Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Call it a standard issue year for folks on school budgets. But we thought we would bring in some folks from the field to help us interpret, untangle, get a sense of what it means and what it doesn't mean. So we are welcoming the executive directors from both the School Boards Association and the Superintendents Association. Welcome, very glad you're here and really look forward to what you have to say.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: My name is Chelsea Myers. I'm the executive director of Vermont Superintendent's Association. And I'm Sue Seglowski, the executive director for the Vermont School Boards Association. Thank you for inviting us to testify.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Just for those who are not aware during town meeting break, you all go away and we pretend we're a newsroom and collect all the results related to town meeting day. We do it live. It's actually kind of fun. So these are the results and some of our interpretation. I did a little bit more digging into some other data to just see if there's more trends and things like that. And so this is what it represents. So voters approved over 83% or 95 school budgets in 2026 voting so far, demonstrating a show of public support for Vermont education. 19 school budgets were defeated. Vermont has 56 supervisory districts and supervisory unions and 124 school budgets that support them. In this year's March votes on Tuesday's town meeting day and the previous days, 112 budgets were voted upon. 11 budgets will be voted on between March 9 and May 12, including the Essex Westford School District. And we include that because it's one of the big ones that is left. Out of the 19 defeated budgets, 12 have a history of prior budget defeats since FY20, with one budget having a defeat history of six times during that time period. The defeated budgets represent school districts that serve approximately 15,000 students in total. Projected weighted per pupil spending ranged from $11,961 to 17,777 and averaged $14,802 in spending for those with defeated budgets only. That's not the whole number. You have to ask AOE for that. That aligned with a percentage increase of per pupil spending from FY 'twenty six of 1.3% to 20.05%, again, for the defeated budgets, and an average of 8.5%. Of note, several reference proportionally large decreases in weighted pupil counts, with a large disparity between percentage increase in education spending so smaller increases in education spending, but really large percentage increases in per pupil costs because of that long term weighted ADM decreasing so proportionally significantly in some of those communities. Other cost drivers mentioned in budget materials, I combed through every one of the 19 that had defeated to see if I could glean any information. And the topics that were mentioned were increased wages, health care costs, tuition payments, and decreases in the block grant for special education and decreases in federal funding.

[Sue Ceglowski (Executive Director, Vermont School Boards Association)]: The cost of health insurance premiums and HRAs are included in school district budgets and paid by Vermont taxpayers. The cost of public school employees' health insurance exceeds $300,000,000 per year, and that cost increased by 16% in FY '25, 12% in FY '26, and 7.4% in FY '27. As you know, these costs are consuming a larger and larger portion of Vermont school budgets. In 2018, health benefits made up less than 10% of school budgets and it's now around 15%. And if health benefits continue to grow at the current pattern, they will make up 20% of school budgets in a few years. To deal with this issue, school boards have to hold the line on the remaining parts of the budget. Healthcare is squeezing out other education initiatives. With projected education spending at 4.2% this year, it's clear that healthcare is squeezing out those other education initiatives. We both recommended and it is common practice to not model with any anticipated tax rate buy downs, though some mentioned it as a possibility in their budget materials. School administrators and school boards got to work considerably earlier this year for budgeting. In August, our associations along with the Vermont Association of School Business Officials released a budgeting memo, and that's linked here in our written testimony, to support early planning efforts. School leaders made challenging decisions with their communities to best support students and taxpayers with some deciding to make significant staffing changes. And that concludes our formal testimony. There is a link to the unofficial live updates FY '27 school budget vote results in our testimony. And those will be continually updated as the budget votes happen over the next couple months. So you can refer to that link and it will be updated.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Few questions. Do you track at all staffing changes sort of statewide in what sort of the implications of the budgets?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: No, I talked to the NEA about that over the town meeting break, and they say the only proxy that they have is related to who's active in the retirement system, I think, is what they said, but we do not check it.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Questions? Yeah, someone go ahead.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I'm curious about whether you have any feedback on the excess spending threshold and how that has impacted people's decisions around what they propose or how many went over it.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: People tried really hard to stay under it. It definitely is a tool to change behavior, in my opinion, from the conversations that I have had. I do not think that there are many that exceeded it. So the tax windfall from it is not huge, but the behavior of the policy does seem to be a big conversation driver in budgets. I was asked in ways it means how many of the defeated budgets exceeded excess spending penalties. That was two. And one of them, I should note, had very fixed costs, very small, very fixed costs. So their special education budget had to go up. We are required by law. And the tuition payments went up as well. And so those are two fixed things in a very small budget that went up. So they really didn't have any space to move away from that excess spending penalty, along with declining enrollment. That's just one. So that was not all. No, they're partially all.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thoughts on what contributed to the dramatic changes in weighted pupil counts?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I wish I knew. And there are some anomalies. What I found, and this is a generalization, so you'd have to talk to them specifically, there seem to be two camps. The ones that voter behavior, it's very common for the budget to be defeated in those regions. And then some anomalies that typically had to do with those large swings in long term weighted ADM or big swings in CLA. And so there were those two camps in defeated budgets that

