Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Welcome to House Education on 03/18/2026. The committee, as it has for most of this week, in committee discussion time.

[Speaker 1]: I thought about sitting back and letting the committee just talk and seeing where it gets. We probably we should talk about the environment we find ourselves in. We I think it might be a chance to find out where where people think we are, what environment we're I I tend to feel like we've got a limited amount of time to move forward on the goals of Act 73. We have we have been unable to coalesce around much of anything and which is always situation with education because everybody feels the impact differently. I think it's especially hard for House members because I think whether we're a Republican or you're a Democrat to go home and say, here's what I just did to us, even though you might see it from a statewide perspective as a good thing, might be hard to go back and and tell your constituents that. I think we are in an environment where we have pressure from on top, from the governor saying, gotta keep moving forward. But nothing happens if we can't put something out of this committee that's gonna require be nice to have many votes, but it's gonna require at least six, and we for better much better if it were seven. I'd like it to be something that everybody can feel good about it being a start. There's lots of I'd say there's lots of fear out there that is justified because there's a lot of unknowns. I would say there's a lot of misinformation out there because we talk about things, it gets reported, but for us, we know it's just conversation at this point. So I sit here at the end of the table a little bit stuck. I I I frankly understand people's reticence to want to sort of take a lead position on this because it can be sort of misconstrued in your own area or wherever. You know, I'm getting lots of emails from people in my area about making changes even though they sort of know where I stand on this.

[Speaker 0]: Yesterday, we had some conversation with the goal of saying, at a minimum,

[Speaker 1]: can we make this into something? I think we can continue that conversation. We need to flesh more out. I'm sort of kind of running out of capacity to be the one to flesh things out and to figure out what it is that we need to do. I guess, might be just sort of a good maybe we just need to sort of do a little reset and talk about sort of where people are. But I don't know. Seems to me like that we all kinda know where each other is because we talk very openly and transparently here about where we are. So I guess I would throw it open to the committee for the time being to say so we don't have legislative council here to talk about specific language for a while, but where we take this conversation. So maybe I'll try to bring this down a little little less abstract, a little more specific. So yesterday we talked about CISAs. Talked about somehow using them to move us to newer, larger districts in a more collaborative fashion. So that's a concept. More collaborative fashion versus state mandated, newer, larger districts. It is sort of easier to talk about. Not sure it would get us to where we need to go,

[Speaker 0]: but I would throw it open for discussion.

[Speaker 2]: Yes. Yeah, so I

[Speaker 3]: think on the topic of moving forward with CISOs, maybe it's not the path that folks envisioned when we started this process, but it's also not nothing. I think it's a significant opportunity. So it maybe isn't what we envisioned when we started with ACT 73, but I think it is substantive and I think we should continue to talk about it and talk about language. And to the extent it's any consolation, clearly we're not the only group of legislators or education leaders who are struggling with the idea of redistricting school districts. Task force clearly did their work, so I suppose it doesn't make our present situation any different or any better, but we're certainly not the first folks who've run into the past on this.

[Speaker 1]: You know, we we put could, maps on the table and we put language on the table. We put different language on the table. We're down to CSATs where we were yes. We are probably in very similar conversations to what the redistricting task force went through. Kate?

[Speaker 4]: I think that's why I went home last night so frustrated, because we called for there to be a redistricting task force. The task force did their job. They came back with recommendations. We basically ignored those recommendations for the first half of the session, and now we're back to looking at their recommendations. I mean, it just bores me. Like, I just want to drop it all and be like, I can't stand this.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, but I think, know, first of

[Speaker 0]: all, I would say that

[Speaker 1]: we did not ignore the recommendations. We had them in, they presented. I think we've always had CESAs in the back of mind as something to fall back on. I think that newer, larger state mandated districts had always been the goal that we that had always been sort of part of Act 73. We needed we needed to go down that path. We needed to have those conversations. I always tell people, look at the sausage, don't look at the sausage making. Or you can talk about how they joke about America as a whole. America generally makes the right choice after exploring all other options, which is what I think we're he had been in the middle of. You know? There are those of us who still believe that moving to newer, larger districts in a more rapid fashion is the is the right path. Even you have offered support for that. So since that was sort of the original goal of act 73, it's a certain line to continue to pursue that. But like I said, it's it's a it's a long, challenging, hard process. Education's always hard. You want

[Speaker 0]: to talk?

[Speaker 5]: I'm fighting myself. Deciding if I do want to talk.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah. Well, you can hold out Beth. I will.

