Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Everything you just said. Welcome

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: back to House Education on March 11. It was a brief period for committee discussion before we head to the floor talking bit more about moving forward with Act 73. And I think I'm just gonna ask the committee to kind of reflect on sort of what we have heard up until we had our break. Events over the town meeting break, most specifically school budget votes and kind of how you see that and interpret that. And then how that may or may not have changed your thinking moving forward, including things that we've heard in the last two days here as well. Beth, do you feel like starting us off?

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: I'll speak to the school budget piece, I guess. It does not impact me or my thinking. And I would note from what I saw whether budgets failed or passed in both cases, the vote was very close in almost every case, one way or the other. So I think there's still I see a very large split in this state on people's thinking around school budgets still.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What happened in your area?

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: It failed.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: In what district? Kingdom East. Kingdom East.

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: It did not fail by much. But I saw that with budgets that passed as well as budgets that failed, but it wasn't. And as usual, a very, very, very small percentage of the voters voted.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: There

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: are 3,000 names on the checklist in Linden, I think 500 votes were cast. That's just for one town. I think that's pretty much statewide. A quarter of the voters even vote on

[Rep. Leland Morgan (Member)]: the budget, if that. So it's hard to put a whole lot of stock in what the vote is telling you. Pretty much the same in my district. Two schools did not, two did. One in failed, but it was very close. I think

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: it was like 28 or 30 votes. Maybe like 27.

[Rep. Leland Morgan (Member)]: And the one in Alberg, I don't know the exact numbers. It was fairly close, but it failed. The other two schools passed. I think the ones that passed were the little greater. Two and two. The other

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: two would be South Hero. South Hero and Grand Isle School. These are K-eight schools.

[Rep. Leland Morgan (Member)]: One of them, six and then seventh grade college.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So does any of that, you kind of had a split decision up there. Does it, Beth, or does it really change her thinking on anything or what we've heard to date either.

[Rep. Leland Morgan (Member)]: Not in that respect.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It looks like the circle's going around your direction.

[Rep. Robert Hunter (Member)]: Let's see. I think you put a pass in town. Talked to a lot of people there. It's kind of interesting hearing you two. After the governor came out, sort of felt all hands on deck to vote down budgets, it didn't really happen. Mean, am I wrong in just assuming that it's kind of hoping to keep the whole tax rebellion going for purposes of our education transformation?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm not going to interpret the motivations of the governor, but I think your observation is one worth pointing out. Yeah.

[Rep. Robert Hunter (Member)]: So it seems like, you know, I mean, the people who are voting to, well, at least in most states, supporting their local education, which is good.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And does it make you sort of rethink? But we'll just keep going around here.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: So our budget passed, which was good news. Mean, I think we're lucky. Historically, my district has not struggled to pass a budget. Yeah, I I guess just in terms of what we've heard since coming back, I mean, I thought Chelsea's testimony yesterday from the BSA was really helpful in sort of directing our thinking going forward. I think, like many of us, I do get some questions from my community around education transformation that showed her mantras are maybe not following along with the twists and turns of this conversation. I think there's a lot of confusion and a lot of concern. But I think the fact that so many budgets passed across the state shows that people care about public education. So I think we should think it's a positive sign despite the fact that problems persist.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Our budget passed about two to one margin. My thinking has not changed a lot. I know we have underlying structural issues. Before Chelsea used sledgehammer, my pre session article was let's use a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. And I think the things that Chelsea reminded us yesterday, many of these are not new, but some of these are not even just for the session. I think we need to be taking some more strategic steps before any reasonable timeline. I just think irregardless of even my opinions on act 73, the scope of change and work contemplated is pretty unrealistic. And so I'd rather make incremental change and improvement towards those goals. We definitely have some underlying structural issues, but I'm not sure that we're ready to fully take on some of those underlying structural issues.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So split decision in my area as well. Represent part of Otter Valley. Their budget is voted down and I represent fair bit of Addison Central, but then it always passes at least two to one. You know, I kind of had the same observation as Rob, like, despite the most popular governor of the country sort of trying to keep the tax revolt going, voters kind of said something different. How to interpret that? I've been thinking about it a lot. Is that a vote for the status quo? Probably for some areas, yeah. I'd say certain places where budgets pass easily. Is you know, I'm sort of stuck. Know, I represent Salisbury, which is in that central district, and I represent Lester, which is in Otter Valley. Kids can live half mile apart and have completely different experiences because of the way we fund schools. So I sort of have that as a shining star. The big aspiration is to try to do something about that inequity. Am I would steal Representative Brady's word. I am somewhat overwhelmed by and not that I didn't know that it wasn't there and that I knew that I would feel this eventually. But the amount of sort of decision making and work that has to be done. And while there's a timeline laid out, it's an aspirational timeline. However, in the meantime, mean, I do think I'm a bit of an incrementalist and, you know, frankly, we can't get this group of people to agree on something. There are probably big things like where we draw district lines and how districts operate within those lines. We have been given a fairly good roadmap to incremental change that we I think we need to take very seriously. Know, well, I think was back to the redistricting task force, which sort of is a one level of vetting. We've had sort of what we just heard yesterday as well. So, as I think about the things that we can rally around here, I think about newer and fewer when it comes to secondary education, and I think CISAs. And I think we've sort of fall apart on the bigger structural change. And I'd hate to lose the other two because we can't get the other one. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. And I do change from day to day. If I could add to

