That this is an AOE budgeted item.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Sounds good.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I have a chance to say the acronym correctly. Child's Adult Care Food Program.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Child's and Adult Care Food Program. And do you have the actual number?

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I'm trying to, if I can, on my computer to pull it up. I believe it's 182, maybe 1825, but I'm pretty sure it's

[Kate McCann (Member)]: just 1825.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If you can just give me the exact numbers, like put it in the letter correctly. Absolutely do that. Anyway, tomorrow's Thursday, right? No.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Today's

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thursday. Thursday. Tomorrow's Friday. Probably won't have time to get it all to you to review, but I may do that over the weekend, sort of unofficially, but then we'll do more of an official review.

[Emily Long (Member)]: 100 free from 182,000.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yeah. I think it's lift up.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Yes. Okay.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, so continuing our continued discussions on 01/1973, on Act 73, we sort of were leaning toward having a little bit of a debate on the SUSD topic. Representative Dobrovich, however, has got some ideas to throw on the table within this topic area as well as others, I imagine. Just specifically around US.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Topic I have is to consolidate Vermont's current ed system into much larger supervisory units, no supervisory districts, each encompassing multiple larger school districts formed by merging those with similar operating structures. For example, grouping and merging all non operating tuition districts, K-six, K-eight, and K-twelve in their own buckets together. It offers several advantages over shifting to a standalone supervisory district model, preserves the supervisory framework and flexibility while achieving scale. Rather than fully dissolving SUs into unified school that centralize governance into single entities. This approach also aligns closely with cooperative education service area model from the Redistricting Task Force Final Report, which prioritizes regional collaboration, voluntary strategic mergers and shared services over the forced top down consolidation that districts would have. The core of the proposal is it would scale up SUs by merging like for like within them to create larger, more efficient regional entities, builds on Vermont's current SU system for shared services while addressing enrollment declines, costs and equity through targeted voluntary style mergers. And that's after you do all of the bigger mergers, they may decide later to continue to merge other SUs and SDs together. Contrast with the supervisory district model that eliminates layered governance and forces broader potentially mismatched consolidations. And again, it parallels the task force CISA framework with regional overlays for shared high cost services like special ed, transportation and purchasing, and incentivize for regional high schools in favoring partnership over prescription. Enhances economies of scale with retain local autonomy, achieves significant cost savings via shared admin, bulk purchasing, unified planning and resource pooling, preserves local identity and some district level decision making, avoiding the full centralization and rigidity of school district and supervisory districts, balances freedom and unity by keeping community agency and respecting Vermont's local control tradition. It'll address gaps by standardizing quality within like groups, enhance K-six programming, shared professional development and specialized staff, and reduce rural and urban disparities, avoid insufficiencies from mixing incompatible structures, promoting transparency, accountability, and innovation aligned to grade spans and operations. One argument might be geography, distance, topography issues when you have merged school districts because they're on other sides of an SU. That can be handled through hybrid meetings where participants can join, have in person in their regions, but then join through remote video Skype, Zoom or something like that. So there is still a little bit of a separation there, but you can find ways to make them work together. There'll be stronger buy in via retained district boards for local input, which counters supervisory districts disengagement concerns, ensures equitable access and transparency. And again, the ECHO's, the CISA and the task force successes with the cooperative models. I mean, I can keep going, but I'll just be talking for too long. So I want to stop before I board everybody. So clarifying questions. No.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Let's start off with that. Yes.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Did you mention CTEs?

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: So they would be based off I think you'd start looking at a map basing them off of CTEs so that every one of those issues have one or more depending on the region and how big you're making them. So absolutely. And in this idea or this theory, do they become that part of the funding model, the CTEs? I didn't contemplate the funding model because we're still trying to figure that out through the fund have to figure that out through the yeah. We have to because that's

