Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Bennington), Chair of Education]: Oh my goodness.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Finance]: Hi, you. Look at you. Oh.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Well, senate please come to order. We'll observe a moment of silence in lieu of a devotional this morning. Thank you. Would you please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Are there any announcements? Seeing none.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Bennington), Chair of Education]: Yeah, that was

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: good there. We have Sarah Furman. We have oh, how many appointments do we have? Just we have two. We have two appointments, which we have received from the governor and which are now being referred to committees having jurisdiction. These appointments will appear in today's journal, and you will receive them tomorrow. We now have JRS 55 joint re resolution relating to weekend adjournment on Friday, 05/29/2026 or Saturday, 05/30/2026. As offered by senator Ruth of Chittenden Central, please listen to the reading of the resolution.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate, Reading Clerk)]: Resolved by the senate and house of representatives that when the two houses adjourn on Friday, 05/29/2026 or Saturday, 05/30/2026, It'd be to meet again no later than Tuesday, 06/02/2026.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Now you've heard the reading of the resolution, and the question is, shall the senate adopt the resolution on its part? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and you have adopted the resolution. We have h nine fifty four, an act relating to approval of the amendments to the charter of the town of Stowe introduced by representative Libsky. It passed the house on 05/22/2026. Listen to the first reading of the bill.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate, Reading Clerk)]: H nine fifty four, an act relating to approval of an amendment to the charter of the town of Stowe.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Now the bill's been read the first time and failing to meet crossover deadline for temporary rule 44 a. It is referred to the committee on rules. Orders of the day. We have on the calendar for action senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you, mister president. Good morning, senators. It's a beautiful day out and I would ask that you look

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Bennington), Chair of Education]: at the light pouring in