[Sue Ceglowski (Executive Director, Vermont School Boards Association)]: seemed to trend. And we were hearing a lot of concerns in December and early January from school boards that the data that they were receiving was changing frequently on the long term weighted ABM. Big swings. Yes.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: It's something to do with poverty, but I cannot speak to what it is.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Even when we were working through our budget, real TWADM seems

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: to be

[Unidentified Committee Member]: one meeting it's this, the next meeting it's that, and it takes five meetings to even have a guess.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Your supervisory union seemed to be hit hard by that. Yes, and actually in

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the last minute, it was way better than we expected it to.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It did not.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Another cheat, but it was still bad.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It has intended to be poverty count rather than

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: It seems that there could be other things too. I was on with 36 superintendents yesterday. We have a weekly call where I just give updates And 36 attended yesterday out of the 56. It's a pretty good turnout. And they were sharing how many votes they were defeated by. Six, six, seventeen, thirty, 27. There were some bigger ones too, but there were some microscopic ones. Milton was one of them. 30 votes, I think. Some hard workers.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Historically has a hard time.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Yeah. But

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: that's pretty remarkable that some of the defeated budgets are in the 11,000 per people spending range.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But then we've seen that Yes. Year after year. Mean, when we talk about trying to have equitable funding for the state, that's what happens is we have defeats in the areas where they already spend well below the average. Other questions? Chelsea, you in particular were quoted in the news as saying-

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I'm so happy. I have a repair.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I do, I do. So you talked about nodule versus a scalpel. What was called?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: A sledgehammer. A sledgehammer. I did not use a sledgehammer

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: to our schools

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: in November. Could you talk a little bit about what you would consider to be a sledgehammer and what you would consider to be a scalpel and how that would be from a policy point of view?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yeah, I want to start with, I appreciate all the work. I think everyone in this room cares a lot about public schools. And when districting conversations have floated from one district to five district to 20 districts to 14 districts, it has a very dramatic consequence on the field and the people that are watching, especially because a lot of those people that are watching are the ones that are going to need to implement this. And what I think is when maps are talked about over and over and over again, it ignores this enormity of what it takes to actually implement those maps. And so I would say there is growing unease and division related to the work that is being done in this building. And again, I think you all care a lot about our schools. That is not a slight. But it has had tremendous impact on the field. And I wanted to point that out. And when you have really short implementation timelines and bills, you have five districts written in bills, and you have a foundation formula where the only modeling has showed extreme tax increases for some and really big education spending decreases for other, it feels like a sledgehammer in the communities. And so what we spent a couple of days doing, and I was with the 36 superintendents getting feedback on this, is like, I read all the reports again, combed through all the recommendations you guys have all looked through many, many times and said, well, if there's so much division being caused over this map, it doesn't say that we shouldn't need redistricting. But I don't want to leave this building not having made any positive change for public education and schools and taxpayers. And so what are some of those incremental changes that get us to forward momentum towards 73 goals that maybe are wins for all of us. And so that I put together in a slide deck, got feedback from 36 of my members, got thumbs up from all of them. And so what I'm really interested in is bringing back together the education community because it is pretty fractured right now and making us all feel like we have commonalities rather than just differences. So that's what I meant by more precise tools. And it was not a