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: that's kind of a missing

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: And they don't know that that's something Yes. I mean,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: that's but that's a that's a missing oh, that would work. Right.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: And that's not something we're gonna do here necessarily altogether.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's a falsehood of the next year category. So this sounds to me a bit like a mix of the map that Senator Vanguard's put on the table last year, which did exactly that grouped like structures into larger SUs, even if they weren't contiguous. Correct? And kind of a combination of the map that you put on the table this year, which basically says all of the colored regions are SUs, but you go a step further and the gray zone, you're making everything.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Everything is an issue. I thought that would be a way to kind of bridge the gap of all concerns and be able to accommodate all of the needs of the state. Not being perfect for everybody, but everybody has a piece they can work on.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So just more perfect. So for example, in Addison County, rather than a merged SD, it would be a superintendent overseeing three existing school district boards that manage their own high schools and K-twelve systems.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Well, so I think that when you're looking at merging the internal districts, we would want to look at a maximum number, maximum ADM for how big you want that district to be student wise. But you would have operating and non operating districts within, and they would merge depending on how the map was drawn. If you have large enough SUs, you're going to have operating and non operating within each SU. So you would merge. So if you have three K-twelve operating districts, they now become one. But if that one is Scott over whatever we might choose for an ADM, because we don't want it to be too big, then it might be two, we might have to make those kind of separations.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So it's really kind of the opposite of Peter's thought.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Wasn't my intentional thought, I like the way you put it.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Yes, in your thought process, mandatory consolidation within ASUS. Yes, slight click. Again,

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: of continuousness. Yes. And I think you can, the biggest concern with that is two things I hear is, as you put it in your map, the culture is the same between those two that aren't connected because they're so far away from each other. And then how hard is it to come together? Well, educationally, if their districts are similar, let's say a k six, but they're already living a similar life when it comes to education, and that's one way they will connect the other way. And then the meetings can we I mean, we all do some form of a virtual board meeting these days. I think there's definitely a way to make that all work where everybody can

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: come together. Representative Long and Representative Spencer. Just to

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: split me apart, because I don't know exactly what you are planning, but I'm going to give you an example and tell me how it fits. I have this district. Let me put it a different way. I have a town that has K6 non operating, seven and twelve. K12, that's correct, but we're only seven twelve in that, because it's matter of budget.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: K-six, there's non operating, but seven twelve is operating.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Well, seven twelve is operating as part of a modified unit, so it's a K-twelve district. They're not they don't this tuition is seven twelve. They're actually a member of the seven twelve k-twelve district because it's modified. It's actually it's a what's the M? Can I use my student? It's no. Am I drawing a blank? Because I've

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: lived in the world, but

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I can't remember. Modified. What's MMDWATS? No. It's a modified unified union district. MUUSD, it's a modified unified union district. So have seven twelve in that modified K-twelve. It's a K-twelve district, but it's a modified unified union school district. So not all the towns in that modified district operate the same. They're only there for the

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I'm going to try and

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: understand how complicated this is.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: But I'm going try and understand because actually I don't know this. So you're saying that in this MMU MUUSD. MUUSD. I'm going just What is the question?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I'm trying to see how it fits into what's where will it fit? He's talking about different SU. So I'm trying to see how an example of one, just one example that I know of, and I'm trying to figure out, I can get it if you're, even if they're not contiguous, the non operatings. But some towns do two different things. How do you put those?

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Think for the probably very rare case in the state that that happens, the couple places that might be, there would be a conversation about which route they would prefer to take. Because if they're a town, if you have four towns and two of them designate and two of them don't, I am assuming that's kind of what you're talking about, they're within the same One's no choice

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: and one that's no choice.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: The one that's no choice goes into a district that has what they have and the one that's full choice goes into

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: the On top of

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: their children would split I'm saying it now.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think that if you don't have somebody like to pair up with, then you remain your own school district as it is today. Is that true?

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Yeah, mean, there was one non operating and everybody else was operating, they would be their own district.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Would be? Would.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: No, it would remain both. Since they're two separate districts. One town is two separate districts. They're only district and a part of another district. That's one.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Under this, unless we made some changes, because then it would remain as it is. It would be its own.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: So then the K-twelve district that they were a part of would remain the same as they are too, because they're part of them? It's just complicated enough.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: It is. I mean, even the map that Peter gave you.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: You'll be looking at it as within the confines of the SUs on the RNN. What's he talking about? Chris, the SU

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: He's talking about school district.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Correct, you're talking about within the SU. So the SU that you're defining might not be the SU of this is creating, it could be a bigger SU within other operating districts, and it wouldn't be exactly what you're speaking.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: My question is totally unrelated to SU. It's simply related to school district. It doesn't matter what SU they're in.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: You're not talking about the merger of the district under the SU?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: No. We're talking about a school district. I'm talking about two school districts. I was