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: the window. That is the light at at the end of the tunnel. And I say that in the wake of excellent work that's been done over the last week by a small group of senators to try to achieve CRE agreement as much as possible on our education bill which as you know is the spike in the ground at the center of a knotted skein of other bills. So it's my hope that with our work this morning we will have a hard stop at noon and an afternoon session starting at two, but it's my hope that we can complete work on the Ed bill this morning. If so, we could move it to the house very expeditiously and hopefully accelerate all of our path to the end of this session. So we will be starting with the Ed bill this morning. Before we do that, I'd like to make a motion to enable a fuller report on that bill so I would move that our rules be suspended in order to allow a senator who is not on one of the committees listed in the calendar that is the chair of Ed to also report on the Ed bill. So with that, mister president, I'll move to suspend rules, and, then we'll begin with h nine fifty five.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate suspend its rules in order to allow the senator who chairs the education committee, senator Bongartz, to report on the committee even though it's not listed in our calendar. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Ayes have it, and the motion carries. We have on the calendar for action h nine fifty five, which was passed by the house on 04/21/2026. It was referred to the committee on education, which reports it is considered the bill it was report it was referred to the committee on finance, which reports it is considered the bill and recommends that the senate proposed to the house that the bill be amended as it appears in today's calendar, and that with such proposal of amendment, the bill ought to pass. Affecting the expenditures of the state, the bill was referred to the committee on appropriations, which recommends that the bill ought to pass in concurrence with proposal of amendment as recommended by the committee in finance, and with further proposal of amendment as found in today's calendar. Listen to the second reading of the bill.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate, Reading Clerk)]: H nine fifty five, an act relating to next steps in transforming Vermont's education system.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator from Bennington.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Bennington), Chair of Education]: Mister president, we are in year two of the multiyear effort to transform Vermont's education system. Last year, we established a foundation formula and laid out this year's challenge of figuring out the governance portion of that transformation. Permeating the thought process as we establish those two building blocks is how we deliver excellent educational opportunities to every Lamont child. Let's step back just for a minute and remember what started us down this path. Our school age population has declined by nearly a third in the last twenty years, and all indications are that it will continue to decline at least for some period of time. Voters across Vermont have increased education spending by more than 40% in the last five years, partially because there's a lot of inefficiency in our system. We have tried at the legislature and the governor's office to buy down the corresponding property tax increases with hundreds of millions of dollars that are diverted from other priorities like housing, healthcare transformation, heating fuel assistance and child nutrition. Now our ability to buy down those rates is ending as revenue declines and inflation eats up any revenue gains. Our current system, I think we all agree is unsustainable. We have zero choice but to systemically tackle the challenge. But as we have discussed this over the last two years, Vermonters have made it very clear that they do not want the challenge met for them, they want to play a part. They don't want us telling them what to do. They want to take on the challenge. So much of H95 is about creating an atmosphere, a structure that helps communities make their own tough decisions. At core, this bill does three key things. It creates ceases to be the large structures that provide some services on behalf of the SUs within them. It creates a structure and a timeline to facilitate voluntary merger discussions, and it sets that the foundational formula will go into effect on well with the amendment on 07/01/2029. There's something else really critical going on here and that is that the system we are working toward can actually fulfill promise of the Brigham decision, the provision of excellent educational opportunity for every Vermont child. The opportunities to improve educational opportunities come from making the foundation, making the funding predictable and sustainable. I have one superintendent in my district every time I talk to him says, I just want predictability. This is about predictability. B, CSUS to help with back end costs in the delivery of specialized services, especially special education. And C, larger governance units to more efficiently spread costs to properly scale the delivery system as we move toward community elementary schools, more centralized middle schools and regional high schools stepping up as we go. It should be noted that within this system, there will be places for smaller intentionally niche schools. Kids have different needs. As we have done our work, we've been careful to remember that one size does not fit all. Thus, the opportunities for communities to make their own decisions. Mister President, your education committee spent a lot of time focused on rural Vermont. Our first visit last fall to a school was was to the was to Canaan. It made a lasting impression on the committee. A small town with little industry and only around a 130 kids, grades K through 12. But those kids who we interviewed, their teachers who we interviewed, the principal who we interviewed, and everybody associated with the school have pride and heart. From this and other visits, the education committee became committed to listening to all of Vermont, but making sure especially that we listen to rural Vermont. We saw herculean effort in every school we visited, some rural, some more urban, to meet the needs of children who have difficult needs and who learn differently. The other thing the Education Committee did is it took testimony during session was to go beyond the usual voices. Sure, we heard them, but we listened even more to students, to teachers, and to principals, to individual school board members and a variety of superintendents. Including student and teacher panels, we heard from upwards of a couple 100 individuals over the course of the last six or seven months. We come to the closing days of the session with a different lens than if we hadn't taken the time to dig deep. Therefore, we are better listeners than we might have otherwise been. Here's what those voices said. We know things need to change. We want to be involved in that change, but we want to make sure that we don't do unintended damage to things that are working well and we want to maintain a lasting voice in the process going forward. We want to be given the opportunity to make hard decisions ourselves and we are ready to take on the challenge. Mr. President, local elementary schools, more centralized middle schools, and regional high schools. Add niche schools and real access to CTE for all middle and high school students and we see Vermont's education future. Before getting into the education committee sections of the bill, let me say a couple more things. The senator from Addison will no doubt say more about this, but for the last couple of weeks we have worked closely with the governor's office and our counterparts from the house to reach agreement on the construct contained in the underlying bill and the amendment that will come from the senator from Addison. I want to give the Governor's office credit for engaging that process in good faith and making some major concessions. The one thing, we heard a few things, but one of the things the Education Committee heard loud and clear was that Vermonters do not want forced mergers. The governor's office did want forced mergers, and their reason for wanting forced mergers is not without merit, but it's not what Vermonters want. The governor made a major concession in the context of good faith negotiations and backed away from that demand. To me, that showed a willingness to listen and to work with the legislature to achieve something positive for Vermont taxpayers and for Vermont's children. A little bit of a road map, I will I will present the first twenty nine secondtions of the underlying bill, the governance sections. The senator from Washington from the finance on behalf of the finance committee will take over from there and get into the finance committee sections. And once the bill has been presented, the senior senator from Addison will offer the amendment that came from the last couple of weeks of hard work with the Governor's office and the House. That work was led by the senator from Addison, and that work is really what pulled everything together in the end. So to the first twenty nine secondtions of the bill and I'm going to be high level, in part because much of what I will discuss is also been altered by the the amendment in the Senator from Addison and I'll spare you having to hear everything in detail twice. Section one is findings in intent. Section two establishes the notion of cooperative educational service areas or seesaws that you've been hearing about this whole session to provide scaled shared service areas. This section defines seesaws as organizations providing associations or supervisory unions with shared services. It is important to note that seesaws are not governance units. They have no governing authority. They provide services. This section defines the boundaries of the existing BOCES, now renamed a seesaw in basically, Windham County, and the six newly created seesawes around it. It sets out the mechanisms for seesaws to create breakthrough bylaws. Section six zero four sets forth responsibilities of CSOs, the things they must offer, special ed, business administrative services, district creation, consultation, facilitation. These three areas alone show the promise of CSUS. Special education, for instance, requires specialized services. It's hard for small districts and SUs to assemble the specialists required for every situation. These larger service units can do so and make them available for various amounts of time as required by SUs. It has the potential to be much more efficient, while allowing SUs to keep in house students who might otherwise have required out of district placement at significantly higher costs. That is a trend we're beginning to see and this will augment that trend. The next several sections within Section two have a lot of terminology changing the term BOCES to CSOs. And section six zero eight, in section two sets out the process for adjusting CSO boundaries. This is one thing that's a little wonky, But because with this bill, we legislatively set or create CESA boundaries. They can be amended only by the legislature. That's a, you know, potentially a little comfort So we wanted to make that process as easy as possible. Basically an SU board request to be moved into a different seesaw that may well happen, and that sets the process in motion. The district requesting the change sends the results of its vote which is just the board itself to the old districts seeking to leave and the new district. They then hold advisory votes again just just the boards within forty five days and then the package goes to the Secretary of State with the minutes in the morning etcetera. Once assembled, the Secretary of State forwards the same to the Clerk of the House, the Secretary of the Senate, the chairs of the relevant committees. So it's like a charter change but it's very simplified. Section 2A, CSOs will offer the following. There's a difference between what CSOs must offer, the things I listed initially. In addition to those, they also when requested or when the Boards ask them to also have to be prepared to develop, professional development, curriculum coordination and development, transportation, services and, facilities master plan. Section three, repeals of transition report contained in Act 73. It's too early in the process. Section four is sort of money for, a lot for helping CSOs get started $15,000 for start up assistance and a $100,000 to the agency that was in the budget for that purpose. Section five adds CSO creation to the duties of the Supervisory Union Board. Sections, this is this one helps because it gets a lot of sections at one, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and 11 add educational service areas to the definition section so it's all just definitions. Section 12 deals with, CISA transition, within thirty days to two two CISAs. Within thirty days of the passage of the SAC, each SU within a CISA shall appoint a member to serve on the CISA board and within forty five days of passage the superintendent, of the SU with within a given CISA with the largest average daily attendance shall call a meeting of the board the newly created CISA. And, meetings will be governed by the rules of agreement of the existing Vermont Learning Collaborative, the one existing now CESA, formerly BOCES now CESA. And so the initial bylaws will operate with those and they can amend them as they want to. Section 13 deals with Union School District Creation Consultation and Facilitation, establishes the process for hiring facilitators. So one of the things that goes on here is that the CSA boundaries initially or on one level are really just an organizational tool for the facilitators that will work with districts within with districts and SUs within that area to talk about, to talk about mergers. So it establish this establishes the process for hiring facilitators and getting the merger groups up and running. The existing seesaw, the Vermont Learning Collaborative shall collaborate I'm sorry, shall contract for the services of set of six facilitators who shall be responsible for pulling together the merger study groups in each of the newly created CSOs. I won't spend too much time going into this section, it's an important section but I won't go into it because it's subsumed within the amendment largely similar but tweaks to process and dates and I'll spare you. It does add and this is a little bit of a late addition but it's one that is, I think came from the center from Ginnyton on the on the Education Committee. We added, that as these groups are formed and they begin to look at consolidation that they also are in touch with and collaborate with CTE directors. So that we're beginning to incorporate CTE into this process and just to make sure that it isn't a proclamation component as the as we begin the process of trying of looking at the possibilities of consolidation of some districts. Section 14 sets forth the guidance grouping for merger analysis. These groupings came from extensive work and extensive testimony. We twice had the school board association send out blast to all school boards letting them know to come and testify if they were looking at any changes in these groupings. And note that a district has the ability to move from one guidance group to another even if within a different SU or CECL. So it's fairly loose. The groupings just provide a starting point and districts move around a little bit as they want to within that before the process really gets underway. Section 15 on or before January 29 the date changes in the amendment the lead facilitators report present a report to the House and Senate Education Committees laying out the results of the merger process what worked what didn't work and why. Section 16 is a report from the Agency of Education in consultation with the State Board of Education to submit a report to the legislature with recommendations this is after the process is really gelling for SU and C cell boundary adjustments. The date is established in the amendment. Section 17 establishes that Merger Study Committees, remember we're talking about district mergers at this point, which each will receive $10,000 to get them up and running and help them with their work. And then there's an appropriation that was in the budget given to the Vermont Learning Collaborative to hire and compensate facilitators to help make the process go along. Section 18 continues, the list contains the list of things that must happen before the foundation formula that goes into effect. It's a combination of reports and legislative action. The foundation formula will not go into effect until legislation has been enacted that addresses geographic measures for determining sparsity, inappropriate high school weight, how to account for CTE, here's CTE again, within the foundation formula, how to account for differences in operating costs across regions of Vermont, how to fund special education services, school construction, renovation and repayment of debt, transportation and universal prekindergarten. This section is modified by the amendment but you get the point. Section 19 is pre kindergarten, it's about the next few sections are about pre kindergarten and playing our game with regard to pre kindergarten. The section 19 is findings and the most important finding within section 19 is just the fact of disparate availability or different disparate access to pre k depending on where people are in from what we have some areas with very low access to pre k and others with pretty good access. Section 20 just says the next thing kind of obvious is that we're gonna try to make it more uniformly available, And then, section 21 is, pre pre kindergarten, funding reports and appropriations. It's it's section 21 is the intent to establish a funding structure in two the two thousand twenty seven legislative session that increases access, where it's more limited currently. And then an annual report, from the agency, Department of Children and Children and Building Bright Futures, to