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We did not have specific Do you have any specific

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I have a slide deck, if you would like to see us.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Are prepared to show us your slide deck? I think that'd be great.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Thank you. Sue doesn't want to be linked to it though, so she hasn't been viewed by my board yet.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Sue, while you're there,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: what would you both say is, but really Sue, among school board members and the public are sort of the biggest misconceptions floating out there? Because you say, people are concerned about the work being done here. They haven't really done anything.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: That's part of it. We haven't really done haven't done We haven't been able to move forward.

[Sue Ceglowski (Executive Director, Vermont School Boards Association)]: And I think every proposal that gets put out there, they don't know that it's not going to move forward and it causes a lot of angst.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: One school district, then I have to explain that. Five school districts, and then I have to explain that because they only see the headlines. They don't see all of the conversation.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: They probably also don't religiously read their updates from their membership organization.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Don't come every day.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But, for example, I heard that there are school boards out there who believe that the foundation formula is happening January 1. I've heard some are still, at least until recently, we're still stuck on that we're doing five districts. So that's what I mean by some of the common misperceptions that are out there.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: But one school district was presented meeting day. You know, like I I think it's fear. It's a lot of fear.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Appreciate that. Anyway, Sue, you may sit to the side and pick up.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: How do I get the slides up?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: He's gonna get to the Zoom plate. Should have a

[Sue Ceglowski (Executive Director, Vermont School Boards Association)]: look in your email from Matt. Great.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Oh, and then we'll need the deck to put up.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yes, certainly. Matt, do I go on mute while I'm doing it? Or yeah. So