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: just asking how would

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: that work under a merger. Correct. It doesn't matter what the SU is.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm only if I'm getting into real specific examples, think overall what you're saying is that if you don't have somebody in a like governance structure to merge with within that SU, you don't merge. You are a school district on your own.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: And as I had mentioned-

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Under the SU. Correct.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: And as I mentioned earlier, it does leave room for those voluntary emergency. This might be one of those places where within that SU, the towns and everybody decides that we need to make this change to fit the structure properly, and they decide to go either all operating or all non operating. That might be a decision they make at the local level. That's part of keeping it under the issue. They get to make those decisions while still creating more scale through these consolidations.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So, consolidations, well, not all.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Yeah. I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: think it would be good if people feel comfortable to brought this out to more of the SUSD conversation, because I think what Josh has put on the table here is, frankly, one direction to go instead of breaking us up into larger school districts, break us all up into SUs. Keep the current structure under the SU, merge where possible like structured districts. But it does, as opposed to sort of one governance model in my plan that strictly school districts. I mean, of guess the philosophy here. I think for me, the challenge will always be an SU, like merging Addison County into one SU doesn't really move the needle at all. You might get rid of a couple of superintendents, but you still have all of the complexity. In fact, you go from having no complexity to a new level of complexity, because it never was an SU, as opposed to going to a less complex model like the SDs.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: And that's where I think it plays really well in that CISA model, not in the same realm, but parallel to it, because then it creates the SU which has all those shared services. So you're also bringing that into SU, which doesn't currently have right now. And you're able to consolidate those services, bring down costs there. And

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: the districts that are there do get bigger, but they're already living the district life. So I would push back against comparing it to the CISA model. Yes, broadly on the idea of scale, but you gotta remember that each district in an SU is its own municipality, governing body, everything that sort of is a district. So So they don't have to buy into any shared service. They might say, they are under no obligation or they can actually object to it as a member of the SG board, whatever shared service they might be trying to regionalize. Because they are their own sort of autonomous entity as a district.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I understand that, but I mean, all reality though, would, you know, I think we have to think higher of everybody. They're going to want to try and keep costs out. I mean, they're going to want to try and share these services. They're going

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to work together to share services they can all agree upon. Last thing is that you, having Washington in a cooperative agreement fail because, oh yeah, we need it. And two years later, no, we don't anymore because a family moved out of town. It could be something as simple as that, but that just fall apart. That's, in terms of it being the same as a CISA, I would say, but that's not necessarily what I would call it. From a broad level, the idea is building scale and all of that, how do want to entity try to coordinate it? Yes. Beth?

[Emily Long (Member)]: I think Rob is next.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Oh, go ahead, Rob, I'm sorry.

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: It's like Beth would say this is a policy choice as we write the policy about seesaws. What's the question? Well, for as far as I was just trying to piggyback on what you guys are saying. As far as, like, shared services, we're gonna ask you.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: So you're saying right right into policy that they have to share services?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: As far as I can see, if you have a shared

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: services. Yeah.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: So just a reminder on A

[Emily Long (Member)]: school district is a municipality, but a supervisory district isn't.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, a supervisory district is a municipality.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: It is. Is? Yeah, it is.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Because it's a supervisory union, and a supervisory union is not a municipality.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, we're getting back into So

[Emily Long (Member)]: the format, were they all school districts, or were they supervisory districts within that?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Just remind me.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: My world of language, I'll say is another benefit of what I'm proposing is that everything is a school district.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Right, it's a school district.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But I think it, I just wanna be very clear, a school district and a supervisory district are essentially the same thing. And they are both municipalities that have tax authority.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: That's true.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I know a school district does.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right, right, but so- They are school districts on your- As we heard yesterday, a school district is a supervisory district if it has the, Well, a school district Let me put it this way. Anything with an elected board that is overseeing a school or group of schools is a municipality with taxing authority. Whether you call it a supervisory district or a school district, does it matter?

[Emily Long (Member)]: I know some districts are municipalities, but supervisory unions are not.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, but we use the overall in the BOCES language so that we don't have to write every type, we just say supervisor.

