Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Emily Long (Member)]: Alright. Welcome

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to House Education on Wednesday, March 11. The committee is gonna make use of some limited time with our legislative council to, again, review some parts of act 73, especially the details around dates and contingencies and triggers and all of that. There were some questions from the committee yesterday and some desire to follow-up with that. Thank you for joining us. I think probably the best place to start, I don't know if we came with something prepared to to walk us through or more by just a Q and A.

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm Sage James, the Office of Legislative Council.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: John Gray, the Legislative Council.

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: We have asked Matt to post Act 73 as enacted and the timeline that we created, that staff created, it was a joint effort, although it only looks nice because John did it. The timeline is posted, and so we're here for whatever you would like.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. Then let's do a let's do a very quick walk through of the timeline. And then folks with questions just to have them ready at the conclusion of that. Okay? Great.

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: I will just start by saying not every single action that act 73 takes is included in this timeline. We made judgments on including topics that either were specifically requested or were coming up in discussions, etcetera. So just a blanket caveat that if something is not here or you have a question and it's not here, there is no specific reason why it's not here. This is meant to be user friendly. And Act 73 was over 140 pages. So something around there. So where do you wanna focus? Do you want to focus from where we are now or Okay. Do you wanna start from the we're in the 2026 session. And most of what's due in this session is all intent language. So school district boundaries, updates to CTE, updates to pre K and begin the process of creating voting awards. That was what Act 73 said it was your intent to do this year. You could not bind yourselves last year. And there was a report due on regional reappraisals from tax and stakeholders. Then 07/01/2026, again, aspirational language for the new school district boundaries to go into effect. Not aspirational language, size minimums would go into effect or do go into effect. And the school construction program becomes operational, although there has been no funding allocated yet. Then 07/01/2027, state graduation requirements would start with the class of 2031, And then updates to the December 1 letter in anticipation of transition to the foundation formula would take effect. November 2027, again, this is aspirational language, initial school board member special election would happen, and that is assuming your school district boundaries are already in place. 01/01/2028, the statewide school calendar would go into effect, and there would be an addition of two new tax classifications for education property tax. And I believe that that's related to collecting the data, right? Yes. That would be necessary for the Okay. Yep. So 07/01/2028 is the date that we focus on when we talk about Access 73, and that contemplates again aspirational language that new school districts that you have yet to create would be operational, meaning they would supplant all current school districts and would be responsible for the education of all resident students. The foundation formula and tuition changes would take effect with an asterisk because they're contingent. Statewide education tax and supplemental district spending tax, same contingency. Homestead exemption replaces the property tax credit contingency. And I don't know. I don't think that that is your focus today, statewide graduation requirements. I'll clear up that discrepancy.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And then in 01/01/2029, full municipal reappraisal is changed to a regional system, those are the RADs, right? Anything you wanna add?

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: I literally just read this.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's pretty clear. I think it's really important to draw out, as Beth did, the bullets here that are aspirational as against those that do definitively come into effect, like that new school district boundaries is the one that both stands out to me for the 07/01/2026. But yeah, I think pretty clear. We did try to be comprehensive as to what's covered here. We did have to make judgment calls just for presentation purposes, but tried to hit the high level meaningful things and in particular, if you any patience as to what the legislature itself to be doing this session or intended to be doing this session.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I appreciate you taking the time to differentiate between aspirational and required because, let's say, we fail at creating new school district boundaries by 07/01/2026, that sort of makes everything else delayed because so much is contingent on that.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Depends.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I think that's fair. The way that we've described it in the past is that you set something, or at

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: least I have, I don't know if Beth

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: said this. You set something in motion, And it creates legal imperatives, things that will happen on given dates, but it also creates things outside of the legal context, practical imperatives, things that you would want to have accomplished for the thing that you put in motion to work. And so I think to your school district boundaries point, putting aside what the specific contingency languages, you could or could not meet the contingencies, but you raise a practical question as to whether or not you're in a position to functionally accomplish the things you want.

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, and contingency is specific to the school districts being operational, not to boundaries being created. So that's exactly what John is talking about is, do you create new have school district boundaries by 07/01/2026? Well, working backwards from 07/01/2028, we kind of figured that that was the drop dead date in order to allow all of those processes to occur. Is there a world in which if you missed July 1, but you hit it on September 1 or January 1? I don't know. But the contingency is not on boundaries. It is on operationalization of new school districts. I think that folks misconstrue those two things. And if you have a political reason for doing that, have at it. But it is my responsibility to make sure that when I'm in this seat, I'm clear on the language.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Yeah,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: understood. And I think it does fall back to the practicality of meeting those as opposed to sort of the aspiration of that work. You.