[Rep. Leland Morgan (Member)]: what you're saying, all the emails that I receive, and we all receive a lot of them, I think they're pretty much mirroring what you're saying. I mean, everybody out there kind of feels the same way.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, if you're on the Otter Valley side of things, you might not feel that way. If you're on the Berry side of things, you might not feel that way. And I find myself like, well, it's also about property taxes. So I do find myself vacillating wildly, just why I think about things that we can all rally behind that are inexpensive to implement with high probability of payoff while we work towards bigger structural change.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Brent Gorgon had said, Milton budget was defeated narrowly. The Georgia budget was another district that I represent. That was defeated also.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So, Gina, cost out about?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, so my opinion on moving forward hasn't swayed one bit. I realize the governor went out and said people vote their budgets down, but on the other hand, he's telling people he's going give them 100 and something million dollars to buy down their property taxes. So we're getting a little bit of conflicting information there, so I don't know how much that affected people's voting in our district, in the Milton itself. We have about 8,500 voters. We had a larger than normal turnout with about 2,500 voters. Usually, it's only about 1,800, so we had a really great turnout. But it was still defeated by 26 votes. I'm ready to move forward with Acts of Missouri. I think we need to get some courage back and start making some hard decisions and moving things forward. And we have a very short amount of time to do that. I just want to remember, remind the administration, the governor has said he is not signing a budget unless he's getting the kind of transformation that he has envisioned. Me It's been the right take it.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Sorry. Yeah, thought it was my turn. For me, my views haven't changed much, if at all, in this time. I'll echo everything Chris said, except for the budget part. I have two districts that I represent. One passed, although I think only 178 people were voted in that one, or at least for one of my towns. For the district I live in, our budget was voted down. Five ninety three were yes, nine forty three no's. So it was a significant vote down, which has been par for Chorus for the last three years or more. By that margin? By a decent margin. It's always enough for you to print. Usually it's in less than 200, but this time it was a fairly large, it was a three fifty vote difference. Prior to town meeting day, we had a bunch of budget forms. And my superintendent did a pretty good job about trying to explain how Vermont funds education. Because everyone's like, you got to cut the budget, but then does that really how much does that save you a tax rate for your town? Depends on a whole bunch of other factors. And it became more and more clear that as a state, we need to restructure how we do education funding, which is obviously funding whatever it might be. In my area, that's really what I'm starting to see is that there's the attachment of understanding that the way we fund education versus the town budget are two very different things. We could cut $5,000,000 but that could create a big savings or it might be nothing. So I'm starting to lean into, how do we make that change, whether it's structurally or even just as basic as a new funding model? So that's going to run out.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: I find myself thinking I agree with talking points from both Rev. Conlon and Rev. Taylor, which is weird. But that's kind of where I'm at. Our budget in Montpelier passed easily, as it usually does. Our budget in Washington Central Unified Union, where I teach, passed as it usually does. And our neighbor Barry put forward a level funded budget, and theirs failed, as it usually does. Level funded? Level funded. Or level funded. Just keeping the lights on, keeping things where it is. And so they'll continue to cut programs while we continue to maneuver things around so that we can offer kids more in Mont Belier and E32. So much like the Audubally military situation that Rev Conlon was talking about, I too am ready to move forward. I was kind of with Reb Taylor right until the end, blah blah blah.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I lost it. Yeah,