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Were the budgets that passed, were they passed by fairly comfortable margins, or were they all over the place? All over the place. Was there anything that surprised either of you at the tab meeting results?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: There were a couple of really low spending districts that was surprising that didn't have histories of defeats.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Suffer defeat though?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yes. I think it's that big swing. And so on the ballot, they see 20% increase in for people spending, but it's mostly because they're LTW ADL. Oh, it's not showing us the full slideshow. Let's see. Talk about riveting YouTube television. I don't know why it's not showing as an actual slideshow, so we're going to just run with it.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You can ask our resident technology Maybe he did slideshow at the top.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I did, and then it was showing on my screen, but not on this screen.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Oh, right here. I see. Bring it in slideshow and then share it. Yeah. Sorry. Is fine. Can click one at a time on one, two, three.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yes. I absolutely can do that. Just won't be able to be seen quite as well. And you'll see all of my million tabs up on the screen, but that's Okay. So I put together exactly the kind of speech that I just gave you on this context slide. I really would suggest, if you haven't already, reading the Vermont Digger article on Vermont's net migration. Really good piece.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's what we all did.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yeah, pretty startling. And so we are not just talking about education policy when we're talking about education policy. We're talking about health care policy, housing policy, economic policy. And we seem to have made education the proxy for a lot of those things. And again, we have sat in this chair as an association, though it's not a unanimous belief, but saying many times over that we need scale and that we are willing to be a participant in those scale conversations. And at the same time, like I just shared, I don't want to walk away with a map that everyone feels pretty lousy about and then also not have having done anything that could help with next year, for example, or the year after, because this is a a long timeline. Act 46 mergers took a really long, long time to do. There are so many different facets of a merger that happened that I don't even know that most people know the full scope of it. It's a very significant change. Doesn't mean some of it shouldn't happen.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I will say, when I read the article about the demise population overall, I was reminded of testimony given by your folks about how we should be taking that into account, that when we talk about districts of 2,000, maybe that's too low in areas where declining enrollment's probably gonna continue.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I think that goes to the, and I have it in the slides, to do it if you're incentivizing middle and regional high schools and investing money from the state into those, that there should be some evidence that suggests that the way that it's configured has sustainability tied to it as well. And a lot of places have demographic studies that they've done every couple of years. And so there's a lot of that information already.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's such a hard, because we can look at an area like North Country and say, first of all, they got PCBs, school budgets to be rebuilt, or an opportunity to combine it at another high school in an area that I bet the demographics studies we show it's not growing.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: That area needs a high school, I think, and there's potential that other communities could have a conversation with North Country. And I don't know the population decline there, so I can't make any assertions. But yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So there's like, if we would like population increase, how about a nice new high school?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yes. Great point. We can't not have a North Country or something of that sort. Would be talk about a desert of public schools. So just to remind us all what implementation science tells us about systems change, We can pass strong policies, but implementation matters. There needs to be trust and practitioner buy in to drive adoption. I would say that that trust is eroding, to be quite honest. And again, we've shown up at this table time and time again saying that we're willing and eager to be a part of that change. But I just want to be honest about the general sentiment in the communities. The relationships across the system are essential. Capacity must be built. Training, coaching, onboarding support needs to be built into the policies. Context matters. Successful reforms allow thoughtful local adaptations while maintaining components. Large scale change takes time, and continuous feedback improves results. So those are some facets of implementation science. This is from the redistricting task force report. Just as a reminder, people were asked to rank what is important to them. This is 5,000 Vermonters. Who knows? I don't remember who is actually represented in these 5,000 Vermonters. I'm sure that we would mean I don't know if it's a representative sample, in other words. And the thing that is most important to them is improving quality, increasing equitable educational opportunities, and increasing cost effectiveness. And so when I was putting together these, I tried to keep those at the forefront of my mind. It is crossover this week. So I want to remind people that none of these policy proposals are new. They're just a reminder of what they are. Because I wouldn't do that to you by just saying, we have a brand new idea. So I've outlined this by policy problems and then potential solutions, again, ones that you've seen before. We have the problem of declining enrollment, aging facilities, and this has been a pretty divisive mapping exercise. I am only speaking for my membership and the people that I speak to. There's a lot of fear and uncertainty and disagreement about in Sue's organization, in Jay's organization, in my organization, there's disagreement in how this should be done.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So it's kind of one of our main tasks to to as part of Act 73 since the redistricting task force didn't do it. It seems that whatever map we put on the table, it's going to be divisive and divisive So it's challenging, I'm sure it's challenging within your own membership.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yes. We have gone on the record saying that we appreciate your map as a starting place. And ultimately, we have not changed that position. But we also recognize, and I watch a lot of the conversations in here, that that may not be possible. I don't know. I'm not going to make any assertions about where you'll end up, but we've kind of put on the table where we think the best start of a map is, and we want to just kind of move on from that and try to bring our membership together around some other policy proposals that could be beneficial for public education. So it was not to say we're abandoning you all in that exercise, just that we've said what we're going to say.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But you provided the initial guidance.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: And ultimately, it's up to you all to decide what is worthwhile. Okay, so yes, declining enrollment, aging facilities, and divisive mapping exercise. And so three areas where the legislature could act now, and one is evaluates staffing models. Two is creates regional shared services and three is support regional scale and secondary schools. Those last two are just taken from the redistricting task force. And that first one is one that we have risen or rose quite a few times. And that is to update the staffing ratio report, better collect how better define how we're collecting ratio data for staffing because we are well below the New England average. I wouldn't compare us to nationally because we have a very different context, but we're well below it. And it could actually be really supportive of implementing Act 173, which, again, was our law several years ago to support struggling students. And one would say that that is one of the most important pieces of legislation around quality that you all have passed. And we implemented the funding part of it and not necessarily the quality element with fidelity. And so looking at that staffing from a ratio perspective and making sure that our most skilled educators are in front of our most struggling students is really crucial to quality. And so it could serve as a double purpose for both quality and to try to move us closer to the New England