[Emily Long (Member)]: But in your map, each unit is a school district.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Absolutely. And supervisor is written into our statute. It's clarifying. That's another reason they're keeping in tune with that statewide. I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: think that we could get lots of testimony about the challenges of supervisory units. So here's my. Other concerns. You've all heard my concerns with supervisory unions. I also worry about the future of leadership in our state. I do not believe that a supervisory union position is nearly as attractive to a up and coming educational leader as a supervisory district or a school district, just because of the number of boards, the complexity of government governorship, the, I could argue, undemocratic nature of a supervisory union. Period. I'd rather have somebody else talk. Kate, go ahead.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I would just piggyback on that. I first started writing a bunch of things that sounded pretty negative, so I'm trying to turn it around. My superintendent is our district's educational leader, and there is no way on earth I would want to share him with other districts. He can be everybody's educational leader in a bigger district, but he can't go to school board meetings over here and school board meetings over there and school board meetings over there. We're not going back. We already did that. We had seven different boards governing five different towns that all fed into U32. We're not going back. What we've heard, we waste a lot of time on this committee, a lot of time. What we've heard from superintendents is that they support SDs. What many of us know as educators is that SDs are better for educators. And the research says, as Erin said the other day, that if you're going to consolidate, you get money with SDs. You don't get it from SDs.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Yes. My only pushback is, what superintendents want. I can't, I haven't talked to all of them, but I've talked to a handful as well, and they talk about liking the yes, you model, wanting the yes, you model.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: When I talk about superintendents, I'm talking about the Vermont Superintendents Association.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: You're talking about those who work under that, who are on the ground. Ultimately those

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: would be our decision. Right,

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: and that's what I'm trying to say is they're not unanimous in that same belief. I think it's, well, the association may feel that way. I'd say it's probably a little different on the ground.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think one of the fundamental questions here I would have Josh is, I propose a bottle that I would say we know is more expensive just because of the bookkeeping complexities of maintaining three to 20, depending on how it's all set up, independent districts, each with their own set of books, with their own labor contracts, each with their own on and on.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I mean, I think you can find your way to scale to make it extremely more cost effective for the state while respecting the autonomy that the state has, that each area has tried to keep for all these years. It condenses it quite a bit more. But again, as I said, it's bridging that gap between the two different sides of the conversation. And I think that's what our constituents are asking us to do is to try and find a way forward that really addresses what all Vermonters need. I agree, we need to bring the cost down. I also agree that, you know, towns should be able to, or districts and areas of the state should be able to live in the way they choose. So how do you bridge both gaps? And this is a way to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: do so. You bring up the fundamental question of, so if we continue to sort of do the same thing, or I would quite say, take a step backwards and expect a different result. I don't think that's necessarily the way to go.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: It is different.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. As I said, is perhaps a step backward, obviously, we've already made towards newer, bigger, larger structures.

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: It might be a sweet spot. I was also investigating, like, a total SU model. But in one model, was given here, talked about, you know, in a large SU with seven different boards, like local boards, the superintendent no longer travels board to board, but rather is in charge of the SU board where each one of those members sends a representative. And it's really he's just he or she is dealing with the SU board and overall management of the SU rather than, like, every night going off to a board.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm not sure, I would be uncomfortable legislating how a superintendent chooses to respond to the needs of his own supervisory union. They're responsible.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: They have a responsibility, so they have to decide.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And having built out a supervisory union system, I can tell you we were at the high school within that supervisory system, the middle school, high school that I was the chair of the board of, we wanted superintendent at that meeting, As we were we were 50% of the budget. Alright, Chris, bring it home.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: I don't have a lot to add. Thank you for bringing this up because I think these are the conversations that we need to have in order to really fine tune what we're looking for. So we got to be able to look at all sides of this and do our best to find some sort of compromise that's going

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: to work for the state.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, and I absolutely would like to thank you for putting this discussion on the table, because we need to have it about SUVs versus SDs. Sure, not anywhere, but I think airing it is very important. And I'll be honest, I get the concept that if we're gonna go with SUs, let's go all in. But I still can't get beyond the concept of why would we pick a less efficient, more expensive system, when our goal here is to make it more cost effective structure that is more nimble, more responsive to the changing demographics of our state.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: And I mean, we were always here the other day. They were talking about how they were able to show that the costs they weren't more expensive.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, I would just, as I said to them, cost and spending are two different things. How much you choose to spend on education versus how much education costs are tightly related. But I would say, is there a correlation between SUs and choosing to spend less money on education? Maybe, I don't know, but I don't wanna get that make it sound like it's perhaps more cost effective. I think a district can be cost effective as well by spending less. And we could probably find many districts that are also out there. Oh, here. I just if you