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: the last little bit, I'm less concerned about. But I do think we should move forward with Act 73. Think I wasn't on board, I didn't vote for it originally, but I cannot watch our neighbors continue to have programs for schools and kids and students and families while I see us continue to flourish just across the line. What

[Rep. Leland Morgan (Member)]: makes that magic and how can that be replicated across the state? What makes yours so uniquely, how can that translate to the rest of us?

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: How is it that we continue to pass our budgets and move forward?

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: What makes that work so well?

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Versus Then down the road. Versus anyone else who just flounders

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: and fails. I'll speak to our district. It's socioeconomic differences.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: Sorry, I'm interrupting the order, it raises a really interesting question. If we fix the property tax credit system, or if we get rid of the clips, what impact would that have on voter behavior around school budgets?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I don't know, I'd say it's interesting. There are other areas around the state that I've seen where voting down the budget is almost more cultural than it is.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: It's a

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: current passage. About property taxes. Yeah.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Can I add on to what you just said about socioeconomic? Yeah. Because I think, again, I'm obsessed with carrying around actual FY 'twenty six numbers. But the difference between what Otter Valley spends and Addison Central before weights, so the actual money difference, is only about $700 per kid. Now, our weights, which are about tax capacity, not about funding, which is a real challenge, make those a bigger differential. And I could go through lots of different comparisons. And so I guess, we talk a lot about Slate Valley. They spend in real dollars, not the weighted amount, dollars 22,000 per kid. That's more than both our districts. I'm saying all of this because the socioeconomic status of our kids and poverty and income inequality are such horrific entrenched drivers of things in society, and I'm not we should do everything we can, but schools and schools funding

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: not

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: alone are probably not going to fix that, even though that's why I didn't get my teacher.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Can I just and yes, I do agree about the socioeconomic, but that's not always necessarily the case? In putting together our budget this year for Milton and looking at some valid items, we're doing, we started doing some digging into the household income in Milton. And the median household income in Milton is actually higher than average for the Chittenden County area and in the state itself. We are historically a district that's a no vote on school budget. Actually, you're the exception, historically.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I see. It's usually multiple, those votes, to get it a bunch of votes. I

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: thought it was gonna be second. Know.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: Was. I guess that. So

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: as far as budgets in my area, only one of my three towns has voted. Yes, and the others are yet to come. But the one town that did vote, overwhelmingly yes, also voted to go for school. And they supported their school budget that was proposed. And my region, I think most of the budgets in Windham County that were up and some are not yet did pass. So there wasn't much failure to vote in the county. I would just say as as an aside, we all agree that we can't interpret the governor's impact on the votes, but I think it's also possible that they did have an impact. Some of the no votes or turnout might have had he might have contributed to some of that too. I'm not saying he did. I'm saying that you can look at it both ways. So not much of my perspective has changed. But I guess I would say I grow increasingly concerned about the capacity of our system, our schools, and our system in general, as well as the AOE that tackled what Act 73 is asking us to do on the timeline that it's at today, the timeline we looked at. And so in some ways, I feel more concerned. I also grow more concerned about the foundation formula and its impact and the things that I can't know and explain to the folks I represent and how it's going to impact them. I am also, course, I'm a long term faker. I like to have a vision of what we're trying to accomplish. And I have one, but I'm not sure my vision is what everyone of is reach. And my vision includes the things that I've been advocating for in this realm, which is regional middle and high schools across the state, where the conversations we've had in the last couple of days about CTE make me grow increasingly concerned that we're going be more with a system that doesn't take into account the vision that I think that we have articulated in this room, not just me, but others, about access to a CTE program in Nebraska State. I didn't hear a lot of I wasn't feeling very confident about what we heard in the testimony this morning So in the Commerce those things continue to concern me. Because of the capacity issue and because of the feedback from my constituents and across the state, I still think that there are steps that we absolutely need to take, and we need to take them this year. And you, Chair, articulated many of them. And I agree with much of what you said. And I will add on to them some of the tax policy topics that I think we've had some discussions about. We need to move forward with that. I am very sensitive to people who are struggling to pay their property taxes. But I am still not convinced that making this monumental change in the timeline that we have set for it is going to actually do that, and it may do more harm. And I'm worrying more and more about that. So that's no different than what I've been saying all along.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So you've mentioned the timeline a couple of times. I've heard that repeatedly. I think the timeline in there is no doubt it's ambitious, but I think it's worth thinking about how much if we were to say, okay, we're gonna extend everything by another two years. Would that really make a difference in how you feel about anything?