update us on how we're doing getting towards better pre K access. And then joint fiscal office will contract to develop a cost of care analysis and we have some money in here at 75,000 covered with, cost of that work. And results of that work by JFO to come from legislation by next December. Section 21A is just, an additional report for the agency of education on the number of hours of pre, pre kindergarten education actually delivered so that we have some data we need to make decisions going forward. And then we shift to, section 22 at least behind pre k now and we're on to data collection and the agency is to develop a form to be used by every student, which means their parents, grades Pre K through 12 on behalf of whom tuition is paid to complete a form to obtain the information required to compute weights and weight categories. Section 23 is safeguards and legislative intent. Sub a is important in 23. It safeguards against the notion of falling behind on maintenance of effort for special education, and maintenance of effort is we get a lot of money from the we get money from the federal government for special education and it's and there's a requirement within the receipt of those funds that we not slip back from where we have been. It's called maintenance of effort and it's very important so it's very important that as we're putting all this together that we, don't let that happen because the loss of federal funds would be significant. So this sub is important, it safeguards against the notion of falling behind on maintenance of effort for special education and the loss of federal funds that would occur. Section B sets out the intent to develop a separate funding structure for special education, a supplemental reimbursement structure. Section 24 sets forth legislative intent that once the foundation formula is in effect, no receiving school, public or independent, and it's about half and half who are receiving schools from tuition across Vermont, may charge individual families tuition in excess of the amount per student established by the formula. But it doesn't happen until all the rates are established and everybody knows what is actually going on. So but once that's done and the foundation formula goes into effect, then you can't what you get. Section 25 revises the amount, school boards can spend on merger studies absent voter consent from 50,000 to 500,000. Section 26, on or before March 31 of I have 26, it must be 27. The State Board of Education is to adopt rules to amend the 2200 series, to establish criteria for identifying schools as sparse by necessity and small by necessity. So but that's another one of the things we have to know before we can go forward. And then section 27 has the state board adopting rules, updates to the district quality standards to establish criteria for intra district budgeting under the foundation formula. And the goal of that is to ensure set of process or way of measuring whether resources are allocated across districts, especially larger districts in a way that supports the goal of educational opportunity, for all students and and the state standards to make sure that some money isn't going, more money is going to one part of the district as opposed to others, and some kids are getting left behind. It's just to, set up a system for that. Section 27A, on or before 03/31/2027, the agency of education in collaboration with relevant stakeholders is to complete rulemaking relative to recommended reserve fund balances, again, especially under the foundation formula. The goal is to make sure that the majority of funds presented by the foundation formula actually are spent on education, not banked, although spending districts will remain low spending. And so, make sure that we set up a system where we have a band of of reasonable reserves, we understand what that is and that's what you target and you don't anyway. So, section 27B, school transportation grants, and this just says that on or before December 1, the Agency of Education is to submit a report on how to provide co curricular and after school transportation. Obviously, something that's important. Some information on how to administer transportation reimbursements and how to provide transportation for students to and from CTE centers. Again, that's an important just little thing to note that's built into this bill is really setting up for next year to, take CTE to the to the next level and make sure that we are actually providing opportunities for every kid who wants access to CTEs. Section 27C, this is just the agency developing the form that the families would use for the basis of determining weights. Section 27D has length of the school day, the board to adopt rules updating length of school, school year and school day. Section 28, repeals or repeal section having to do with small and sparse school support grants. And the reason it's repealed is because it's replaced with section 29. Minimum class sizes, small and and sparse school support grant grants. This one is important because what it does within within the minimum class size structure that was established by act 73 was there was not a firm enough starting date, and so the house made one suggestion for how to how to settle that and make figure out when the clock starts ticking. But what happens is that the class minimum class sizes are determined on a three year rolling average within a given school, And there's a point at which the clock starts ticking for when those three years start to accumulate. And this section, has that not happening until the foundation form that goes into effect. We heard testimony to the effect that schools especially some of the smaller schools are under a lot of stress that we're putting them under, for good reason you know cause we're trying to get something done but we are putting them under stress and that they want to be able to focus on the merger discussions and making the best decisions for their kids without having the added stress of having to figure out and deal with class size minimums immediately. So this pushes it back until the foundation formally goes into effect. And also class size minimums are really not a cost saving measure the foundation formula itself is the cost saving measure and what we're talking about with minimum class sizes is sufficient use of dollars within that structure and I think there's a sense that we ought to let districts do that as well and comprehensively as possible and again not tell them what to do not tell them how to manage. And so redefines well, the other thing it does is that it redefines class size average. I'm sorry, average class size. And under the the definition that was in the bill and came over from the house, had the definition of a small school at a 100 students. We remembered our visit to Canaan. Canaan, a tiny school, but with a 130 something kids across those nine grades. And it doesn't make sense, frankly, to have a definition of small school that wouldn't include a school like Canaan. And so rather than have it be a 100 students, which really is not necessarily a great, indicator because you could have a small school that just does a few grades with a great class sizes and still have less than a 100 students, and they'd get small school aid while a school like Canaan wouldn't. So we changed that to an average of, fewer than 12 students per grade. So that, like, in Canaan, I believe they had if I recall correctly, they had eight kids in the senior class. So this says that if you have less on average than 12, you can be a small school. And, you know, frankly, I think that next year, we might wanna think about this a little bit more and adjust it so there's not a cliff, but we'll be back for next year. But for now, we're changing from this hard cutoff of 100, which is it just didn't make sense to us that we moved it to 12. So it's an average depend it really has more to do with the number of grades rather than just the size of the school. So this completes my sections. Pretty quick. A couple more words, this bill is a building block. It's not the end of the process by a long shot. Next year, we have to figure out how to make CTE actually as opposed to theoretically available to every Vermont middle and high school student. I think the whole body, the whole legislature has become much more attuned to the importance of CTE in the last several years, than I think where we might have been, you know, five or six years ago. And so we have to really now focus on how to make CTE actually available to every every child. We have to address going forward the perennial question. We hear from our constituents. Why are we spending so much money, but getting suboptimal results? The answer to that is, of course, is incredibly complex and has all kinds of socioeconomic and in school factors. But we should note that we've made some progress. Three years ago, we passed universal school meals. It's hard to educate kids if they're hungry. Every principal or teacher I have talked to about universal school meals describes the change as a game changer. This year, we took another important step toward answering that question we could ask. This year, we took another important step with the chronic absenteeism bill. Hard to teach kids if they're not in school. The whole language approach to reading that we all know about was a disaster. We need to go back to phonics and we need to really focus on reading and how we help kids, actually be able to read at grade level. And along with that we need to commit to intervention when the child is beginning to fall behind so we're not just passing kids through the system and prepare for the next grade. I had two principals in my district a couple of years ago when I was visiting them say to me effectively, If it were up to me, we wouldn't run elementary and middle school buses until 04:30 or 05:00 to provide opportunity for a combination of after school tutoring, socializing, exercise, etc, as opposed to what so many kids are going home to now. So this is just some of the challenges for next year. And finally, we need to acknowledge that all schools, whether they're called community schools or not, as that term is used within the system, all schools are community schools. And so far as they have no choice but to do things like backpack programs so kids have food on weekends, dental services, showers, clean clothes, and washing machines. Our schools are making a herculean effort. We need to, we need to do everything we can to help them. This bill lays the groundwork by providing budgeting predictability, greater scale, and the opportunity for more specialized services. This is a really important step and it sets us up for next year. I'll take a minute.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Recognize the senator? Yes. From Washington, senator Cummings for the report of the committee on finance.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Finance]: Thank you, mister president. If you ever get a chance to kind of step back and look at the process we're going through here, this is probably the most monumental change we have ever made, maybe other than the entire redistricting in the one town, one vote. But we are reforming our entire educational structure. That's a structure that has been with us since we started educating children. Act 60 transformed how we paid for education, set up a financing structure. Act 46 started this process trying to help us right size our educational system so that every child can receive an optimal education at a price that the taxpayers of this state can afford. The cost of education, computers cost a lot more than a slate and chalk and, you know, an arithmetic calculator. One of those things with beads. And as we go through this process, it suddenly dawned on me. What we do is we state this is what we're going to do, and it's kind of aspirational. And as we move through and do more research and get more information, we start to put meat on those aspirational goals. I'm going to be doing two sections, and that's exactly what they're doing. Section 30 puts some meat on the bones of property valuation and regional assessment districts. You remember last year, we instated our intent to go to regional assessment districts. The reason for that is that the world of property valuation has consolidated. We're seeing more and more larger companies doing property assessment valuations. We're seeing fewer and fewer of the one two person shops. And the result has been that it's getting difficult for small towns with a couple 100, a thousand parcels, 2,000, to get an appraiser to come in. It's just not cost effective for an appraiser to spend the time doing that small job. And so the thought is and if you don't get your reappraisal up, you get hit with the common value yeah. Comp c yeah. Common value of appraisal, CBA, and your property taxes reflect it. So it's essential that everyone's property valuations assessments stay up to date. These regional assessment districts will group towns into larger districts, and they will then have a mass reappraisal every six years, which is the optimum kind of cycle. This bill does not set those regional assessment districts. It doesn't name which towns will be where, but it does put some more meat on the bone. We know as we go through with our educational restructuring that it's very important that your property valuations as close as humanly possible measure whatever we come out with with school districts be because you don't want half of your school district reappraised and the other half not reappraised. It gives you problems with with your tax rates and equity. So this section 30 creates a system of regional assessment districts for the purpose of conducting mastery appraisals on a six year schedule. Municipalities would jointly contract, and this would go in January 2031, provided regional assessment district appeals for it shall commence jurisdiction overvaluation appeals and notices of change evaluation by 07/01/2031. Section 31 is a conforming change, setting these up. And the effective date is July 01/01/2031, provided the Regional Assessment District Board shall commence jurisdiction. Again, clarifying provision 32. Section 33 is conforming change 32. Section 34 repeals statutes that will not be necessary once these regional assessed risk districts go in. Section 35 creates a new way to compensate municipalities for the cost of mass property valuations effective only for reappraisals conducted under the RAD system starting in 2031. The method is to provide the lesser of two thirds of the estimated cost or $66 per grand list parcel in the municipality. The existing method of paying $8.50 per per parcel annually to compensate municipalities for the valuation remains in law but is changed so that the per parcel fee is for the grand list maintenance only. Thirty six deletes another conforming change. 37 through 52 are conforming changes. Section 54 requires the Department of Taxes to recommend regional assessment district boundaries that align with school districts and have a minimum number of parcels to create the economy of scale for purposes of contracting for the mass reappraisal. Section 55 creates a process for allowing municipalities to be reimbursed for abated education property taxes in cases where abatement was given because of a clear error or mistake. That's on the the error mistake is on the part of the lister. And Section 56 requires the Division of Property Valuation and Review to issue guidance related to the valuation of manufactured home parks in limited equity cooperatives. That is all fairly technical, and I doubt anyone's getting really excited. The next sections, 57 through 64, are probably gonna be a little more interesting. Last year, in '73, we gave a list of three right now, we have two property class taxifications, homestead and nonhomestead. Last year, we we changed that, and we went to homestead, nonhomestead residential, and nonhomestead nonresidential. This, in effect, put most second homes and short term rentals in a separate classification. And this the next few sections put some meat on that bone, go into excruciating detail of how land and parcels and sections of housing will be evaluated when they're mixed use. You have a commercial, which is now nonhomestead, nonresidential on the 1st Floor. The owner lives on the 2nd Floor, so that is homestead residential. And then they rent out on short term basis the 3rd Floor, which is non homestead which is non homestead residential. They had flashcards, I am told, in the other body to keep track. And there is also the possibility that there are long term residents, which are nonhomestead, nonresidential, and short term rentals in the same building, all laid out in here. And if you wanna read all of that, it's wonderful bedtime reading. It'll put you to sleep. But section 57 requires assessing officials to record the number of dwelling units in each parcel on the Grand List. This is used to administer the tax classification systems, which assign a classification to some properties based on the number of dwelling units and how they are used. This is effective July of 'twenty seven for Grand List lodged for the 2028 tax year. Property tax classifications creates a system of tax classification, retaining the homestead classification under current law by splitting non homestead properties into non homestead, non residential, and non homestead residential. Your apartment buildings right now are nonhomestead. They're classified as businesses. They would remain in the nonhomestead, nonresidential. The nonhomestead residential is meant to pick up the second homes, etcetera, ones that are residential, not homesteads. And we have yeah. Okay. So properties with dwelling units that are not homesteads are classified as non homestead residential, except dwelling units that are not fit for year round habitation, rented out for long term rental, or a mobile home are classified as non homestead, nonresidential. And I believe mobile home, and I will have to check it, is the definition that we just changed. They are your mobile homes that are on wheels and move, not your ones that are tied to a cement slab in a park. The new classifications for those are manufactured homes,