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: can't make the correlation on one, you really can't make the correlation on the other. I can screw that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It was on Brady?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I am not entirely sure without, some others such as JF of expertise in the room that were really quick to talk about costs and truly understand because things like the weights and what we are weighting and where. We are weighting non operating districts. We are weighting tuition and things that dramatically skew what people think they are spending versus their tax rates, and I think that's a far more complex conversation that requires that, quite frankly, I want us to be having. I mean, we just need to be with these means at all times. But I think we need JFO or financial experts in the room to check us on some of understandings.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I appreciate that. My pushback was because we're saying one's more expensive than the other. We really right. I you hear both sides of the conversation, so data would be great to see what both look like.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Well, I've made the point often in the work I did through the fall is it's difficult to paint them all with the same brush because there's a lot of variance in an SD to an SD, more so with an SU to an SU. The SU I worked in had two school districts in it, one for all of the elementary, one for the high school. The supervisor union north of me has 15 school districts in it. So part of why we really looked at that compromise of, okay, you're a supervisor union, but everybody that operates the same way within that supervisor union gets together and becomes a supervisor. Supervisor unions are very different from place to place to place. They're not all

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: the same size. They don't have the

[Emily Long (Member)]: same number of students, same number of school districts. So just the term alone doesn't tell you enough about how efficient it is or how expensive it is.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Ready to vote? I was gonna say, was say, those are we straw polled as

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: you know, versus SDC? Yeah. We will.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. Further conversation here? Think we are all feeling a little set in our ways. Not surprisingly, I'm little set in my way because that's what I put on the table. I think that there has been questions whether there's some sort of hybrid here in terms of governance, but yet I've yet to sort of have anybody say I've got the genius solution here working on it. Right. So say, TBD. As we try to move forward here, I'm not sure we do need to have this conversation. We do need to discuss the pros and cons of SUs and SDs. Do people feel, let me test this, is there more you feel you need to learn from testimony that we could bring in here regarding the SDSU debate, which we have had lots and lots of testimony on for two years now that we've been here. But some updated hearing or thinking, I would entertain suggestions. Possibly, can I get the afternoon to ponder that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was gonna definitely on that.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Take time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: This isn't the exact answer to

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: your question, but it is something that I'm sitting here listening to all of this and interpreting my type of way. But it seems that we keep coming back to, you just said something that reminded me of it and you did and representative Brady did, where we can't really compare apples to apples. We don't really know. That's an assumption we make. It's costs, drivers, costs, spending versus costs. It sort of feels to me like it's a lack of data in many cases for us to be able to actually compare. And I'm not trying to suggest who should sit in that chair and give us data, but I think that we need to start thinking about what data will back up what our proposals are. What data do we have to back up the proposals? Because when I mentioned that small district that I was trying to tell you, Representative Dobrovich, I was not I was only saying it because of it being one piece of a bigger puzzle, and it's the complexity and the lack of data to back us up to be able to promote something. Sometimes it's financial data, sometimes it's not. And so that's all. I just feel like there's a need for more data in some of these cases, for sure, to operate with data in front of me.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, I I could sit here and talk about SUs versus SDs all day, but all I would be doing is repeating what we've already heard. I'm not gonna put you through that. That's right.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Well, we've all said the whole time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What's that?

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: What we've all said the whole time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah. I mean, could both. Okay, so could we then, well, can we store it open to the floor, thoughts, ideas, suggestions for the next time we're talking, we're gonna continue this conversation, but we might move, shift it a little bit.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: On this particular topic, I think those of us sit and think who we may, if we have anyone else to talk about it. But I would say, also, if there are off the SUSD train, if there are other areas

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: that people would like to explore further, we can't. Again, I don't want to short the committee on a testimony because we have plenty of available space to have somebody sit in that chair. So thoughts on that, please let me know. We're gonna be too short next week. So, I just wanna make sure that everybody's got the opportunity to get what they need between now and the end of the week. Let's go back to, go back to, see, since a moment. A little bit of time we have here. And by the way, given the fact that we probably are gonna talk ourselves out well before floor, I did try to move up our vote by H542. I don't really like to have much counsel be in the room for the vote, not available till 04:15.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: 04:15?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It was a fifteen minute vote, so.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Usually leave at 02:30, but hang around.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Don't feel shame about that. The floor is good.