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: Election law is going play a big piece Representative in

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Long. Oh, just

[Emily Long (Member)]: That's clear to that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Emily Long (Member)]: So related to what were just describing, it is possible to implement things within this timeline. I'm going to give an example because I have constituents who are asking me pretty regularly whether this part of Act 73, the part I'm going to share of Act 73 is going to move forward regardless of those new school district boundaries. And it is under the 01/01/2020 edition of two new tax classifications for a private tax. I remember asking, I think it was JFO COVID unit, is it possible to do that separate from this? What's expected in the plan. And they had indicated, yes, it was. And now it feels like that isn't going to happen unless all the pieces happen. So I'm curious as to what it requires if we want to do something like that.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: The linkage is just legal in the sense that it's included in the contingency language, those property tax specifications. But if you're just asking a functional question, is there some inherent connection between the rollout of new property tax specifications and a foundation formula? The answer is no. You could sever those.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. It's just that

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: the way that Act 73 was enacted, they are tied together as a package and moved together as a package, but you could sever the link and there is no essential relationship.

[Emily Long (Member)]: So that would require legislative action.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: It would require legislative action to change the

[Emily Long (Member)]: That's exactly what I was saying. Thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, other questions, or desire yesterday to have some questions here? No,

[Unidentified Member]: I'm not even really sure how to ask this question actually. So I think, appreciate Beth's point about the difference legally between drawing potentially new school district boundaries and the work that would be required to operationalize them. And I don't mean the work in the field, mean the legal work, what we would have to do here to create that structure. Can you help us understand a little bit more about what those two pieces might look like just in terms of legislative work?

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: It depends on what your policy objectives are. The work that is required of the general assembly hinges in large part on the representation model that you choose for your new school boards. If you are choosing it, which you can do, and you choose proportional representation, so proportional to town population, that's when we get into the it's not redistricting because you haven't done it yet, but the drawing of the voting ward lines, which is a similar process to legislative redistricting, which takes months and months and months and requires specialized staff that you don't have right now. You could theoretically leave that up to the field to do that work. Say, here are your new school districts and we are making a determination that your representation models are all proportional to town population and you figure it out, they still have to do the same work. The timing of that also matters. If your boundaries are set in law, then the ward work is contained within those boundaries. If you are trying to do school district boundaries and the ward work at the same time, then every time you change a school district boundary, your board work starts over. You could leave it up to the field to decide the representation models. At large, a hybrid model or proportional to representation, that's all currently in chapter 11 for voluntary mergers. But again, they have to do all of that work in the field. So a lot of it depends on decisions that you haven't made yet and who's doing the work.

[Unidentified Member]: Does that system contemplate Don't recall all that much about our legislative redistricting process, but I mean, is there a scenario where those boards come back to legislature for some sort of affirmative approval?

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: I suppose theoretically you could ask for that, but the way it works now is for voluntary mergers, proportional to town representation is a representation model that is on the table and they have to do that work themselves. And there's no legislative approval required for that. I suppose you could build in something like that if you wanted it. It's a lot of work.

[Unidentified Member]: Thanks. I think, yeah, appreciate the reminder. I feel like I've probably been told that a few times and I've failed to really

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: The proportional to 10 representation is a constitutional, a US constitutional concept. And I am not your expert on this, Tucker and Tim are, but from my work with Tucker and Tim on this, there's a standard of deviation that a court is going to hold folks accountable to. So there is guidance out there on what would be okay and what wouldn't be okay as far as the number of citizens one representative was representing. But you're gonna be able to draw different lines to meet that standard. So I think it gets into whether you wanna have control of those lines or whether you want the field to have control over those lines.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Representative Brady.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Okay, trying to understand kind of order of operations and contingencies here. So if we enact new district boundaries this session, but we can't come to agreement about CTE? What happens with the foundation formula?

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: Nothing. The foundation formula is not contingent on CTE, except to the extent that the JFO report that the foundation formula is contingent on the receipt of and the opportunity to enact changes on does ask for recommendations on how to fund CTE, but the foundation formula itself does not hinge on any changes to CTE.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: So those outstanding items, for those things that are in the AIR report that's due to us in December, are obviously extremely important information, but they do not require legislative action. We could throw it on the shelf and say, no, thanks, Chris. No, thanks. But whatever we do or don't do, if we don't do anything, the foundation formula is inaccurate. You have received the report, so if you never get the report, that contingency is not met. And if

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: you receive the report on 07/01/2028, I would argue that you have not had an opportunity to review it and enact changes. Whether it's a meaning, the word meaningful is not in the contingency. So if you received it on 06/30/2028, I think that is something that could be litigated on whether or not you have had an opportunity. But as long as you get the report back, I'll say before 07/01/2028, school district boundaries are operational, I'm sorry, school districts are operational, yes, absent further legislative action, the foundation formula would take effect. I'm just gonna start. It's a free for all. I'm just gonna talk.