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Bennington), Chair of Education]: And

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Finance]: they can depending on if you own them, what you rent, they can be homestead or nonhomestead. Okay. Mixed use parcels are classified proportionally based on the floor space dedicated to each purpose. Most of the classifications work is conducted by the Department of Taxes using a dwelling use attestation form provided to the property owners as well as other tax documents. So the system for most of us will be you do exactly what you do now. You fill out your homestead declaration. You check the thing that says, yes. It's my homestead. This is my household income. That's it. It's exactly what you do now. Other properties will sign an attestation to the Department of Taxes saying, this is this is what I have. There's a accessory dwelling unit. I rent that out long term. I rent out my 3rd Floor long term. I rent it out short term. And that is but it is a self attestation that will be happening. And that will be effective 07/01/3030 2030, provided all four act 73 contingencies are met. And that's that whole list of other information we have to get before we go forward with any kind of voluntary mergers. Dwelling use attestations. It creates a filing requirement for dwelling use attestation used to classify real property for taxation, owners of the property with no dwelling units, properties declared entirely as homesteads, and properties used entirely for non homestead residential don't have to file. Classification transition requires the Department of Taxes to collect to collect information from property owners in calendar year 2029 in preparation for implementation of the class tax classification system for 2030. It's effective January 2029, contentions on votes to create a new unified school district. So, again, this is all contingent on other things happening. Repeals several sections of act 73 related to property classifications because those sections re already replaced. The section 62 expresses the General Assembly's intent that tax classification systems be reevaluated whenever the General Assembly sets tax rate multipliers to be used by the system. And last year, we said Homestead would be one, non Homestead might be 1.2 or it might be two, non Homestead. It's similar system that we use now between homestead and nonhomestead. Those rates are set separately but based on the same sets of calculations. And let's see. Heals primary sections and adds conforming language to the definition of homestead to prevent ambiguities to the homestead classification caused by the new tax law. And your committee on finance spent a lot of time discussing long term versus short term rental. Long term rentals in current law, in landlord tenant law, are three months. Not three days, three months. And some landlords do week to week leases because they want the ability, if things don't work out, to end the relationship. This bill states that to be a long term rental, you have to be rented for at least a three month term and for at least six months of the year. So that, you know, we and this is for property tax law only. It does not impact landlord tenant, and we set a list of things that might be looked at when doing a determination there the second. The same sets we look at for property for the property transfer tax where you now have a higher rate if it is a second home. The what we're trying to avoid is someone setting up an LLC for which they are the sole owner, the LLC, buying the $5,000,000 second home, and then renting it to the owner of the LLC. So it is really based on intent. We understand that things are fluid. There's a significant number of people that might rent for three months or six months to a traveling nurse or to someone that's here for some kind of training. But the intent is that you're renting this in long blocks, at least three months and for at least half of a year. I with that, mister president, I will see to the senator from Bennington to to do the school consolidation sections. No. No. No. Addison. Sorry.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: It's good. Yes. Anic.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator from Washington yields to the senator from Addison.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Thank you, mister president. I will start on page forty two sixty eight of today's calendar in section 65. But before I do that, I do wanna just clarify one note on page forty two sixty one, the definition of long term rental. I believe that senator misspoke a little bit. It's thirty days, for long term rental, thirty days, but with a combined, six months total. So that is the definition of long term rental on page four thousand two and sixty one. And with that, I turn to school construction. Everybody knows in this room that our schools are in dire condition. The school buildings, our school facilities, we have the oldest school facilities in the country and many, many, many of our school buildings are in need of repair, reconstruction and rethinking in the twenty first century. So what we did in Act 73 was we revitalized an existing school construction program that has been in statute but was but was set to a moratorium for state aid in around 2009. So Act 73 revitalized that program, updated that program, but didn't fund that program, importantly. And so this section starting on page 4,268 of the bill on state aid for school construction identifies funding sources. It starts with some intent and findings language. I'm not going to read it all, but I do want to read: first finding is, Much of Vermont's school facilities portfolio is at or near the end of its useful life and will require substantial investment to address deferred maintenance and other necessary updates. The school facilities assessment conducted pursuant to Act 72 in 2021 identified over $6,000,000,000 in total needs over a twenty one year period with an average annual need of $300,000,000 just to achieve replacement in kind. These needs have only grown since their estimation in 2023. This is a lot of money in order to re refurbish our school district facilities. And we all know also that if we are going to achieve the scale and the mergers that are contemplated in Act 73 and further contemplated in H nine fifty five, we are going to need to upgrade our school facilities to either increase the capacity of school buildings where students are being merged into or build a wing or perhaps build a regional high school, in a different area of a newly, merged school district. So school facilities are going to be more and more of an important need for our our communities, and this is this section of the bill really, addresses that. And the the foundation the the fifth, finding states that the foundation formula created in Act 73 did not provide a funding, for additional capital investment in school facilities. Unless additional revenue sources are utilized or an alternative financing model is identified, new school construction projects will continue to be funded from the Education Fund and will continue to apply pressure to property tax payers across Vermont. So, this is really trying to find a funding source that will not increase property taxes across the board in Vermont. And then the intent section on 4269, it is the intent to create greater scale, increase the efficiency of the delivery of education services, and encourage the efficient use of funds by prioritizing school construction projects that align with the creation of new school governance structures expressed in this Act. So the priority is for schools that go through the merger process or are already working at scale. I'm not going to read all of the intent language, but further just to, to tip you off on one of the funding sources identified in this, in this bill is in the short term is the intent to catalyze the state aid for school construction program by providing state aid in the form of an additional $50,000,000 annually in state bonding capacity to support the construction or renovation of school facilities that support the consolidation of school governance structures and improve access to educational opportunities for public school students. That's part of the funding sources. Now moving on to Section 66, the establishment of new classified positions in the Agency of Education. Act 73 created a division of school, construction in the Agency of Education. This act, this bill would provide four, positions. These would originally be short term positions that are funded by one term funds, and then the agency would come back and ask for them as part of their 2028 budget request. School construction program director, financial management manager, school construction coordinator, and an architectural design reviewer or educational facility planner. I mean, bill also appropriates the funding to support those positions and then ask the agency to come back. We also created a number of years ago a Facilities Master Plan grant program, but we never funded it, and it's really important for school districts to go through Facilities Master Planning in order to figure out how to use their facilities better, what are the priorities for renovation, especially in the context of a merged school district. So this provides funding for those grants. This will be amended a little bit in the appropriations report, but this, provides funding for grants to school districts and supervisory unions at that are are looking to merge and how to plan their facilities. It also requires the agency of education to create rules for this program. The school construction program does not have rules, so this gives them the authority to do rule making for the program by 03/01/2028 and rules regarding prioritization and bonus incentives for the rewarding school district aid. So this is really important. School districts can get more aid if they meet these bonus requirements as defined in rule. Consolidating school governance structures, whether through this, the merger study committee process or for through other voluntary means. Improving access to public school students to excellent educational opportunities, including CTE, shared special education services for high need students, and improved comprehensive curricular offerings. And finally, remediating or eliminating health and safety issues. So those would be the things that schools would have to do to get the bonus aid, in this. The state aid for school construction, we created an advisory board last year in Act 73, and we asked them in this, portion of the bill to come back to us with recommendations, identifying the three to five feasible opportunities for construction or renovation of regional high schools. Regional high schools is one of the goals of, Act 73 and is further, identified and sort of doubled down in age nine fifty five. So we're asking them to start to identify and help, create a vision for regional high schools that promote the consolidation of school governance structures, improve access to public school students to excellent education opportunities, including CTE and shared special ed for high needs, and improve comprehensive curricular offerings. Sounds familiar? We're trying to reiterate this as much as possible. And then also provide a preliminary citing study for these three to five regional high schools and then report back to us with their recommendations. And it is the intent of the General Assembly to clarify that the State shall not offer aid under the school construction program until the General Assembly has received a recommendation from the Treasurer and the CEDAC, the construction aid the debt construction advisory committee. So it's not that we're gonna automatically do 50,000,000. We are going to wait. It's going to go through the same process that our bonding goes through for other state bonding. So section 80 updates the state aid for school construction program and says that any projects contemplated under this chapter shall be go through the regular funding process. They have to request the funding and actually has to go through the bonding process just like our capital bonding program. The next section of the bill eliminates a report that already happened in 2025, so we don't need that anymore. Section 72 updates the approval and funding for school construction projects, construction aid portion of the program that we implemented in Act 73 last year. It just makes a couple tweaks. It requires that an applicant demonstrate proficiency and school district quality standards regarding facilities management. It was a little vague before. This makes it more specific that they have to demonstrate proficiency. And it ties this to the the ever present conversation about PCBs in school districts, saying that if the applicant's school district is applying for construction aid for a school building that was constructed or renovated before 1980, which is the time cut off for PCBs. The applicant has completed indoor air quality testing for PCBs that was conducted according to the DEC standards for testing. So, a school can't get construction aid unless they've tested for PCBs and have a plan for remediating it if their school building is built before 1980. Then, the following sections, just clarifies that the treasurer in consultation with the Capital Debt Affordability Advisory Committee or CDAC, there it is, senator, shall recommend to the house and and committees on education, and corrections and senate committees on education and finance institutions about the level of debt that they're recommending, a bonding level that they're recommending. Project, there are wage requirements for prevailing wage and contract wages that are consistent with construction projects under Davis Bacon, the Federal Wage Act. The next section, Section 73 repeals a requirement that it was in our previous school construction program that said that school construction aid couldn't be used for deferred maintenance. That's a little irrelevant now because all of our schools have deferred maintenance, so it would mean that nobody could get any of this aid because pretty much every school has deferred maintenance, so we're just repealing that. Adding a section on legacy debt aid. This is for school districts that have been able to successfully bond, to renovate their school buildings, and the reason this is in here is a few reasons. One is our school foundation formula that it was created under Act 73 does not have a provision for paying for debt service. There's not a waste or a grant or any part of the foundation formula that contemplates payment for debt service. So legacy debt aid provide aid to school districts that have legacy debt who have been able to bond for renovations or construction of new school buildings prior to 12/31/2025 and would fund that through a categorical aid grant at 75% of the debt. The other 25% would have to be funded through supplemental district spending. So this is trying to put the legacy aid on the same footing as new debt service. The next sections are just updating the provisions and correcting citations to chapters as we're updating this part of the statute and saying that the cap on supplemental district spending shall not apply to school construction expenditures. So that's the second part of their state bonding and then the supplemental district spending that is above the foundation formula. School districts can use that to pay for debt service and other school construction purposes. The next part, starting on section 77a, is really talking about how school districts need to go out to a vote for bonding and how they need to communicate with voters regarding bonding at the local level. So there's state level bonding, there's legacy debt debt service, there's supplemental district spending, and there's local bonding authority. On section 77 a is a new section that amends the statute providing ballot language for bond issuance to clean up outdated references to the old state aid program, the one that was a moratorium, Adjust disclaimer language to the ballot to advise voters that annual debt service costs on schools construction will be covered through the supplemental district spending tax and not subject to annual authorization. So you you you vote for it once, approve it over a twenty to thirty year bond just like we do under current law, and then this is just making sure that voters understand that, and provide the information on potential supplemental district spending tax rate to voters under different aid scenarios so that voters have a sense of the potential future costs at the time they authorize debt. So section 77 includes the ballot language that is required and then also includes things that school districts will have to do in an in a special public meeting about a bond issuance to make sure school voters understand what they're on the hook for if they're approving this bond. And it makes a comparison if they get 30% state aid or 75% state aid, and then what and how long that term will be. So you can find that on the top of page forty two eighty, just making sure that voters know what they're voting for. And section 78 is also ballot language for the supplemental district spending. It clarifies that the distinction between ballots for regular annual supplemental district spending and one time authorization of supplemental district spending to cover annual debt service costs. So as I said, the supplemental district spending can be used to cover bond debt service. That would be a one time vote over the life of the bond. Then there's also supplemental district spending that a district can vote on every year to do special funding above their foundation formula, and there's a distinct distinction in the ballot, and section 78 lays out these two ballot options. So those are just article ballots, and I also should go back to the top of page forty two eighty eight because I skipped this, which is a part of one of the things. The estimated supplemental district spending no, actually, I'm sorry. That's not the section I want to make sure I'm clear with. The state aid for school district spending is on page four thousand two and seventy and this lays out the award for construction aid. There's a base amount of funding, which is 30% of the total approved cost of a project. That was what the base aid for state aid would be, and projects are eligible for additional bonus incentives. Remember, I listed what the bonus incentives are for an additional 45% of the total cost. So the new bondings aid could be up to 75% just like the legacy debt aid. And construction aid shall be awarded as a debt service subsidy through the state bonding or a combination of both. So you can have state bonding, a debt service subsidy, or both. And that is sort of the stacking of how we're paying for state construction aid. Not every district will get this. It will be a competitive grant that they have to apply for through the agency of education, and the agency of education will use its rule making authority and the statutory authority to determine who would get this aid. So, that is the few and this is all in the future. This is not starting next year. This is starting when the foundation formula goes into effect in 2029 and I will talk about this more in the amendment. And the final sections of this are about the ballots and so I'm going to yield back to the senator from Washington to finish the finance report on page forty two eighty eight, madam chair.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator from Addison yields to the senator from Washington. And