[Emily Long (Member)]: My night's sick with your dad, so. Family commitment tonight. I've rescheduled it, so. Yeah.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: They're not available.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The general practice is to make sure you have legislative council in the room, and legislative council is not available.

[Emily Long (Member)]: 04:15 to vote.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, after the fall.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Oh, okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Roughly 04:15.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: 04:15. Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. So listen. Let's pretend everything has been settled in terms of districts, SUs, maps, or everything else. There is nothing in Act 73 that talks about CESAs. So let's just talk about them independently and on their own. What would people envision is the path forward with them? In a world of 50 to 30 districts or SUs in the state, The questions that we have brought up time and time again are, well, we've the law that we have that spells out to the governance, but not terribly specifically. We got mandatory versus not mandatory, state funded, not state funded. Do we want to do anything to make them happen if they're voluntary? So talk about yourselves. If this is a priority for us and we wanna move it forward, what do people think it should look like? This is kind of a follow-up if we're not set in our ways. Can

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: we talk a little more about

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: the mandatory or voluntary? Yesterday I was right off the bat mandatory, but there was some very good dialogue in here. So right now, I'm more on the fence about mandatory and voluntary. I want to know how, if it's voluntary, obviously want to get the best return on investment for our overseas. So that means everybody should be involved in that CISA and utilizing it. If it's voluntary, how do we guarantee that?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Talking of CISAs. Yeah.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: So I'm really on the fence now about the mandatory or voluntary.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Actually, my question might help with that, because one of the questions I have about it, it's a really good question, and one of the questions I have about it is, you mentioned state funded or locally funded. If it were state funded, I'm literally talking off the top of my head here, if it were state funded, isn't that If it's voluntary and state funded, you're kind of losing out if you're not on that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, and I guess when I said state

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I guess funded looking at it as incentive, but that's all I'm I'm looking at it for incentives

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to answer what it does. Yeah, and I wasn't thinking 100% safe about that. Was thinking more like, do we want to throw $50,000 We

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: have a 10,000 now. I mean, if we put more into it, something like that to help get them punches. Yeah. So that's sort of

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would say that the people who pay attention to what we're doing in here are probably listening. Maybe this is something where get a little guidance, because I'm not sure we have, they have even had the opportunity to sort of think about what's the best way to go about this. I'm with Chris back and forth all the time. I tend to think voluntary with incentives, but I think it needs somebody to make it happen. A state person is gonna go around and bring people together. Yes, Jane?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I am definitely leaning voluntary, and I also think that the state funding should be there in as much as it was for the one that asked for money and we were able to give it to them. So whatever that amount was, we make sure that that amount is available to each one that opens up. And if we could do something, and Beth always says we can do anything, something over a timeline where it's voluntary at the beginning and allow those with capacity to kind of get them set up, then maybe the areas where they're already doing everything they can because they've got PCBs in their building or whatever else is going on, or they're so small or they're so rural or whatever, that they can't be a part of that, then they don't need to be yet. And then as the bill progresses or the years pass, then everybody needs to have joined one. And by then they'll be all set up by those who have the capacity to do that work.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And once they see success, they may be very willing to move forward. Or once they need a paper something, once they

[Kate McCann (Member)]: need a service that they see is available.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: So in the spirit of your hybrid request earlier, I'll throw it out something else. Maybe there's like, if we move down the road of ceases, is there a way to try and incentivize it as much as possible, but then also look at where, as they start to proliferate around the state, we see the successes. If we have areas of the state that are not involved in CESAs and their expenditures in these specific areas that are handled better under these CESAs can be they're high, so we can mitigate it by doing that. Is there a cudgel to force them to have to join? If you can't reel it in on your own, we've given you these opportunities, these incentives to go, you haven't taken advantage of it. Your costs are high, you're not doing anything to build it, so now you have to join these ceases.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So it sounds quite similar to what Kate was just saying, that started off voluntary, but then maybe go to a forest down the road. I think that the answer is yes, as we do whatever we want. Again, here and coming up with the metric that you use to say you now have to join, think it's a real challenge here,

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: as opposed to just time passing. And that could be right, a thing that there's a look back at a certain point to see what success is and how things are, and then maybe that's when the legislature puts that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I mean, personally sort of defaulted to common sense, would hope that if they're successful, people would be knocking the door down to watch. I can't imagine why they'd work.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Right next to him now.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So have you sort of put this together? Would somebody like to take the position of mandatory?

