Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Committee staff/technician]: You're live.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Welcome back to House Education, Wednesday, April 22. The committee is just gonna get a quick walkthrough of a joint fiscal office fiscal note on s two fourteen, which is the act relating to the provision of pre kindergarten in geographically isolated school districts, well, in more like a geographically isolated school district. Anyway, Ezra, the floor is yours, and thanks for taking the time to walk through this.

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. You're welcome. For the record, Ezra Holden, joint fiscal office. As the chair said, this will be pretty brief. I've thrown it up on the screen just so we're all looking at the same thing here. So, essentially, this bill would allow the NEK Choice School District to pay tuition to a public school in New Hampshire for eligible pre k students within 25 miles of Vermont border. So we estimate that this would increase its education fund expenditures starting in fiscal year twenty twenty eight. And the reason we say 2028 is because districts have already put together and the majority of them have passed their budgets already for fiscal year twenty twenty seven. So if this bill allowed more students to pay tuition to New Hampshire, the district would need to accommodate that within their existing budget because it's already been passed by the voters. So fiscal year twenty twenty eight is when you would see budgets potentially increasing to account for any additional students. So we estimate that this would allow up to 14 students to gain access to pre K through this in New Hampshire. So that would be about $60,000 in increased education fund expenditures based on inflating the UPK tuition for by 3%. And so in the education fund, that's considered de minimis because 2,500,000,000 fund, 60,000 isn't really considered that large. However, any increase in expenditures does need to be covered. So there could be an adjustment to your homestead or non homestead property tax rates to cover that. And it is a range because a parent has to decide to enroll their child in universal pre k, and then they need to find a provider. So if no parent takes advantage of this, you could have zero increase. If several parents, several guardians, whatever, take advantage of this, find slots for their children, you could have up to 14 is our estimate.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And that's where the 60,000 comes from. I would point out to folks that the impact on the local school district would be relatively minor in that they would also be able to count these students in their student count, which they don't currently if they're not providing a pre K voucher.

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, that's a good point. And these students would bring some pre K weights with them and potentially other weights that they qualify for if a student qualifies for economic disadvantage or English language learner, and then the district's able to get that information back from the school that their child is being tuition to. So yeah, that would play out at the local level if their tax rate would increase or not.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Are weights attached to pre k students?

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. Pre k students are eligible for weights. And we're talking about taxing capacity weights here, not the foundation formula. So they would be able to add those pre k students, they being any kid choice to their weighted student count. And so that would be a point four six added to their weighted student count for each of those students, which they would use to offset the additional tuition costs of sending these kids to New Hampshire. Right, but above and beyond the point four six, I don't know if pre K students also qualify for poverty English language learner rates? So if the district receives the information back, they do qualify. And this would be alleged counsel question about our districts our schools required to send that information back to the sending district or not. And I believe that that's a piece within the big education transformation bill that was passed, having that added in as a requirement. If you are tuitioning your students to a school, that school needs to ensure you're getting that information back. But that's outside of this bill. Right? And basically the 60,000 is just 14 times the $4,100 tuition payment. Right? Yeah, exactly. So if you had seven kids, roughly 30,000. If you had zero kids, roughly zero.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Actually zero.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Emily? This really isn't for joint fiscal, I don't think. But I guess I'll ask you first. Are we taking any more testimony on this? Because even though this fiscal no really is a de minimis cost, I read an article on the front page of a paper this morning talking about a closing of an elementary school on the border of Massachusetts and parents making decisions to send their children to public schools in Massachusetts as well.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I guess I'm still considering precedent and how this could expand. I'm just going to lay that on the table because even though we're only talking 60,000 a year in one school district essentially, the Northeast Choice School District, and I totally understand why this is coming to us, but I'm almost mindful of what we're opening the door to.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think the difference is that the NEK Choice District has no schools within its area, whereas Reedsboro, if that's what you're talking about, has other schools within its SU, such as Wilmington, Stanford, Barcelona State. But there's a but there's a

[Emily Long (Member)]: there's a perspective that parents will get to send their kids to Massachusetts if they don't choose them.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Emily Long (Member)]: And so I'm just bringing. Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And maybe this isn't a good answer for you either. The number 14, where did we get that number? Is that just what we know as far as enrollment in that area? Sorry. Enrollment in that area, you're using that number 14.

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, so that's based on conversations I've had with officials from the MEK School Choice Board and also DCF. When they went to the area. That was the rough estimate that they came back with, roughly seven three year olds and seven four year olds. That's a rough estimate. Other people could come back with a different estimate and say, No, we actually have talked to this group of people, and they tell us they don't have any kids. So it's all kinda has to be collected on the ground.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: A little bit anecdotal. Yeah.

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: A little a little bit anecdotal.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It matches what I've heard from the sponsor, which was somewhere around seven. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So it's not like we're right

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: at 14. And then, you know, if we get 15, it's gonna be

[Unidentified Committee Member]: so it might be more around 10. Yeah. But if

[Emily Long (Member)]: it was over, if someone ended up having triplets and, oh, surprise that this would still work, right?

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So this is just an estimate of a new expenditure on the education fund. The education fund is self leveling. So if everyone started having triplets and the number quadrupled or tripled or, you know, this amount would go up, the education fund would automatically cover that by increasing homestead and or nonhomestead property tax rates as the education fund is self leveling. So this is just an estimate in fiscal year twenty twenty eight of the new, I guess, would say burden, the new expenditure that is added to the Ed Fund that will then be covered by rates in that year. So, yeah, if there were more kids who moved in or were born and were three or four ineligible for this, this number could increase.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And that pre k is, I don't call it an entitlement, but it is in other words, if they're not going to New Hampshire, they can also send them to whatever town they might be working in or whatever. So

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. This is just to try again estimate that students who would be newly eligible, not exactly already going to a different program and they change, the parent decides to send them to New Hampshire instead, they're already within the pre k system.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If I don't see any other questions then, we'll thank our witness and take a break until 10:45 then.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I know that I'd mentioned it maybe the other day, and then Rev Long kind of mentioned something again, which brings me back to my question, which is, we consider language that's a little broader to cover an instance where maybe in a year or two, the there is no longer a pre k program or as a result of something that we do with the CSOs. Maybe these things change, and then there's an opportunity. So is it, you know, within a 25 mile radius if your district, SU SD, doesn't offer this particular program within 25 miles, then we have an agreement with Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or say New York, Chittenden County, we don't have to worry about that problem. We'd probably never even have to think about it again, but down south

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So I I think my response to that is that this was really carefully written and carefully tailored for a district that offer that operates zero schools. And I would say that to to what might happen in the future, probably cross that bridge when we come to it. But for now, I think we would be opening a whole can of worms if we started broadening this that might put the bill in jeopardy and might leave these people who literally have no schools in their district without an option. So just from a sort of procedural pragmatic, let's get this problem solved, I would say, if in the future more situations like this arise, then a similar bill can be introduced in the past as well. Alright. Well, thank you. And we'll we'll hold there. Ten forty five back

[Emily Long (Member)]: for