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: ratios. Question, your slide says direct to an updated staffing ratio report. So is that something that exists or is done regularly? It's been a while.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: They Okay. Have the data. They just haven't done a report.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: How would you position this relative to class size? And is the class size minimums that are in Act 73? Both. Yeah. Can you speak a little to the I mean, somewhat obvious, but the differences, the distinctions?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yeah. So one of the things and I might get booed out of this room for this one is that the Act 173 reports that led to Act 173 showed that we were over relying on paraeducators rather than really trained professionals to be supporting our students that are struggling. And that is not to say that paraeducators cannot be highly skilled and trained. But by the nature, it's not an interventionist unless they're trained that way. So it's either getting more training for that purpose or hiring to fit the needs of the struggling students. We could learn more about whether that trend still holds from Act 173. And again, when it comes to quality, I firmly believe 01/1973 and its facets are one of the best things we could do for quality in this state, and we really need to focus AOE attention, I think, and support for the field on that. CESAs, seem fairly popular. I I know they're not universally accepted, but, our recommendation here is to create the regions and statute, redirect transformation dollars to CESAs because they can be stood up a lot quicker than full redistricting efforts and require one aspect of CESAs to facilitate regional consolidation and scale conversations, making it a little bit more local than what is happening here. So mandatory participation in CISA, but not mandatory use of the services. You don't have to buy the services from there. And I linked to the redistricting task force report because that report is way more comprehensive than what I have on the slides.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Representative Brady. Second bullet says, Require transformation dollars redirect transformation dollars. You and your members talked at all about ballpark what reasonable startup costs might be to get statewide robust CISOs going?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I think we could ask the Southeast Group what it took them to do. Currently, they're only given $10,000 but I know they got some grant money.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Does this policy proposal Is it saying that the state should be funding ceases exclusively?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: What do you mean by

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: exclusively? Well,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I guess I wonder about making them mandatory, which also makes mandatory contributions for their operations.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I think there needs to be pretty strict language about not duplicating services and so on.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We're gonna have a minimum, but a CISA needs executive director of the needs be funded. So making the mandatory needs an unfunded mandate potentially possible between.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: There's transformation dollars allocated currently in Act 73. Could be, redistricting costs a lot of money, like a lot of money. So I think we should be having the same conversation both ways. Standing up new districts will require either a superintendent to run two districts at once, which is impossible, or to be hiring a superintendent to stand up the new one while another superintendent is managing the old one. So pick, I guess, do both. Or you can strike the mandatory language, but I think that mandatory participation in the development at least ensures that they're co developed if someone wants to use it for future uses, they do not need to buy the services. So I think, yeah, I'm just going to reiterate that both cost money.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Just a quick question about that. Doesn't the buy in to a CISA, the participation which is required, doesn't that pay for Still cost the system money? Understandable. What I'm saying is it's not on top. Well, you're paying in, and you just have to Yeah.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: It's also related to some of the costs that are well, I'm going to get to some special ed related language as well that I think should be a focus of CESAs. And that comes directly from the AOE report, but I'll get to that. The other policy proposal is your policy proposal related to regional, middle and secondary collaboration program. People are really excited about this. You all have recognized that school construction aid is essential and it doesn't have to be all of it at once. And so I think people would gain a lot more trust in the system from a proof of concept. We gave some example criteria of what that could look like. And you'll see that the second to last bullet must include district, SU, and central office consolidation as well as school blueprint consolidation as well. So this should be driving towards the changes that are desired in Act 73. I don't think we should abandon some of those underlying goals. The question is just the sequence and the pace.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well $6,000,000,000 for $26,000,000,000

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: for two schools. Schools? Oh, see. I think that's why we're here in the first place, though, is because we've grown up our hands about $6,000,000,000 there for a lot