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Finance]: I've got to find that paper. Okay. Foundation's formula transition methods and reports section 79, I believe, is where we left off. Maybe before that.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Okay.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Finance]: And these, we are then foundation formula transition measures and reports. Again, we repeal the section repeals Act 73 transition methods for the foundation formula and statewide tax rates. It's effective on passage because we're moving to a new schedule. Section 80 is the Educational Opportunity Payments Tuition Transition, which is fiscal years '31 through '34. This updates Act 73, educational opportunity payment transition measures to align with updated foundation formula rollout trends. Again, we're adjusting as we go. If you remember in Act 73, in order to reach the Foundation Formula levels, some towns are going to have to ratchet down their spending, Other towns are going to have to ratchet it up, and this is setting in a system for doing that. This, again, is still a process in development. We're working in the yield bill on some other ways to help fund this. This is one of those aspirational. We know we need to do it, but we're still working on it. Section 81 is the supplemental district spending cap and proper that we the Senate added s two twenty to this bill asking setting the excess spending threshold at one twelve, and then in an effort to get schools to start ratcheting down, start understanding that this is serious, that one does need to do that. There's transition reports and other things, but there is another system that is also being proposed in the yield bill. So this is just our first step. Under this bill. It attaches s two twenty to this bill, but I would expect we

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: will

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Finance]: see some modifications to that. Let's see. We did legacy debt aid. Homestead tax rate transition measures to align with the updated foundation formulas. Section 83 delays the Act 73 Department of es report on the homestead rate transition by one year, again, to meet new die deadlines, new reality checks. Section 84 delays, sections of act 73, the tax department report, again, on Homestead. So these are all transition sections that are being adjusted to reflect new timelines that are reflected in this section of in this version of the bill.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: I recognize the senator from Washington, senator Perchlik, for the report of the committee on appropriations.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: Thank you, mister president. The appropriation committee on a vote of four three zero recommends that the bill ought to pass in concurrence with the proposal amendment as recommended by the committee of finance with two further instances of amendment. So you heard about section 66 a, the facilities master grant program, which is like a school construction grant, the senior center from Addison County explained. We had put money in the budget for this as million dollars. However, there's money spent in this bill and in the miscellaneous ed bill, age nine thirty one that we didn't account for. So we're lowering the million dollars that goes to the school aid construction, not because we have any issue about that program, but we need to define the money to balance the budget. So we've lowered it from a million to $900,000.75000 of that is for the pre case study that's in this bill. It's in section 21 on page 42, 33. That $75,000 for the pre case study wasn't in the budget, so we need to account for that. And then in H nine thirty one, the miscellaneous Ed bill, there is a council, an advisory council on harassment, hazing, and bullying prevention. And that's gonna have some per diems and costs that we didn't account for in passing that bill. So that's estimated by GFO to be around 21,000. We rounded it up to 25. So that makes the $100,000 for why we're lowering that grant program from 100 to $9,900,000. As was said, we need a lot more like $6,000,000,000 for all the work. So we paid to reduce it, that we needed to find that one. The second instance amendment is basically technical change brought to our attention. It's on page 4,253 or four thousand two and fifty three in section 36. And it's adding what there was a four that needs to be on hand where this is dealing with tax sale that's with section 36 is. So this was about issuing a warrant where it's less than $1,500 owed provided that the parcel has no dwelling capable of habitation on a year habitation on a year round basis and says or the parcel was not declared a part of a homestead, it needs to be and was not part of and was not declared part of a homestead. So those are our two amendments from the Appropriations Committee. Thank you.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: The question is shall the recommendation of proposal of the amendment of the committee on finance be amended as recommended by the committee on appropriations? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and you've amended the recommendation of proposal amendment of the committee on finance as recommended by the committee on appropriations. Senator from Addison for the report of