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: If it was mandatory CISOs versus mandatory district mergers, I feel like I could get on board with that choice.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We are leaving the we're leaving the broader discussion aside.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: No, no, I know that, I know, but I'm saying like, that didn't happen, if we could save money by mandatory cease and mergers and never go back to talk about mandatory districts, then that's something I can get behind, if that makes sense.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It does, And in the reverse world, would you say voluntary? And we had a discussion the other day as we were talking about this, about would she come first? And I know it was a valuable discussion as well.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: You lean

[Kate McCann (Member)]: voluntary? If it was the other way? If there were forced mergers,

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I don't know what else goes there's forced mergers.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I'm not ready to answer the second part of that question.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I guess I want to make sure that we're all on the same page, and maybe we need more testimony, but we're all on the same page about how this structure works. I don't mean governance. I'm thinking more of funding, then the structure under the funding. So I'm going to pose this and let everybody think about that. There's a grant that is given to each CISA when they form. And the CISA, this may be what we have in place right now, but again,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm not on that board, so

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I couldn't note the details beyond. Then there is a fee to become a member that is based on, let's just say, size of this year, whatever. So now you're a dues paying member of a CISA, and you've signed the memorandum of agreement to do it. And then that's your annual cost. Everybody pays in, and that pays for probably some leadership to keep the CSO organized, a executive director, for example. And then once it's up and running, each district who's become a member chooses how they want to use it. And they may spend a lot of money throughout CESA, or they may spend very little or none in any given year because the needs in our districts are whatever their districts look like. Not going to suggest they're disparate wise. So they're kind of self funding at that point. And the more use of them, the more powerful and big they get. The more revenue they take in. Exactly. Frankly, if the more revenue they take in, the more they need to provide services, and that may include shared staffing and all the multiple professional developments and everything, it feels to me like that's a model that feels really positive for outcomes to me. And if you were a district within a CISA, I guess I'm not having as hard a time, I'm I'm not raising my hand under the mandatory, but it feels like the mandatory buy in makes some sense to me, as long as you get to choose how much you use it once that is set up. I mean, an organizational foundation, which is what the buy in would be, it's critical to any startup of that place. Everybody has the opportunity to use it however they want. So I'm not saying I'm not problem.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: My understanding is that majority may be necessary in order to get that initial buy in.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Unless we work on a really straight funded, and I don't see, I think the startup thing is a really important part of state support. And I frankly would love to see more than $10, especially

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: if they're, also- Submit the $10 was strictly to help them write articles of agreement.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Exactly. So, But I also see the value of these have got to be, especially in more rural areas, pretty large, like the ones that's already in place, to actually be functioning in a way. Some of them will need to be, some won't because of homeless population. That's

[Emily Long (Member)]: Go back to something that Rep. Brady often mentions, I don't think the foundation formula considers CISA dues. And the expense the district will have to pay to belong to a CISA and use a CISA. So everything intersects with how we're deciding to publish. Just saying.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Foundation program does take into account the services, and if you're paying for those services