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: No, I wouldn't say that. I say the timeline for what we have in place feels not doable. But I also think that given more time, we might make adjustments to this law that Vermonters will get behind. And right now I'm feeling they're not. And I'm feeling that pushing them into things that I can't tell them what the outcome will be, giving more time to this process will allow us to make those decisions that we were talking about at the end of the table here in witness testimony this morning from the JFO and Ledge Council. Those are major decisions we need to make, and I want to make sure we're doing them thoughtfully and that we have Vermonter's voice as a part of that decision, and that's where the timeline, to me, doesn't allow for that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, so the question becomes, where do we go from here? I don't think we're gonna solve that between now and the floor. But we do have some extra time. I think that Representative Taylor is going to have some discussion points for us tomorrow that we can look at. And, you know, I'll think as sort of the the chair of the committee about how you know, at a certain point, we're gonna just have to say how many people can get on board with this concept or that concept in order to get something out of the committee. And then for some you know, and then when we put we put a package together, how much of that is too little for some of us and how much it might be too much. But I think, you know, I really appreciate everybody's comments just in terms of being, I think, thoughtful with the the right goals at hand. You know, it's Listen to Kate say she agrees with something I've said, it's unsolicited at the same time really of shows my day. It just really shows that that that there's a lot here to like, and there's a lot here to be cautious about. And people say, well, what is the goal of Act 73? Is it equity? Is it property taxes? Is it better accountability? Is it more opportunity? Is it reducing property taxes? You're controlling the growth of property taxes. And the thing is that for some people, might be a few of those things. For others, it's all of those things. I will say that some days for me, the equity portion is a little more important. For other days, it's the ability to control costs in the future part. So it's big and overwhelming and trying to do a lot of things at once. Think it's got its toe in every area of concern and opportunity, But it's big and it does require a lot of everybody. You know, just just the sort of the you know, as we as we talk about timeline, for example, you know, just the ability to sort of if if if we were to say whatever Matt Chris puts on the table is the best, and we're gonna vote it out this week. There's something about that. That that, you know, there's still big questions about voting and representation. And can you leave it to districts to come up with it as we did with act 46? Or is it is it too big given the size?

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: Yeah. Another question about too big is, again, this idea of inconsistency across the state. Again, everything is a trade

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: off,

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: but do you want policy consistency in how school boards operate across the state or not? How much flexibility in things and how much consistency in things in our education system that we're reimagining do we want to have?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You know, in the map and policy that I put on the table, that was kind of my goal, except with board representation because I didn't dare go that far. But just to say that we would have sort of uniform governance all operating under statute instead of buried articles of agreement and all of that was sort of build on that consistency. I think that one of the areas that the Agency of Education is trying to do a better job on that we have had in a long time. It's accountability in our schools. I think they would say that 119 districts makes accountability really hard. That's or 53 superintendencies. And I'm sympathetic to that also as a benefit of that, because I think we have had uneven accountability across the state. Don't know where I was going with that. Anyway, but again, it's more to just have to have a consistent set of statutes that govern our education system. And different parts of Vermont are getting it.

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: So having how much flexibility does there need, because one size doesn't fit all. So is there a balance point for that?

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: So if I can just add on to what you just said. There's a reason partly why it doesn't work. When we don't have a statewide e finance system that we have been trying to do for as

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: long as I've been here

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: and not longer than that. And that makes no sense to me that we still don't have a statewide one that everybody's part I think

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: school probably they probably failed.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Had a school information. Well, But even that was years ago. And the school information system is also not in the I mean, if those things can't even be done at the agency, they would have helped a lot for accountability. They really would have, because we would have been comparing apples to apples. It's really hard not to do that. That's a source of deep frustration for me because I've been dealing with it for so long.