[Speaker 6]: My concern is that the change in how we fund education in Vermont is going to be delayed far longer than it should be because of contingencies that are in current Act 73. I know there's a real concern that if you put the funding in change to foundation formula without changing your scale, there's going to be serious problems. So I'm concerned that this proposal that we currently have as of yesterday and its first look at it is going to push the funding changes significantly down the road as well. People just can't afford the way we're doing it now. There are fixes to that, and there can be amendments and changes, perhaps, as we've discussed through this, to get the foundation formula in place as this has happened. It's a concern I have.

[Speaker 1]: Totally valid concern and true. I think that if the foundation formula is tied to newer, larger districts and they don't come, I think you have two things there. It could push moving to a foundation formula later and or it could prompt the creation of a foundation formula when we don't have the tools in place to adjust to it.

[Speaker 7]: Yeah, so I guess the circle around I appreciate Beth bringing up the foundation formula because my perspective continues to evolve on what our future funding system should be. And if I felt that I could stand up in front of my constituents and say, we need to move it to a foundation formula because it's more equitable and it's going to I think I'm going to rephrase what you just said, but something about taxpayers can't afford what we have anymore. If I thought that the foundation formula was going to be the answer for reducing property taxes and making lives easier in Vermont, I would be all over doing that. But I can't say that because of the way we wrote that law that meant that we have to take a step on trust and then follow that with getting the data in the background that we need, the decision making that we need to implement, a foundation formula. It feels incredibly backward to me. What you brought up in the very beginning about the collaborative approach, I've always supported a collaborative approach because I think we need Vermonters buy in on a significant change in our education, governance, delivery, and funding system. I really, deeply believe that. I've always believed that. And that's what I had hoped we were going to do. I'm still hopeful that we're going to do that. And I'm going to keep fighting for that.

[Speaker 8]: But

[Speaker 7]: I'm not convinced at this point in time that the Foundation Formula is going to address the issues that I people think it's going to be. Plus, I don't think Vermont can understand what it actually is. And again, congratulations. Josh?

[Speaker 9]: Staying on the foundation formula train. I mean, in the absence of anything else, I do think that coming out of this with a foundation framework in some form, whatever we get to on that, is probably one of the more important things. For the reason, maybe not to save money, That's the hope is that it saves money in the long term. But I mean, even from just a stability standpoint, if we can come up with fund ish framework that works even under our current crazy amount of districts and that's used in the state, is there a way to come up with something that is more repeatable? It's more, you know what's coming, there's no surprise, don't feel like every year the goalposts change for what you're gonna have to pay for property taxes from CLA to all these other things? Is there a way to standardize that? And even if that comes out of it, take some of that unknown pressure that our constituents have year over year over year and make it more consistent, more repeatable. You know what your percentage increase to education could be, right? Because maybe that's fixed. So I think in the absence of anything else coming out of here, like, there a way to adjust that so no matter what comes out of it's ceases, it's nothing, it's 27 districts, one district, whatever it is, can we rework the verbiage for the foundation formula so that it works with whatever comes out of here this year, even if it's nothing. So there's some stability for our taxpayers, even if it doesn't save them a penny, but it creates, I know what it's going to look like next year. Not like, oh my God, here we are again. I don't even know if it's going be increased. There might not be an increase. I don't know. I can keep rambling.

[Speaker 1]: Think your point is well taken. Can the foundation formula move forward without regard or can it be adjusted or the language be adjusted in some way to accommodate whatever comes out of here, even it's nothing? That would circle back to foundation formula changes, which I think would be pretty hard for many to adjust to.

[Speaker 9]: Yes, but also adjust. We do or don't do is going to

[Speaker 1]: be hard to adjust There is a camp that says foundation formula is the most important thing. We need to look at that, regardless of what other changes might be made. I think the other changes are there to say, this is how we're gonna provide the tools to adjust to it. Kate?

[Speaker 4]: I think at some point, we're really gonna have to address what I would consider the elephant in the room, which is school choice. And whether we expand school choice, keep school choice the way it is, or eliminate school choice altogether, and the conversation about same dollars, same roles, I don't know how we get past that. Because I think that's a big part of the foundation form of the conversation, as we were talking yesterday about how there's very fixed costs if you're paying tuition. Those fixed costs have to go out the door first, and then kids are left with whatever's left.