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: the I I also just wanna mention on the finance committee report, we heard from a lot of witnesses on the bill, all the usual suspects. We spent a lot of time with the tax department in particular working through the tax the tax provisions. The tax department has been extremely helpful in working through both with the Finance Committee and the Ways and Means Committee and the other body to make sure that all of the tax reports and all of the tax definitions are workable. We spent a lot of time with the tax department and the vote in committee I believe was a four. Five to five to two zero, in the finance committee. But I'm rising to talk about an amendment. The senator from Bennington, the chair of the education committee, already mentioned the process that has, been, unfolding over the last few weeks with the administration and with members of both the senate and the other body and members, a bipartisan effort to try to move forward with a an amendment that, everyone could get behind in order to move H95 forward and have the next round of education transformation move forward. That is this amendment that I'm presenting right now. You can find it on page forty two eighty eight of your calendar and I also, like the senator from Bennington, just want to express my gratitude to everybody who came to the table in good faith to work on this and to to really be honest with each other about where what what were our bottom lines and how we could also find common ground. And I I think this amendment does that, and I'm, really happy that we have, this kind of agreement and hope that the Senate will, also agree. And all and the staff thank thank you, senator. I was getting hand motions over there. The staff was in the room the entire time and were incredibly important and helpful. And I'm, like, eternally grateful to all of them, in the both the Joint Fiscal Office and Legislative Council. They are absolutely the best. So, the legislative there we added in the first, instance of amendment. I'm gonna go through instance by instance, and explain where these fit in. We added some legislative intent. I'm gonna read this. This is part of actual current law, but we added it as an intent just to to really make sure that people understand that this is our continued intent in this effort. It is the policy of the state to provide substantially equal educational opportunities for all children in Vermont by authorizing two or more school districts, including an existing Union School District, to form a Union School District for the purpose of providing for the education of its resident students. It is therefore the intent of the General Assembly that the formation of Union School District shall be designed to encourage and support local decisions and actions that provide substantial equity of educational opportunities statewide, lead students to achieve or exceed the state's educational quality standards, maximize operational efficiencies, promote transparency and accountability, and both be delivered at a cost that parents, voters, and taxpayers value. Again, that is part of current law. We reiterated here because it is so key to the agreement that we all reached about the process for how district mergers would occur. It is worthy the intent of the general assembly and the upcoming legislative session to leverage the insights of the foundation formula report submitted pursuant to act 73, the kindergarten education funding report submitted in section 21 of this act, and the school transportation report pursuant to section 27 b of this act to update the foundation formula enacted in act 73 to account for the funding of all components of Vermont's education system. And I read that because one of the things that has been so consistent from, so many of my colleagues and members of this, body and the other body as well is that they wanted to make sure formula that didn't include all of the components that were necessary to fund our school system. So these are commonly known as the contingencies. And these were an important measure for, people in both of the caucuses in the Senate, and we reiterated that most, very strongly to the governor's people. The governor was interested in removing all the contingencies to make sure the foundation formula went into effect, And we said, no, we need the contingencies in there. And we even added this intent language to reflect that. That is the intent. The intent is that we will not move forward with the foundation formula until the contingencies are met. I'll go over those later when I do the when I get to that section. The next section, second instance of amendment is really adding references to career and technical education and that those that career and technical education is part of the of what is required for both CESAs, that CESAs have to be able to also include CTE districts. That cooperative education units cooperative education service areas would also include supervisory unions and CTE districts. The third instances of amendment actually starts to add those there are four independent CTE districts in the state that are independent school districts, not part of a regional technical high school that's not part of an existing district. This would add those four independents to their relevant CISAs. So the third instance of amendment adds the Hanover Career Center and actually in in our district to the CISA there. The fourth instance would add the Southwest Regional Technical Center to the CISA in that area, which is in the Rutland and Southwestern area. The fifth instances of amendment would add the Central Vermont Career Center, which is in this area of the state, to the CISA that would cover this area of the state. And then, actually, the eleventh instance of amendment would create a process for the existing CESA, the Vermont Learning Collaborative, to work with the River Valley Technical Center to add that CISA CTE center to that CISA. This is an existing CISA and we didn't want to mess with their with their system so we wanted them to be able to have a system for reporting on how they can incorporate that CTE into their their CSA. The sixth back to the sixth instance of amendment, this is clarifying the fees for CSAs, saying that the average daily membership would be, that's how the membership fee to the CESAs would be allocated would be based on the number of students in a school district, and that the service fees would be based on the services provided. So that every school district would pay a fee to be part of a CISA, but they wouldn't pay for services unless they actually use those services. So that was just clarifying that. And it also clarifies that the services would not be provided unless requested, So the CISA wouldn't impose services on school districts. School districts would request the services from their CISAs. The CISAs are at the beck and call of the school districts, not the other way around. And they are just an administrative structure to share services and hopefully save money and provide efficiencies, but the school districts are the ones that are asking for those services. And speaking of services, the next few instances of amendment include, information technology in the list of services that CESAs could provide. This was at the request of, the senator from Windham, to make sure that, CESAs can provide IT services to school districts. The eleventh instance is the one I talked about about the CTE and the existing CESA. Okay at this point Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, could you pass out this handout? So what you're gonna see once you pass out the once you get this handout is an updated timeline. So I talked to you about the contingencies and I'll I'll get back to that, but one of the things as you know as we've heard multiple times is the governor really really wanted to have a situation where the mergers of school districts were were imposed on school districts or forced mergers and wanted it taken care of in the legislature at at during this session. We pushed back on that. We heard loud and clear first through the task force on school district consolidation and then through the work of both of our education committees and just through all of our, conversations with constituents that we heard loud and clear that our communities did not want forced mergers. So we pushed back hard on that. This amendment does not include forced mergers. We are not going to force mergers. We are going to set up a process for voluntary mergers and that will have a lot of incentives to merge, but it will not have forced mergers. And in order to get, that provision that concession from the governor the thing that he asked for his people asked for was to move up the timeline so that the the mergers and the foundation formula And I also was very firm that if we're moving up the foundation formula, we're moving up the tax provisions. And so all of that would go into effect a year earlier. And because of that, we have a new timeline. You may have seen the old timeline, which was this lovely multicolored timeline that our staff put together for us, believe our attorneys put together. This is an updated timeline, which I'm going to walk through with you because this also the section 13 in the bill, the twelfth instance of amendment and on, are basically the process and the timeline. So I'm gonna help you understand it through this timeline. So under the new timeline, the the votes for the mergers, if a if a merger committee determines that they wanna go forward with a vote to merge their school districts, that vote would take place on town meeting of twenty twenty eight. So our March town meeting election instead of the November twenty eight election, which is what was in the House bill. So it's moving up the vote by about eight months, and therefore has to shift the process. So under the new, if you're looking at this timeline with me, facilitators, you might recall that as the senator from Bennington outlined, each of the CESAs would have a facilitator attached to the school districts in those areas that would help facilitate the merger study committees to help them move forward, to help them schedule meetings, to help them get resources they need, to help them with testimony, to help them answer questions. It will be really helpful to them to have a facilitator. Those facilitators will need to be hired by, September 1. They are being hired by the one existing CISA that already exists, and so hopefully we'll have some good candidates for that and they'll be ready to jump on board as soon as possible. The study committees or the merger committees will make their appointments to them. The school boards will make their appointments to the merger committees, and the first meeting will be held by 10/15/2026. That's all this this fall. There is a provision in this in this amendment that requires school boards to identify who they're going to appoint to these in September so that by October 15, things are ready to roll. And then we have the entire, next, basically ten and a half months, for these merger committees to meet in their communities and decide whether they're gonna go forward with a merger and which school districts are going to be required to be part of a merger in terms of, like, this is a necessary school district. That's the the term, unnecessary versus advisable. And if you're necessary and the the and your district votes to not merge, then the merger falls apart. If you're advisable and your your district votes to not merge, then just you don't merge. The others could merge without you. So there's a distinction between necessary and advisable. And all of these and that's under current law. This process is largely a current law process that was used in act 46 and then updated in 2022. So this is not a new process. This is something that school districts have been doing for decades, and are are familiar with. The final study committee reports are due 09/01/2027, so that's where they have the ten and a half months to do this work in their communities. School boards then would have two months to come to review the study committee reports and make sure that they are okay with those study committee reports. The Secretary of Education would have until December 30 December 1 or thirty days to review them, and then the State Board of Education would have to approve all of the study committee reports and propose mergers by 12/15/2027. So it is a pretty condensed timeline. Of course, if anybody gets done early, they can always come in early and ask for their approval. The state board everything can happen earlier, and some school districts will be able to do that. But largely, this is a pretty condensed fall twenty twenty seven's, process in order to meet the March 28, March 2028 town meeting election because after everything is approved, as we all know, they have to have the ballots, and the warning all put into place, and then there's a requirement that ballots would be mailed to all voters, so there would be universal mail ballots for this election. And I also wanna remind people that this this is a presidential primary election, and so there will be high voter turnout. So the idea was to have high voter turnout on a presidential primary with universal mail ballots, And there is in the amendment a report back from the secretary of, state, in conjunction with local school district clerks to talk to tell us what they will need in terms of an appropriation and processes in order to mail all these ballots in 2028. So after the election takes place, those those districts where they've been approved and mergers will take place, There is the the the, you know, after there's a a timeline where people can, petition to have a revote if they want, but after that, the votes are certified in April 2028, and then the organizational meetings are held. School new school board members are also voted on at this time at the election when mergers are voted on. This is a process that's been used. I was a new school board member after act 46. We were elected, when the merger, vote happened, and that new transitional board would do their organizational meeting. They would hire their new secretary, their new superintendent, and then they would start the process of creating their new their first new school budget for their new school district. And there would be a whole bunch of transitional things that happen. There would be two boards that exist at the same time. This is current law. This has happened many, many times where there's a transitional board and the existing boards that would happen at the same time. There would be, property transfers, deed transfers, the contracts would be dealt with. All of the facilities and operational stuff would be transitioned to the new board, and it takes a long time. So there's a whole year for that to happen after the votes and the new the new boards are elected. And then finally on 07/01/2029, the new school districts would go into effect. The new board the the those new boards would would be the school boards in operation. The old districts would no longer exist. The old school boards would no longer exist and there would be these new operational districts and new articles of agreement, the foundation formula would then go into effect, and the tax classifications that the, the chair of finance, went over with you would also go into effect on 07/01/2029. So that is the timeline and when I get to it I'm happy to answer questions about it but that is largely what you will see in the amendment in section 13. The twelfth instances of amendment is really laying out that process and the new timeline that I just went over. So I'm not going to go

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Bennington), Chair of Education]: over all of the