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: by

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: using that fund to pay for a ceasefire, anyways,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I just popped up. What you're saying is money is fungible.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: As I continue this argument in my head about mandatory voluntary, I want to go back to, we talk about the district and task force a lot. They recommended mandatory. Now, I know it's slightly out of context because they were saying mandatory without, not a conjunction of a consolidated district map, but their recommendation was mandatory. And I wonder what their recommendation would be with a map included. I don't think we'll get that answer, Beth.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: won't help any of us any here, but to connect them, and I think exactly what you're saying about what's included in the foundation formula, I think without much clearer work, I'm not comfortable saying I know what services are included in the foundation formula and to what extent, because transportation has not been when we think of the sort of high frequency items that come up as things that CISA can do, transportation is one that has currently not been figured out whatsoever that we've been made aware of. Special education is probably the largest bucket of remaining work on the foundation formula. That's another high frequency use of seesaws. I do not know how professional development is accounted for in foundation formula, so would be the question. Maybe it is, I'm not sure if it is, but that's another high frequency. And then the sort of purchasing of raw materials and tech side of things. Again, I don't know what the assumptions are in the foundation formula. It's not I'm not aware of it being on the sort of short list of 10 to 15 pretty big things that haven't been worked out in the foundation formula.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: But I'm not comfortable assuming all those services have been accounted for in the foundation formula as that exists presently.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And how old are you spend? Well, yes. But think it is fair to say, I mean, a school district gets a lump sum up money based on the profile of each and every student after a foundation formula. How they choose to spend that money ultimately is up to the school district. I would imagine they would not be willing to invest in a CISA unless they were getting a significant return on investment so that the money they're getting in the foundation formula could go even further.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Even like the fees, right? You're saving that much money in fees, there's no need to contemplate feeing it because odds are that fee is significantly less than the money you're saving if you're going to

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: do it. It could possibly be that you can't keep the CSIP going and get your mom enough money through the foundations.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, I mean, think as you were describing the model, however, it does almost seem like you sort of invest in it to get it set up, and then as you move to a fee for service, it becomes self funded. That was And nobody's gonna buy that services.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: But now we're talking about it under foundation formula, and I was just saying that about organizational. And so it literally could be the other way. Some districts were finding out that however the foundation formula ends up working isn't funding it enough. Could be buying into a forced merger of a CISA and not be able to take advantage of the services they provide. I just want to make sure that we're aware it could go both ways. It shouldn't, but it could.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If I were to sum up the vibe, the vibe is lean, voluntary, not hardcore voluntary, but beating a

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: boost,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: whether that be in the, well, should probably be in the form of two things, money, incentive grants to create them. And we probably should, if we're gonna go to every, say a CSAT isn't a CSAT unless it's got three school districts in it, but four school districts in it. Right now, we just have maybe two. And or some entity funded to go out, if it's voluntary, to go out and actually make it happen. Because as we know, school boards and supervise are very busy. If you don't have somebody sort of bringing them together to talk about this, they're not gonna get together to talk about it because they're busy.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yes. If our CESAs have three or four school districts in them, but we're not supposed to have more than seven CESAs.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We need to readjust our expectations. And that will require some thought because I think, while five to seven was somewhat arbitrary, it was also based on testimony that said it needs scale for a C study.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So I guess my question is, would we readjust our expectations on more CSAs or would we readjust our expectations on larger school districts? Because that has a lot to do with my thinking.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We were to go with the draft map that I put on the table, we are still at 27 school districts. So it seemed to me that it would require a significant number of school districts to form a CSA.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: But not necessarily to get it started. Remember, if it's voluntary, the ones who have capacity could get it started. And then the ones who don't maybe could join later. Yes. I don't wanna put too much pressure on that number.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right. But do you do you sort of say any two that want to get the other formal cease that they get $50,000 to get started? Or do you want to say, if you want that level of incentive, there's gotta be Yeah. Something like that. The floor is open for further conversation on anything sort of within this topic realm. So that we are not going outside, let's listen on our agenda.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I'll just sign out. We'll see you're getting pretty good at summarizing this.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We are voluntary curious. Questions? You've

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: had some very good wording lately that I really

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: want to remember.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Couldn't remember. Me either. I'd love to know what they were because I sort

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: of Yeah.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Yesterday was a good one.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, well, I guess we will pause here. Peter is.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Get a book, Peter is. We

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: can pause here. Yeah, apologize. I think we do need to come back to vote. Well, let me just ask this. How much of it, I mean, there is no deadline to vote on this bill. So I don't wanna highly inconvenience people who may have obligations that are rather pressing.

[Emily Long (Member)]: My schedule has changed tonight. Back

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: here after the floor goes. Before

[Emily Long (Member)]: it goes to 05:00, in which case, no.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Let's call that right now if the floor goes beyond 04:15. About 04:30, we will knock on that.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Shouldn't, but you never know.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Oh my god.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Might be. Alright.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Good. So we'll adjourn here for 03:30 back here at