[Speaker 1]: True. Which sort of always makes me circle back to, that's the system we have now. And I do tend to circle back to, okay, let's say we do nothing at all, even Foundation for All that stuff, everything just goes out the window, and we continue on the path we're on. I I think many Vermonters are I'll take the devil I know rather than devil I don't know. I'm not sure that's a good decision. I think we're going to continue to be headed down a very difficult path. So I would just say, let's always keep in mind the cost of doing nothing. Know, I consider and say this is really hard, because we all know that, and I'm like, But there is so much involved in this. We have a decline in rural Vermont simply due to demographics. This is a symptom of that. It's not the cause of it. Making big change, I think, for folks in the rural part of the state are like, this is just gonna be another nail in our coffin. I'm not sure the path we're on by doing nothing improves that in any way. But all of it it all hard. As I said yesterday, there's just simply nothing to get excited about here, because it is representative of the fact that we have not kept up with our school buildings, our affordability, and our significant declining enrollment. So the chickens have come home to roost in so many parts of how our state operates because of our demographics, whether it be health care or whatever. So we're sort of, as a state, having to figure out all of it at the same time. I'm rambling because I'm just thinking out loud because I don't know what else to do. I'll just simply throw it open for other thoughts. Then we'll take a little break and then we'll come back.

[Speaker 8]: I think one of the things that's making it really complicated to make any progress is that there seems to be this that we kind of need to, or this idea that we kind of need to take an all or nothing approach as we make changes. And that it's too big and there are too many unknowns of like, is this going to work? So if we did something like create I know everyone's saying that if we have SUs and CSOs and BOCES, that's just an added layer of administration. But if you had way fewer SUs, like maybe the CTEs SUs with the BOCES, and then within those asked those SUs to start combining their districts, that is some change. And then we can apply a foundation formula to some bigger districts, even if it's not a small number throughout the state. And it may not look the same throughout the state because there may be areas in the state that go for fewer districts and bigger districts than other areas, but we can see how the foundation formula works. And like you, I'm just thinking out loud. This wasn't something I planned to say. But we approached that way and allowed SUs and CSOs to exist at the same time and saw how that fire back got us. And then six years, ten years down the road, we're like, okay, that either did save us a lot of money or it's working and we need to save more money and we're really incentivized more district combinations. Does that make sense, I just said?

[Speaker 0]: Well, I would say a couple

[Speaker 1]: of things. One, what we have been talking about yesterday, it doesn't change governance. So you are layering CSAs over SUs and SDs.

[Speaker 4]: Right.

[Speaker 8]: But I'm saying less governments, like if we did start to combine some of those, and instead of having 52 SUs and 17 SUs or 15 SUs, that's some savings. And then we can

[Speaker 1]: Well, I don't think it's quite as simple as that because you're just creating large I mean, yes, you are potentially contracting a number of central offices from 52 to less. But if they're overseeing a very complex system, they're going to need probably just as much staff as well. There's not a lot of money there. As to some parts of the state get the foundation formula and some parts don't, I don't quite see how that could possibly work. But I don't mean to I

[Speaker 4]: might suggest that we just keep continuing on with what we were dealing with yesterday and kind of flesh that out a little bit more and see where it goes. Yep. And give it a day or a day and a half or whatever. And then if it doesn't go where we want it to go, we can change gears again. And listen, I'm not gonna

[Speaker 1]: go into this with any illusions. I'd like to think we could all get behind something, and we aren't. Whatever vote comes out of here is going to be a close vote. It it could be partisan, Democrat, Republican. It could be partisan, rural, urban. It could be partisan, big school, little school. I have no idea. I just know it's gonna be partisan. Let's continue to flesh out then what we talked about yesterday.

[Speaker 4]: Are you ready to say something?

[Speaker 1]: No. I'm going to head off of Chris is gonna say because I'm so good at that because I know what

[Speaker 4]: you're saying.

[Speaker 1]: No. I

[Speaker 5]: think my spiciness from yesterday continues at 09:00. I'm trying to I think

[Speaker 1]: So let's just say, whatever whatever there is no path we can take in our discussion that focuses on a single entity that isn't going to make somebody like, I'm being ignored. This is moving too fast. This is not moving fast enough.

[Speaker 9]: So

[Speaker 1]: just don't understand that. And I think that if your reaction is, really? You think we're gonna get anywhere doing this? That's okay. Part of my reaction. Yeah.

[Speaker 9]: Save mine for them to come back.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah. Alright, so.

[Speaker 8]: Can I ask a clarifying question? So the foundation formula only works if we go to SDs instead of SUs.