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: language. Largely, it's current law language and the current law process, just updated to meet this timeline and to make clear, how it works in this context. One thing I do want to, point out to you is, that the merger, committee, would have to, they would have to lay out how the new Unified Union School District will, under the foundation formula, one, provide excellent educational opportunities that allow students to achieve or exceed the state educational quality standards, max two, maximize operational efficiencies that allow the districts to meet or exceed the state's district quality standards, Three, provide resident students with genuine opportunity to participate fully and to benefit from career and technical education, and four, provide special education services. So again repetition you've heard me say it before but this is really clear about what they have to do with the new school merger school districts. I went through the, the process, so I'm not going to repeat that. The thirteenth instance of amendment is an important thing because one of the concerns that we talked about in our committee, our informal group of people who were negotiating was what to do about districts that become isolated. And we talked about two different kinds of isolated districts, districts who are isolated by choice. They decide they don't want to merge and they don't want to, they don't want to become part of a larger district, but they might be a district that is sort of isolated amongst larger merged districts or districts that are, isolated not by choice. They wanted to merge and other districts maybe didn't want them. And so I said, you know, they weren't kick picked for the kickball team. So we wanna make sure that there's a process for, the districts that are isolated not by choice. They want to be part of a larger district, but they didn't didn't successfully get into a merger. And so section 13a, which is the thirteenth instance it is the thirteenth instance of amendment, is about a school district merger proposal to the General Assembly, and this is essentially allowing a school district that is isolated to come in to, first their school board would have to approve it, then their voters would have to approve it, and then they would come to the general assembly. And this, as the senator from what Rutland is very familiar with, is the charter change process. So they would come in and ask similar to the charter change process to become part of a larger district. It would be a bill and we would work through it in the legislature. Nobody would be forced to do it, it gives them an option for trying to join a larger district so they are not isolated because it will be very difficult for smaller districts who are isolated to be financially feasible under our new foundation formula and also they won't be able to meet the needs of students if they're if they're small and can't do it on their own. So, the section, 13 b, does, implement a moratorium on withdrawing from school districts, and I point this out because we were concerned that as districts are forming we didn't want districts disbanding and having kind of the chaos of moving in and out of districts. It's just a moratorium until 2035 and then we'll have the new, map, we'll have a new foundation formula, new tax formula, and, then the dust will have settled and if districts need to withdraw at that point then there they can do that again. But up until 02/1935, we wanted to have a stable playing field for the mergers and for the implementation of the foundation formula so that districts would know what to expect. The next is a report from Secretary of, State, which I mentioned to you about, what do they need to implement the elections in 2028. The fourteenth instance of amendment is, guidance for merger study committees. The facilitators, will create guidance for, the merger study committees, and, include, the CTE districts, making sure that CTE districts are included the Merger Study Committee groupings and the facilitators can also move districts around if districts request to be moved to different groupings within their merger groupings. Fifteenth instance and sixteenth instance of an amendment was at the request of the Payne Mountain School District. They were put into a group that they didn't want to be in, so we moved them to the group that they wanted to be in. So this is for the senators from the Washington District. The seventeenth instance of amendment, is about reporting back. The merger committees, need to and the facilitators need to report back to the legislature and the agency of education about how things are going, and who has merged and who has not. And also if there are any recommendations for moving from one CISA to another after the mergers have happened. So those reports would come back in January '28. And then, there is the eighteenth instance of amendment is about another report, and this is this is a report about the the determination and identification of any school district that is a bad faith participant. And this is important because you'll maybe recall when I was doing the, school construction, section we said that in order to get school construction aid districts could not be identified as a bad faith participant. We toyed around with this a lot, and, settled on bad faith participate instead of a requirement that somebody be a good faith participant because it was hard to define what a good faith participant was, but it's easy to know what a bad faith participant is. If somebody's acting in bad faith, they're not showing up to the meetings, they're blocking things, they're, you know, putting up guard, you know, walls on things with that they're acting in bad faith, but a good faith participant is usually somebody who's you know you can show up and not want to merge that doesn't mean you're a bad set faith participant. It just means that you're doing your duty, you're showing up, you can say I don't want to merge, but a bad faith participant is somebody who's just not showing up, not participating, or putting up unnecessary barriers. So the facilitators would report back on who they have identified as a bad faith participant. And so this is the final facilitator report on December 2028 about how things have gone with the merger study committees, and that's the eighteenth the nineteenth instances of amendment is about the CISA boundaries changing that I mentioned. The twentieth instances of amendment is a report back, from the State Board of Education about their recommendations on what to do with isolated school districts. If I if districts are isolated either by choice or by circumstance, the State Board of Education is going to identify them, and these are districts with fewer than 750 students that have not successfully merged with their neighboring districts, and then they're gonna make recommendations to the legislature on what to do. They're they won't be forced to merge, but they will be recommendations. The, twenty first, instance of amendment is just updating the section on the merger study, grants that the that the grant, that the CSOs can give out, from the agency of education. This is largely just reiterating the things that are already in act, in h nine fifty five and updating the timeline for this. The twenty second instances of amendment is the contingencies. So, if you are looking if you're following along with me or not asleep yet, the contingencies, these are, consolidated, no pun intended, from the contingencies that are at in h nine fifty five, but they are the same contingencies with one exception. There was a report that was required. It is required in Act 73 to be done by the Joint Fiscal Office, but it was included as a contingency, And it didn't seem fair to our staff to have a contingency that was based on them giving us a report. They are going to give us the report. See, the head of GFO over there, the report will happen. It's just not a contingency for the foundation formula going into effect. We wanna make sure that, we don't put them in any awkward position, and, so but everything else, their the contingencies are the same. The foundation formula will not go into effect unless we receive the 45A

[Unidentified Senator from Chittenden (likely Thomas Chittenden or Martine Larocque Gulick)]: report,

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: the Section 45A report that was in Act 73, which is done by a consultant that has been hired and will be coming back this December. And that report, will help us answer some of the questions about the foundation formula. That is about the, funding for CTE, special education, sparsity, secondary student weighting, and geographic cost differences. Also, a report on pre k funding and how to fund pre k and measures for satisfying leg collective bargaining agreements and capital indebtedness held by school districts. All of those things need to be, addressed and they have to be addressed with legislation that has been acted that expresses clear legislative intent to satisfy the conditions of these of these this list, the things I just added. There's also, the facilitator report needs to come back, that I just described to you about what were the results of the merger committees. So those contingencies are the same with the exception of the JFO report. So I know this was a concern for a number of of senators and it is the contingencies have not changed. They've just been reworded and clarified. Then the rest of the, sections, the, are updating the dates because we changed the timeline. So you'll see a lot of moving things from '29 to '28 or from '30 to '29, as we updated the dates. There is there is, the yeah. It's all just updating dates. And that the the goal for the sec for the new school districts are an average of at least 2,000 students, age nine fifty five in this as the senate version was 1,500 students. The governor wanted 2,500 students. The house was at 2,000 students. So we went to the middle number, which was 2,000 students. So that's where we're at with that. The educational opportunity payment section 80 is updating the transition mechanisms that the senator from Washington went over. I will clarify, the s two twenty was not put into this bill. It is a con it's a conversation that's part of the yield bill, we'll get back to that. It's not in this these are transition mechanisms that are in this amendment that are in Act 73 they're reiterated in here because of the date change so this is just the transition to the, the foundation formula payments, the transition to the new tax structure, and the transition for the supplemental district spending percentages. So those are the next several sections of the bill just updating those dates and the, effective dates and contingencies for those because the tax stuff is contingent on the foundation formula going into effect. And then the final part is just the effective dates, updating the dates for the effective dates. Mister president, that is the amendment. This is as I mentioned to everyone at the beginning, this was a consensus amendment with all of the people that were in the room from the administration and both bodies in the legislature and bipartisan effort. And I think this moves things forward largely with the structure that I would remind folks, largely with the structure that was recommended by the district task force, the district consolidation task force, saying, we want voluntary mergers. We want a process that is overseen, by CESAs so that school districts can share services, and we want to really focus on regional high schools so that we have opportunities for all of our kids throughout the state. And that is largely what h nine fifty five and this amendment does. So I really hope that we can have the support of the full senate of this, mister president, and I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the recommendation of proposal of the amendment of the committee on finance, as amended be further amended is moved by the senator from Addison. Are you ready for the question? Senator from Chittenden.

[Unidentified Senator from Chittenden (likely Thomas Chittenden or Martine Larocque Gulick)]: Mister president, I rise in support of the amendment that was just presented, by my colleague in senate finance. I wanna thank all the folks who worked so hard on this amendment, in this chamber and also outside of this chamber. These are consequential decisions and the stakes are high, not just for children in the state of Vermont, but our schools, our communities. And so deep thanks to everyone who was involved. There are provisions in this bill that I would like to change, but as we all know, a lot of times in this chamber we come to these complex decisions and we have to make this binary up or down vote decision. Right? We cannot say yes and or no, but we have to do the hard thing of yes or no. It's great to see school construction play such an important role in this amendment. I've served on two state aid for school construction task force and working groups with Senator Norris and Senator Weeks. As my colleague said, we have the second oldest school portfolio in the country after Alaska. They have the first. And it's high time that we bring this up to a level of importance that we see in this amendment. So many thanks for that. Healthy and safe learning environment should be our priority. I'm happy to see that the work of the school district redistricting task force, it's a mouthful, is taking shape in this amendment and in the underlying bill. Senator Harrison and I and others spent much of last summer coming to the conclusion that Vermonters don't have an appetite for forcing mergers. It just we heard it loud and clear. They recognize that we need reform. They know that we probably need to close some schools, that we need to have some bigger districts, that we need to cut some costs, and they're aware of the inequities that exist across the state. The task force concluded as has been illustrated in this amendment, that we have to work toward regionalization to save money. Sharing services, building economies of scale are necessary in a rural state like ours. And if done right, and that's the important piece here, if done right, they will save money and improve outcomes. But I still have deep reservations about what we're doing. Attempting to fix a system when the undergirding is still shaky and the very structure is riddled with inequality will be a challenge, a multiyear challenge. When we have this bifurcated system where not everyone is playing by the same rules, it is inevitable that some will be favored over others. And I worry about our rural districts the most. I think, you know, for the most part Chittenden County is probably going to be fine. A lot of us are already at scale. In a complex system of non operating districts, supervisory unions, supervisory districts, choice, some will be left behind. Small rural schools will close, but what if the nearest school is a private school that doesn't accept a child with special needs or with severe behavioral challenges? Where will that child go, And how will they get there? These are all questions that we need to lean into and ask. A foundation formula by its very nature is money follows student. That system in some states has become a full on voucher system. And pure and simple, it often leads to taxpayer subsidies to wealthy families, thus raising costs for everybody. Vermont can't afford this. We have to ensure that tuitioning towns are not overweighted in our foundation formula and that both private and public schools pay the full cost of tuition because not every family can afford to pay above the set price. And we simply cannot penalize operating districts while subsidizing non operating districts with taxpayer money. We also have to be realistic about our expectations. I was speaking to my friend's son over the weekend. He's a teacher at a private school outside of Pittsburgh. And I said, how's it going? And he said, I'm worried about my students. They struggle to write. They struggle to string together a series of thoughts in a cohesive narrative. I thought to myself, even privileged kids in wealthy areas of our country are struggling because they're on screens, they're getting ten second snippets of information. We have to be realistic in our expectations, and we cannot ask our schools to do more with less. In conclusion, we have a complicated system here in the state of Vermont, and I urge all of my colleagues to lean in and learn about it. There's a lot of taboo. There's a lot of politicking, but we have to understand how our system works. We have to be able to talk about it, or we'll never get to where we wanna be. So with all of that, I just want to say that I will be supporting this amendment. I urge my colleagues to do the same. This starts us moving toward regionalization. It starts us toward rightsizing our school districts and hopefully to getting to safe, healthy schools. Thank you, mister president.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden Central, we have arrived at noon time and you had asked for a hard stop.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Mister president, I may have misspoken when I said hard stop. I meant squishy stop. Squishy stop. With that, mister president, I think we're making good progress, so I would ask that we, stay in session for another fifteen minutes to see whether we can finish our work on this bill.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator from Washington.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: Thank you, mister president. May I interrogate the presenter of the amendment?