[Rep. Leland Morgan (Member)]: Is the Senate doing anything that you're aware of that

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: believe I've looked at their agenda. I think they have concepts on the table, but they're waiting for us. We've got the extension. I think if we could somehow coalesce around concepts, the next couple of days, could turn toward more sort of joint work so that we're working in parallel, but I don't think we're there yet. You guys wanna say anything? Want me to just make you all sit here in silence for five minutes?

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I have kids for good.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: The miscellaneous Ed fill outs tomorrow?

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: So we can- That would be something productive we could do.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So it's on the agenda. Again, miscellaneous Ed bill. I think one of the sort of sticking points we had within this committee was the therapeutic school, one buys another. I just want to remind us how we got here. I think that it was believed by the one entity buying the other entity that it would not constitute a new school. The State Board of Education with legal counsel said, no, this does constitute a new school because it's a new LLC.

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: There's a moratorium.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And so therefore, if there's a moratorium, they could buy us a moratorium. So, you know, we just need to decide whether we want to clarify that it doesn't apply to one entity by another existing entity. And so we can talk about it further tomorrow. It's not really posted on the agenda right now, but I think that's the only thing in the miscellaneous Ed bill we were a little wary of.

[Rep. Robert Hunter (Member)]: Is that a separate bill?

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: Too big. It was, but then we moved it because it was just too big.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And so then the other criminal, chronic absenteeism, as I said before we went on, it's just trying to get that part sorted. I think otherwise we have plenty of consensus on it. And frankly, if all of a sudden somebody discovers something they don't like, it's gotta go through the Senate process

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: anyway. Remind me if we, did we put in on the, It was the background checks?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. So that's another, I think, solvable thing. So the AOE wanted the ability to do criminal background checks on their own employees. Then we had a request to also have it done for contractors with the AOE who might be engaged with students. That language was added.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: Does that include early childhood? Is they're having a lot of problems getting fingerprinted and getting people hired?

[Rep. Leland Morgan (Member)]: Yes, so Would AOE do all of that?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, this is AOE wanting to do criminal background checks on their own employees. Student That facing. And contractors. Like, years ago, they hired a photographer who they should've done a better job doing their background check. And so there's been some emails back and forth on this issue. The issue that McCann brings up is one that has existed since the dawn of time and for some reason cannot be solved. I have no idea why I never understood that something so uncomplicated is so bloody complicated. And that's through numerous secretaries of education and people at HHS. Anyway, so things went back and forth and it came down to a shall versus a may, which is being looked at right now. So the contractor part was not requested by the AOE, by others, it seemed like a reasonable request. The original language that we had in there proposed that shall do background checks on everybody. They are suggesting just make it a bay, because what the AOE's intent here is to be able to do background checks on their own employees and their own contractors, which they're fine with, who will be involved with students. Right now, it's actually not required. So anyway, Beth's doing a little work on that, get that up, and that's the last thing there. And then chronic absenteeism is just, what do you do? How do you prosecute something where you don't miss any sort of punishment? And that's hopefully being worked out elsewhere. Again, this was an AOE initiative, AOE language. I'd like to hope that they can solve it without us having to sort of make a policy choice here because Bill's not gonna cure chronic absenteeism overnight, so if it doesn't make you over the finish line, that's okay, or if we do miscellaneous that bill, they can flop back and forth, we can add it later.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Changing the direction on how we're handling chronic absenteeism, I think,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: is really important.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: And I like much of what I've heard in this field, and working with families and students as opposed to not is absolutely critical, I think, to the success of our kids and our families as well.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, I think it would be missed opportunity.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: That's that was my, yeah.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: I think it's something

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: good we could get around this session like the cell phone bill last time.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, although that was added on by the Senate. Still, the work we did, was good. Yes, we did.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: We agreed.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I know, I just was stressed. Alright.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Nothing further on in the item that's on our agenda. I've got to call us in recess, we'll be back here in the morning.

[Rep. Beth Quimby (Member)]: 09:15 tomorrow, right? So I'm traveling in.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. Fifteen.