[Speaker 1]: The foundation formula is designed around newer, larger school districts.

[Speaker 5]: Right.

[Speaker 1]: Could you impose a foundation formula tomorrow, the system that we have? Sure. What would it look like?

[Speaker 8]: I guess what I'm wondering is, I'm not sure why it was said that if we combined to bigger SUs, only part of the state would be using the foundation plan.

[Speaker 7]: That logic.

[Speaker 1]: Oh, that's what I thought you said. Thought you said- No, I was

[Speaker 6]: saying- I said- don't think you said that either.

[Speaker 1]: No, I thought you would say, maybe we try the foundation formula in some of the districts.

[Speaker 8]: No, no, that's not what I'm saying at

[Speaker 1]: all. Okay.

[Speaker 8]: Retract my question because clearly we

[Speaker 6]: did understand.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, no, but please clarify that.

[Speaker 8]: So I was saying if we combine into larger SUs, I understand what you're saying, it's not that much savings, it's central office, it's some personnel, but it's a start to see if the foundation starts to happen. And then the foundation applies to those SUs throughout the state, and some of those SUs may actually also be combining districts at this point. That's what I was trying to say.

[Speaker 9]: Every SU and the districts within them follow the new foundation formula. As a result of the larger SU's foundation framework, things that happen on the ground, there may be some district mergers once that comes into play. But you're saying that all the new SUs filed foundation formally, which also means that the districts within those SUs filed new foundation for

[Speaker 5]: Right,

[Speaker 8]: and there may be some changes within those districts too, because I think there are parts of the state that are going be like, yeah, we're ready to combine districts. We're ready to get bigger.

[Speaker 2]: Erin? I guess a little worried about how we're, I feel potentially oversimplifying the foundation formula as if it's like the solution to the money side of things that's going to suddenly, okay, taxes will be predictable and they'll be stable. It comes with huge assumptions and changes too, and constraining funding. And again, we're the only state to go to a foundation formula to reduce spending. That's gonna have a huge impact all over the state in different places. So I guess I know that some of us will philosophically disagree, but this is where my frustration of us not fully understanding and being invested in all the work within the foundation formula comes from. Because I think that sometimes it's becoming a little bit of a magic tool that I don't think it's going to be.

[Speaker 8]: It might be simple.

[Speaker 2]: It may have a lot of that strengths to it. It also is going to come with some serious changes, consequences, a whole host of things. Right.

[Speaker 1]: I mean, is by design, more stable.

[Speaker 4]: Yes.

[Speaker 5]: Yes.

[Speaker 2]: Although I don't Also, we're modeling to spend it. We don't know on the tax side. This also has a lot to do with our property values and our utterly broken housing structure and the amount of second homes in the state and insane property values. It is going to stabilize some of the spending. I don't know what it's going to do to property taxes. And it's gonna do different things in different places based on property values. And we're a highly property tax, property value dependent system based Like, some of these fundamental things aren't going to go away even if the foundation formula. I

[Speaker 1]: think a foundation formula would provide much more predictable property tax rates. I would always qualify by saying pre CLA, but it is not, the education funding system does not control the CLA.

[Speaker 8]: I know, but people feel it does.

[Speaker 2]: Yes. The whole property value real estate side of this doesn't materially change.

[Speaker 1]: Well, I think there's an attempt to address that in moving to the regional appraisal districts in order to have, rather than each town skyrocketing or promoting, but making it based on a much larger geographic region. But I think there are attempts to address even that problem. Chris, then Beth. So

[Speaker 5]: yes, absolutely, we have to for sure, consider the foundation requirement. That should be something we're always considering with our discussions, but it's kind of from ways and means to figure out. You've to figure out the structure and how we're going to move forward, and they can figure out how the money's going to work within that structure. We spend a lot of time talking about it, which we should, absolutely, because how we structure things does have impact. I'm super glad I'm not in ways and means, and that's for them to figure out.

[Speaker 2]: Beth? Speaking of if we're going

[Speaker 6]: to move forward with this, and who knows how I'll vote at the end. It depends on what gets there. If we're going to flush out the CISA proposal more, I would be in agreement with what Leanne said yesterday, and again, it's all the pieces moving together, that we structure them around the CTE catchment areas. Because having CTE and I've said it, I said it when I was a member of the task force even that this all works together. CTE, foundation formula, pre K. So building CESAs. And I'm not saying have 15, have 17, that may be too many, but really focusing on where our CTE centers are.