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of Yes, that's a good question. Something is still way better than nothing.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yeah. So policy problem number two is the foundation formula is incomplete. Thank you, representative Brady, for sounding that alarm. Though inequities persist in our current system, it cannot be ignored, and costs are growing. We still don't know how pre K CTE transportation capital expenses will be funded in the current system. I want to throw it out there that I don't believe this is just because we don't have a map. We have not answered those questions. All modeling thus far has shown on every single map that I have seen that there are very large tax increases for some and large education payment decreases for others. And if you pass a map this year, you are expecting the field to trust that a future legislature that we have not yet seen who that composition is to fill those gaps in pre K, CTE, transportation, capital funding, and to trust that that future legislature is going to fulfill that. So that is the trigger, the map. And so as soon as you all pass the map that we are putting full faith that we are not going to dramatically underfund public education with a legislature that we do not know. We will be sitting here. Pretty big one. So policy proposals make fixes to the current system while making important decisions related to the foundation formula. Taxpayers need relief now. The system needs relief now. And I think there are things that you can do to give a little relief now. One is to raise the spending minimum. As you saw, we have defeated budgets that are well under what you all last year said is an adequate funding amount for education, that $15,000. We had defeated budgets in the $11,000 range. So we are saying that the adequate spending is $15,000 but you can spend $11,000 That's a challenge. So gradually raising the spending minimum we currently have a tax floor, but you could change that to a spending minimum instead and lower the excess spending ceiling, which the Senate Finance Committee is already talking about doing. And again, that changes behavior pretty dramatically from what I have seen.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The last slide, you talked about significant tax increases in some areas. Wouldn't putting in a floor do the same in those same areas?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I think you could do it more gradually than the jump to where people see things now.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I will say that the foundation formula phase in is over five years. Agreed.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I appreciate the transition mechanism, and it doesn't solve the fact that we have gaps in the foundation formula currently.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So does the.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: So it's like kinda it's kinda like, well, we should be doing something in the interim while those things are worked out. Like, why do nothing when when we're working towards something else? And I think sometimes people are like, well, we need to change everything. Let's just do it all at once. But in the meantime, the system is struggling with those things. So still the same goals, just different ways to get there, I think.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So what you're suggesting is essentially having a I realize you probably haven't flushed it in full detail, but the idea would be perhaps while we continue to do our work, would take three to five years to even get there, and then we start phasing things in. In the interim, we'll get a spending floor. Yeah. Maybe that's phased in over the next few years. Start squeezing the range. Of the problems

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: foundation formula and other states have both been implemented in a time of not economic downturn. So either economic neutrality or economic surplus. And they've had far less disparity, from what I have noticed, between the spending of the highest districts and the lowest districts. So that's why we see these huge swings in taxes and education spending. Per Act 73, we're still two years out at minimum. I still think that timeline is pretty rough.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: A lot of timeline is contingent on many things.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Right, right. So why wait to do something for equity purposes and for cost containment purposes for two years just because we're waiting on something else, right, when we could do that now and help taxpayers and help our lowest spending districts now.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So the tools would be a floor and continued decrease in the excess spending threshold.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: The Senate Finance Committee is already proposing that part of it, but yeah.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Before you go on to the next bullet, so I totally understand the floor. We're all we get it. I'm curious about what the Senate Finance Committee is talking about and how many school districts in the state will find themselves in a place that they just, they're not viable anymore. And I know in the parentheses, you say removing the construction bonds, but some of the schools that are at the excess funding threshold already, making cuts to stay under it today, have paid off their bonds and can't afford. That's one decision they've made, to not actually do any more construction. So do you have any idea how many schools have construction bonds anymore and what categories would this again? I'm saying all this more not for an answer because I don't think you've got all of those answers. But I'm concerned about school districts that, are at that edge anyway, and lowering that excess spending until we figured out a path forward could be really harmful for kids' education.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: We currently have an excess spending. So I guess it would depend on how much you are decreasing it from the current excess spending penalty now.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, you'd recall I'll stop here where we're at right now.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: 2018, I believe. Yeah, I think it's I'm pretty sure it's 01/2022.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Yeah, just putting it out more than

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: modeling, I think.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I'm wondering whether there can be some kind of adjustments made if they're going to be going down to make sure they don't

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: And they can still spend above that. It's just taxed It's more better than a full on cap, in our