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: The presenter of the amendment is interrogated.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: I should note this question, but when we say the the foundation part only goes into effect on 07/01/2029, I assume that means that's gonna affect the school year of FY '30 or '31. I guess what fiscal year for the schools is gonna start is gonna be under the foundation for?

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Thanks for that question, mister president. It would be FY '30. So the new boards after they are elected in March 2028 would start to build their FY '30 budget in the that fall of twenty twenty eight. It would be approved by the voters if there's any supplemental district spending, and presented to the voters on annual meetings, in March '29, and then it would go into effect on 07/01/2029 for the FY 30 budget.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: So even though the foundation formula hasn't there's still some contingencies for the foundation formula to come into effect that school board is creating their budget as if it would be in effect.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Correct. By that time it will be important for the legislature to finish its work on the foundation formula so school districts know what the foundation formula is. In fact, it's going to be important that the legislature next session do that work so that the merger committees know what the foundation formula is before they're making their decisions about merging. So the expectation is that, if we're present if we're passing a bill to fill out the foundation formula, that the best time to do that would be next session, in the spring of twenty seven so that there is information for the merger committees and then for the voters and the new school board, members after they're elected to to create their first budget.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: Thank you, senator. That's helpful. Thank you.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? Senator from Essex.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex-Orleans)]: Thank you, mister president. Two years into this process of trying to figure out what we're gonna do about education, and we're right back to where we started. We act like we don't even know what the, what the problem is. And, so we're gonna try to reinvent the wheel with all kinds of unproving things that we really don't know how it's gonna turn out. I am bothered that for the second year

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: in a

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex-Orleans)]: row for somebody who does really trust the committee process that yet again, we've pulled away from that and not to take away with the hard work that has been done otherwise, but I just don't believe that's the way that you do work in the Senate. I didn't hear how this bill would lower the cost of education instead I've heard over and over and over about how much more it's gonna cost. We have educated 120,000 kids in the past, and now we're under 80,000. And then talks about building brand new schools is all we can seem to be talking about when we can certainly real rehabilitate old buildings to make them work again as we what we do in this building that we're in here right now. I think it works very, very well. I'm troubled by that we're talking about borrowing $50,000,000 from CDAC or somebody who's lived in the CDAC world with institutions. We are at our max capacity without affecting our bond rating. And just the the gentle talk and the the grandiose talk about, oh, we'll just borrow another $50,000,000. Well, I think we've pretty much hit the max of where we were supposed to be according to the CDAC, which I do have a lot of respect for. And that number has gone down over and over and over again. So I don't see where we are just gonna borrow another $50,000,000 and then have it miraculously not affect the bond ratings as far as how we operate as a state costing the rest of it of what we try to do more money. We already know that we don't have a revenue problem in this state. We have a spending problem and there was no talk about finding money within the budgets that we have already. Instead, we're talking about borrowing more and that isn't getting us where we wanna get to. We have an education system that our excellence in education is falling like a rock. We're were used to be in the top five just a short time ago, and now we're 50% or less. And I didn't hear anything in this bill to where how we were going to, stop that fall of education excellence. And instead, just doesn't seem to seem to be forgotten in the in the talk of it all. We spent better than a $100,000,000 last year. We're gonna spend a $100,000,000 this year, and it looks like we're gonna spend another 100,000,000 plus, a 100,000,000 plus, and another 100,000,000 plus until we get to 2029. And and then yet again, we still don't know whether we're gonna be where we wanna be. I will say that I can't totally disagree with the governor as far as to put dollars from the general funds and to help reduce property taxes on the most vulnerable of Vermonters. But I don't think it's the right way to balance any type of budgets moving forward. We keep on hearing about a foundation formula. I'm pretty sure we're gonna see Bigfoot before we see one of those. But we've been talking about that for a long time and we decided that haven't seen the got there. There's nothing binding in this bill that guarantees that we are on the right path for a sustainability and and education. Again, we're just talking about it and talking about it. And I do get that, you have to talk about things, but we've talked for a long time. We really, really have. Very disappointed that we're at this point where we're at right now and I'm just gonna have to be a go on this bill. Thank you, mister president.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? The question is shall the recommendation of proposal of amendment of the committee on finance as amended be further amended as moved by the senator from Addison. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. No. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and you have further amended the recommendation of proposal of amendment of the committee on finance. The question now is, shall the senate propose to the house to amend the bill as recommended by the committee on finance as amended? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. No. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and you've proposed to the house to amend the bill as proposed by the committee on finance as amended. The question now is shall the bill be read a third time? Are you ready for the question? Senator Perchlik.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you, mister president. I will remind the body that cost containment measures are also ongoing in the yield bill. We will see those results when that committee comes back to go report. So, to the senator's earlier point, I would just say that if you're looking in this bill for cost containment, you're only looking at part of the story. The other thing I wanna do, mister president, is point out the exceptional work of the senators who put this proposal together today. Not only exceptional in terms of their command of the policy, but in terms of stretching out their hand to the other side. So I include the governor's folks in that, as well as the people from the other body. It was a week of intense work, but at no time did tempers flare. People were collegial, professional with each other. I think of it as the best that we are capable of. So I am, certainly a yes on this, and it's my hope that other senators will follow. Thank you.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question?

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Roll call.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Roll call has been requested, and when the vote is taken, it shall be by roll. The question is, shall the bill be read a third time? Are you ready for the question? If so, the secretary shall call the roll. Senator Baruth?

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Yes. Senator Beck? Yes. Senator

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: Yes. Senator

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Bennington), Chair of Education]: Senator Brackz.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: Yes. Senator Chittenden. Yes. Senator Clarkson. Yes. Senator Caledonia. Yes. Senator Cumming. Yes. Senator Warren Hinsdale. Yes. Senator Watson.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington)]: Yes.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator Weeks. Yes.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: Senator Westman. Yes.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex-Orleans)]: Senator White?

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Yes.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington), Appropriations Committee]: Senator Williams? Senator Williams?

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Those voting yes, 27. Those voting no, two. The ayes have it, and you've ordered third reading of h nine fifty five. Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you, mister president. At this time, I would move that the senate suspend its rules in order to take this bill through all remaining stages of passage. For clarification, I have spoken with the minority leader about this. And it is our joint will to have it move as quickly as possible to the other body. Thank you.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: The senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate suspend its rules in order to move h nine five fifty five through all remaining stages of passage. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and h nine fifty five will be placed in all remaining stages of passage. The question is, are there any amendments prior to third reading? Seeing none, listen to the third reading of the bell.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate, Reading Clerk)]: H nine fifty five, an act relating to next steps in transforming Vermont's education system.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the bill pass In concurrence with proposal of amendment. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. No. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and we have passed age nine fifty five in concurrence with proposal of amendment. Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you, mister president. And I would ask for one last rule suspension in order to message the actions just taken on September and act relating to next steps in transforming Vermont's education system to the house forthwith.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate suspend its rules in order to message our actions on nine h nine fifty five to the house forthwith. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and we will message our actions on h nine fifty five to the house floor with senator from Chittenden Central.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you, mister president, and thank the body for excellent work. I will now be moving in a second to adjourn until 2PM. But prior to that, I just want to inform members of the Rules Committee that at the fall of the gavel, we will have a very short meeting in order to release some charters from in into the process. So with that said, mister president, pending announcements, I would move that the senate stand and adjournment until 2PM this afternoon.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (Presiding Officer, President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden Central is moved that the senate stand in adjournment until 2PM later this afternoon. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All All opposed nay. The ayes have it and we'll stand in adjournment until 2PM this afternoon.