[Speaker 8]: The CTE

[Speaker 2]: catchment

[Speaker 6]: areas build them with that in mind. But having that in the forefront of our here's where the mandatory CESAs are

[Speaker 9]: going I like your map in many ways, even outside of the CESA conversation. When I saw it, was like, oh, now that's something.

[Speaker 1]: Mean, if you want to feel, for those of you who feel like this is not even a half step, you can look at it as at least putting the concept of regionalization as a big, broad term on the table and making school districts participate in it. Anyway, so let's take five minutes not to take a break, but to look at your map again. So just hold it up a little bit, if you would.

[Speaker 8]: I needed more than one second to be prepared to do that.

[Speaker 1]: All you have to is hold it. Right. Even though I know it's posted, but I like the big piece of paper. Two of them.

[Speaker 8]: Like the Anna White moments.

[Speaker 9]: Right, so this would, that map

[Speaker 1]: breaks our state into how many CSAs?

[Speaker 4]: Two, three, four, five, six,

[Speaker 8]: Oh no, five. One, two, three, four, five. But I'm hearing the feedback that perhaps this Chittenden County one is pointing to me to be further broken.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, I mean, we're gonna have lots of issues here because there's a big spine of mountains that goes halfway.

[Speaker 7]: Bring that up. It's an East West as opposed to a North South and our state is

[Speaker 8]: North South. Here is this was a starting.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, that's fine. Just wanted you to know that I love the starting. Yeah, and I certainly feel that five is too few just because of the numbers of schools and students in some areas of the state. I'm thinking the logic of using CTE catchment areas as a guide that the VSBA, the VSA, all these all these lines are are good in a sense that they take into account current existing school districts and SUs. How to then further divide them to take into account the green mountains and travel and population gets a little trickier. However,

[Speaker 9]: I'm happy to have that. So in a CISA model, which isn't a governing body, I would think that topographical layout would have less of an impact because it's more of the sharing of the services, right? Like you don't need to travel to share services. Sometimes you do. I mean, you know, you're sharing, but I mean, you know, someone, even if you're going north south, I mean, those are going be so huge. It's not going to be as likely that someone's going to drive three hours to go. I don't know. So I think that it's less important. I think it's less important. Homographically.

[Speaker 1]: But we always have to, as I always say, well, who's going to do this? Those are human beings who, you may not have the it makes you have to be careful of making somebody's job driving what you want them to be doing.

[Speaker 5]: You're doing that very well.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. No. I appreciate that. I hate

[Speaker 1]: to be a Luddite, but this is real helpful.

[Speaker 9]: We're gonna have a big one in the corner by the end of the time.

[Speaker 2]: I like a paper map.

[Speaker 7]: Glass green, but the color map you've got there, I can't remember. Is that just me? Is that something someone set up, like the center of the house? Or is that just current catchment area for current?

[Speaker 9]: The colors are the current CTE regions.

[Speaker 7]: Yeah. I'm trying to figure out where the base map is, the colors.

[Speaker 4]: I'm not

[Speaker 2]: sure I understood.

[Speaker 1]: Within the lines, what are the different colors?

[Speaker 6]: So I tried to use sort of

[Speaker 8]: color schemes in what I knew were going to be the proposed

[Speaker 0]: Are those just CTE?

[Speaker 1]: Oh, okay. I know they're just CTE areas. Right?

[Speaker 8]: CTE areas. And that's I started to figure out where I was gonna propose the CCEs. I was like, okay. We're gonna go with yellow themes, blue themes.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah. No. I just wanna know what the the various shades were.

[Speaker 8]: Problems with the map thing is that you can't both simultaneously create SUs and SDs. And so you have to sort of use similar colors if you're like, I want to show

[Speaker 7]: that these are related. So honestly, my question was literally, you answered it. You created the colors on there. I didn't know whether that came from another map and you were just adding the black lines So on top of that was helpful.

[Speaker 1]: That's what

[Speaker 9]: I wanted to know.

[Speaker 1]: Can see that being helpful for

[Speaker 9]: when you drew the black lines so you can tell you where to stay on the point.

[Speaker 8]: Right. Well, yes. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]: I can change the colors. This could be the blue zone and this could

[Speaker 7]: be the really curious.

[Speaker 8]: We based

[Speaker 7]: on the colors.

[Speaker 1]: The lines within the lines are conversation starters as well. Alright. Let's

[Speaker 0]: return