[Unidentified Member]: No, I think, sorry, were you done? No, I think so. Yeah, I think that's, for folks who are sort of following along in this chapter, I really appreciate walking through the timeline again. In my own mind, I try to think about, we talk about gates or contingencies or hurdles or dominoes, but some of the elements on this timeline are fairly spaced out, July 2026 to 01/01/2028. And what I think it's really important for legislators and for folks in the field and for Vermonters to understand is that once certain decisions are set in motion, absent legislature deciding to alter or change course, things like the foundation formula become operational. So essentially, I'm just repeating what you said just for the second time.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: If I could offer something there, there are, and I know that we've talked about this before, this doesn't speak to the going into effect piece, which is I think what you're trying to hit at. But there are other methods by which the foundation formula will regularly be updated. So just to note, and as currently enacted, one of those would happen in 2031, so shortly after the introduction of foundation formula. There would be recalibration of the weights and the base. You also have inflationary adjustments for each of the pieces and there's an inflation report. So aside from the contingency piece, are ways that those inputs are gonna be touched unless future changes are ready to remove those.

[Unidentified Member]: Mean, theoretically, legislature can, we could jump in at any moment and sort of, but it does require some regular schedule.

[Unidentified Member]: Going back to the representation models, you named three different models that are being kind of used all three of those models are being currently used in districts right now for representation?

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Erin?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Yes, can you repeat those three?

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: At large, there's a hybrid model, which is something that came about through legal action in the 70s, I believe. And then there is proportional to town population. They're all outlined very in painful detail in chapter 11 for all of the steps a union school district would need to take from scratch, create a union school district and decide on the representational model and how they do that and how you keep your school district up and running based on that representation model.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So what I think about a lot, this isn't a question, just comment for the committee is, as we move to newer, larger districts, at what point is what we have created sort of not suitable for the new board to figure out to govern themselves? So at forty six, you did consolidation, but largely it was the SUs that already existed around union high schools and union middle schools. And so figuring out the representation was not as complicated. But if you go to, if you take the upper corner of state, Newport over to Cayman and down, you could have 20 odd towns. And so, you know, you have a board that has 20 people so that every town gets representation, and then they either have their vote fractionalized based on population, or you have more people from Newport, fewer people from Concord. So what I'm trying to say is, I think there's, you reach a certain tipping point where you sort of have to go to voting boards in order to sort of keep a board under a certain size and have constitutionally valid portion of representation. And it's not something I know a whole lot about, but it's something I think about as we sort of list out sort of the major tasks before us to meet these deadlines. That's a big one that we don't often think about. And I think it's legislative council has reminded us that we are going to voting wards that requires specialized staff, computer modeling and all that. And maybe it can be more of those things that takes, if we were to successfully pass something to session, that could take place between now and January, then if January gets enacted quickly, I just don't know. But all I'm saying is that that's one of those complicated, potentially expensive challenges before us to sort of figure out how we want to

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: deal with. Maybe the question's for you or maybe for, we have in, I'll work backwards in Act 73, if we have to go down the more complicated voting boards path, who's paying for that and how much and where that money's coming from?

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: Who would be doing the work?

[Emily Long (Member)]: If it's the

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: field, that's a policy decision for you all. Do you let them figure it out on their own, which is what happens for voluntary mergers now? Or do you provide some sort of grant? If it's you all, that's going to come out of your legislative budget.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And then I guess my other question is, so when you talk about that tipping point and the coherent board size against representation, We've got your map on the table. Where does that fall in the end? Do you think we're sort of at the tipping point or are we hard to start it?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I don't think that any of that expertise is sitting in the room right now. But it's a question I struggle with, absolutely. Mine has many districts because I was kind of hoping we could afford the whole board driving, but they were small enough, but I'm not confident that I took the right number. John, I know you need to leave. Anything specific to John before he leaves?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I have a few more. Committee assistant from corrections reached out, and I can stay till 10:45, I think, but I don't have anything particular that I want to let you guys know. I'm happy to be here.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, I just want make sure have specific questions. Yeah, Beth, go ahead.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: If I remember correctly, there are some contingencies on the tax classifications that are not related to the school districts, related to the legislators setting the multipliers and certain things that have to happen. Yes. Since you asked, could you separate that out and separate, But there are some contingencies related to that being implemented as well. Yes. There are separate contingencies.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Mind as a flip Sorry. Trying to preserve my your head. Yeah. I'm trying to preserve my laptop battery.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: It's like remember too.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: It's like what I recall is that I think it's 61D, is part of your set of power tax classifications pieces, is that without those rate multipliers, the classification So itself will not go to you can think of the legal structure for those contingencies as they have a double contingency. Not only are they contingent upon what you see happening with the school district boundaries, they also beat that rate multiplier report. Okay.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Not just the report, but the legislature actually has