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: opinion. Yeah. The general idea is that inflationary because it's based on the average spending. So as average spending goes up.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I totally understand all that, and I'm not arguing the point. Just was wanting to

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: make sure I understood that. Thank

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: you. I don't have a recommendation of what that number is. I think you need to see modeling on We need a transition mechanism or else it's going to be super painful for people. I think the bottom line is that we really need to phase that in while we think about the huge gaps. If you don't decide on CTE funding to raise the ball and CTE funding still operates on a tuition system and the rest operates on a foundation formula, the whole thing is broken. It does not work. And so that's the types of pieces that we're contending with. Another is to move to categorical grants for small and sparse schools, which will be implemented in the foundation formula. This could add some nuance in how that is applied. And also, I believe it was a recommendation from Tammy Colby during Act 127 in general. I do not mark my words by that, but I believe it was. The other is following through on fixing the operational versus non operational application of weights in the current funding formula. I am not going to pretend to know all of the details of this, but there is a very nice report from the architects of our funding formula that lays it out much better than I can, and the link will be in that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: How about my attention to the community's benefit? So if you are a non operating district, let's just take an example where all the kids still just go to the tuition to the nearest public high school. That nearest public high school charges a tuition, that tuition is regulated, but community that is tuitioning there is getting the weights for those students, even though the tuition does not change. So in other words, if you've got 50% poverty of the students that you're tuitioning, you're getting the weight of those, but what you're paying to send them to the school, which is providing all the services, does not go with the student. It stays in the community. It's really a loophole that we've been aware of and have not sort of gotten around to fix it. And it has frankly benefited non operating districts to a point where it's almost perverse incentive to become one.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: And I forgot to mention this in our budget report, but by my latest count, we have six schools closing this year, I believe.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I believe all elementary or

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: some variation of pay through savings or

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: When you get a chance, would you mind setting the list and you happen to know what's becoming of, are they going to non operating? Are they just going next door? I

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: can't say with certainty. They're all going non operating, but I think some of them are. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But that's why too large.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: That's true. Yeah, so it's a mix.

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

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Have It's four right there. We're here. That's right. Talked We have a bond vote coming

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: up for all six of the

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: elementary schools within our supervisory and regional as well.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I think it's probably like the past.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: When's the vote, Barbara?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: There'll be regional meetings over the spring. I don't know if it's been set. The regional meetings will