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: some Yeah. On that, right? Yeah. Because the current statutory factors that you see, are there's two separate pieces. There's the classifications themselves, and then we bring them into the administration of the statewide education property tax. And what you'll recall from the uniform statewide tax rate that would go into effect foundation formula is a table that sets out different statutory factors by which the recommended statewide rate be multiplied. So different classifications would get different rates as a function of those statutory factors. As enacted in Act 73, the statutory factors won, meaning that all of the classifications receive the same statewide rate, the recommendations, and updating those statutory factors within different genomes of the classes. Yeah. Oh, perfect. I did call out the correct section.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Thank

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: you. In order to ensure successful implementation of ed finance reform as set forth in this act in the absence of legislative action on or before 07/01/2028, that creates a new tax rate multiplier to be used in the classification system, F10, which is the contingency for those pieces of repeal. Yep.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: That's what I thought. Thank you for the reminder.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What would your recommendations be if we needed to go down the path of how big is too big to self determined governance? Who could provide the best guidance for Would that be a Secretary of State question?

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: I think that is truly a policy question. And so if you want policy guidance on that, it's not gonna come from my office.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, it's

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, so, I mean, Secretary of State has our elections division and generally is associated with civics in our state. Certainly the fields, I mean, folks who are gonna be doing this work or sitting on the boards may have thoughts on what's unwieldy or-

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Told I need to run.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Okay. I'm

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: happy to do that.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Thank you. Goodbye.

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, I think Secretary of State's office.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Sure. More questions? Yeah, go ahead.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I was So I wasn't gonna say this, I And it's not really a question, but it's a comment based on the question you just asked, Chair. The complication or what's too large. I have experience with multiple different types of voting systems in my county after Act 46. So I see real challenges around trying to I don't even know how to what I'm trying to say, except that one SU to another, they're so very different that expanding that change and difference across the state in larger units feels really daunting. And yet, a system is in place today voluntarily through decisions made locally to vote specific ways in their own regions, that's a huge change if it's changed by voting boards and everybody making a decision. So I'm not asking a question. I'm just making a point that it is complicated today. It can be made more complicated by decisions we make. And I think it's more complicated whichever decision we make in my own mind.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If you recall the testimony we had last year with legislative council about our election experts. You know, it's it's not just sort of like what form of representation. But if you go to voting more, it's like, well, where do you actually cast your ballot?

[Emily Long (Member)]: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Especially if you went to, you know, that's back when we were kind of talking five districts or even 14 districts.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Question, believe what's happening, what happens in high school district. It's proportional, but it's also, I think it may be hybrid because it's at large mindset. Everybody votes for everybody, no matter what town you live in. And perhaps because that's simpler to set up than the voting laws. But you lose, I mean, there's a trade off of losing your local, there's that fear of losing your local voice, because if everybody votes on everybody, if you're from a small town, are you really voting for your own people? So there's a trade off no matter what.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Absolutely. That's system you go with. We have become I don't know if we have any fully at large Unified Union School districts. Most of them still retain some sort of town town representation. So they either have more people for the larger town and fewer people for the smaller towns or they have one person per town, but the but the votes are fractionalized.

[Emily Long (Member)]: And even when there are at large members, like you're talking, yeah, LINE has proportional every town is represented or And voted we also have two of an 11 person board at large that are voted on at a separate time in all five different And that's

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: right. You

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: can have no, that is the double. You can

[Emily Long (Member)]: So there we go. There's more than just one.

[Sage James (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. There's potential to have different representation models on the same board. If it's helpful for you, I can throw up chapter 11 with some of the definitions for I don't think it's just matter fact

[Emily Long (Member)]: that we're different is I'm

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: gonna give us a break unless there are any further questions for Lodge Council.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Thank you very much. All right.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Thank