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But be the record. Excellent.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: This one is move forward with the tax policies in Act 73. I think they're great. I think they're popular if you have conversations with Vermonters. They help not only with the education funding system, but with housing as well. The appraisal consistency helps with predictability in the current CLA. And home site exemption helps those Vermonters that need it most. I don't really understand why it's so intricately linked with all the rest of the policy reforms in education. If we decide, for example, that redistricting is going to take another year or another year or another year, why are those tax policies not able to go through right now? And that's the three categories, is second home taxation, appraisal consistency, and homesite exemption.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: They are linked because it was a package that was passed in legislature and and get the governor's signature.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Still think it's good policy. I don't want to get booed out of this room, so please listen to the whole piece before reacting. Our non operating systems, like I just said, there are schools that closed this year. They went to non operating. So that is our non operating system growing. But we oftentimes forget that we have responsibilities of LEAs in those non operating systems. LEAs are responsible for providing special education services. And while they're not by law required for transportation, it's very imperative for equity. This is costly and difficult the more schools that you encompass in that decision. So the policy proposal, and this is related to Chair Conlon's proposal, is that designation in contracting allows for school boards to balance those obligations, special education and transportation as two, with the desires of the community, following historic patterns, positioning patterns, while being able to properly form partnerships that it can appropriately manage the obligations with at a reasonable cost. It does not need to be limited to three, and independent schools can and should be eligible. It is just recognizing that what we have ignored is that there are two parts to the coin here when it comes to not operating. There are still responsibilities that the state and LEAs have when providing public dollars to independent schools. And the larger those if you offer 100 choices, there's still the responsibility to make sure that those obligations are fulfilled. And so if the local school board decides that it can do that at a cost affordable to taxpayers, I would say go ahead and do that. But I think it needs to be a concerted conversation between communities and school boards so that we ensure that those student rights are maintained. So hopefully, I don't get booed out of the committee room or anywhere in this building for that. But I think that that's something that has been really forgotten when it comes to the contracting and designation conversation. And I do not want to turn people away from the conversation just because we said three. A different number if you'd like. Findings from the AOE special education report, I think one of these is pretty significant. In Vermont, eighty one point nine seven percent of students with IEP spend 80% or more of their day in regular classroom compared to 67% nationally. That's a great thing. But 5.27% are in separate schools in Vermont, And that is 2.36% nationally. These patterns highlight gaps in service delivery, again, linked to act 01/1973. And, early data suggests that there's an overreliance on out of district placements, and a lot of that has to do with staffing, highly skilled staffing shortages. These delivery gaps noted above bear out through sharp increases in extraordinary costs. Over the past six years, extraordinary costs have accounted for nearly half of the growth in total special education spending, despite representing only about 15% of overall spending expenditures. The pressure is not driven by an overall increase in students on IEPs, but by growth in tuition and transportation costs to serve intensive cases, particularly among students with autism, emotional disturbance, and multiple disabilities. I think CSOs can support this. I think the Southeast Region is showing that this can be addressed through CSOs. But also, I think we need to take a better look at why those tuition costs and transportation costs are exploding and what we can potentially do about them. And so the CSEA has given me language about a potential short study. I know, I know, study, study could be helpful in addressing some of that. I don't think we should leave that fact behind in any way. I promise I'm almost done. There are too many responsibilities placed on the education fund. I think you all have heard us say that a number of times. So please require a fiscal note informed by district leaders for all education policy. It is currently in statute that you require fiscal notes, but it tends to be just if there's some big ticket money item on the list. What you passed last year, a cardiac emergency response plan, a cell phone bill, those all require training, materials cost, time. And that's two. There have been several over the last several years. And I think we need to remember that moving forward. There's a proposal floating out there to buy for pre K funding. Public programs funded out of the Education Fund through FTE and private programs at AHS, but the child care payroll tax and other current funds were highly supportive of that. Currently, the education funds both partially funds the child care payroll tax and Act $166 Consider H-seven 79, that's that flexible pathways bill, and steady cost shifts related to mental health services. Finally, we need to continue to work on our accountability system. I don't think there's anything you need to do here other than maybe take a look at that clear guidance that I linked that other states do. It needs to be useful. I think we've had conversations with the AOE. They agree that our accountability system is not currently useful. It doesn't actually help to drive change, And the timeline is pretty challenging. Saying it again, implement Ag 173 with fidelity. It will certainly help with staffing. And then require an update to CTE rules and update the regional CTE attendance zones based on optimal access, which was good work done by the redistricting task force. We just don't believe that they should

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: be the districts. While we're on

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: that last topic, just for the committee's benefit, the agenda, I've been maneuvering around a little bit since there was a desire to what's going on with CTE. So tomorrow's introduction of what's going on in commerce, we're gonna make it a joint hearing. So we'll be part of that.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: That joint hearing. First thing in the morning, 09:00. O'clock. Good

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to know. Yeah, about 09:50 tomorrow.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yeah. But I promised I wouldn't say something like sledgehammer without actually having some-

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: there questions? I felt that this fit the definition of scalpel. I appreciate you very much. It was very specific. Honestly, there's really a lot there to think about.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: For the record I did not say scalpel, I don't like the imagery of that. Please just don't use a sledgehammer to our public education system.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thought it was something about sledgehammer and scallops.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: More precise tools.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: More precise tools.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: It's more like using a sewing needle instead of industrial staple gun. You go. Build up rather than tear.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Just make sure that that slide deck gets up over here. If anybody would like a printout of the slide deck, why don't

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: you put in your order? It's getting hot water the more you talk actually.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Was thinking you too. Just had a pretty good bath. That's awesome. All right, thank you everybody. Let's take five.