Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Board luck.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: So we're back after a short break continuing on S-three 13. Actually, glad if I had a walk with you, I misunderstood. You actually are going testify in that grade. So for the record.

[Jay Ramsey, Director of Workforce Development, Vermont Department of Labor]: My name is Jay Ramsey and I serve as the Director of Workforce Development at the Department of Labor.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Okay, you're to talk to us about what's that 13% specifically you want

[Jay Ramsey, Director of Workforce Development, Vermont Department of Labor]: to talk about? I would like to address the committee about adult CTE. You're on. Thank you. So, just a little bit by way of my background. I used to work for the Agency of Education from 2011 to 2022, and I served in several different roles there. One of them was the state CTE director, and then as an assistant director overseeing CTE and adult education literacy, all important components to the workforce development system and preparing students to get into the workforce and whatever their path is beyond high school. I moved to the Department of Labor in 2022. I became the registered apprenticeship director there and served in that role for about eight months, and then I became the director of workforce development. I made that role. My charge is the operation of our 11 job centers across the state and our federal and state funded workforce development programs. The CTV system is an important component of the workforce development system, especially in registered apprenticeship. We've been working a lot recently to make a stronger connection for youth in CTE programs to registered apprenticeship programs. Just quickly, a registered apprenticeship program has an employer's phone training program that they put someone in who was maybe at an entry level or the common touch point most people have is with the nutrition of plumbers. That is a registered apprenticeship program. Each program requires coursework. The tech centers and their adult CTD programs, so we're thinking evening and weekend courses is an important part of building out the registered apprenticeship system. We're seeing an increasing demand for that, and we need more training providers to be able to play a role in that system. So I'm here to simply say about economies of scale. We have 17 regional CTE centers. They don't all consistently offer adult CTE programming, again, evening, weekends, during school breaks, but we need to also be paying attention to that while we're contemplating what the big change is to the funding and governance of secondary CT. I don't have a slideshow presentation. I'm here to extend beyond cradle to career thinking and encourage cradle through career. We have people all across the state that are paying taxes, the taxes are going to operate in the CTE programs and purchasing equipment and making sure that those programs are aligned with what employers are looking for. Taxpayers should also be able to benefit from those facilities, those pieces of equipment, and the training that could be offered through the tech centers for adults and employers. So that's what I have from here to talk about. Okay.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Wanted to make sure what you're simply saying as we go forward with this, don't forget.

[Jay Ramsey, Director of Workforce Development, Vermont Department of Labor]: Yes.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So, I mean, I think the experience talking to those in the field was that they don't want to exclude adult education. You know, they want to fill their program. If they're oversubscribed and have all day programming, etcetera, it becomes a challenge for them just like those are the ones that are oversubscribed now. But the ones that are underutilized would very much like to be partners in this. They face a lot of structural barriers to doing that. Some of the centers said to us that they are not allowed to have adult education on-site at the same time as K-twelve programming. You heard me say this on the break, I don't see any way that the statewide ESOL solved any of that. I think there are ways to solve the problems right now and get us closer to a regional model. And if we have a regional high school,

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: that would still require a special look at how adult education is offered. This really feels like kind of

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: a return to like the shows I watched on Nick at Night as a kid, you know, like, you go to night school, you, you know, you you learn a skill, and you could you should be able to do that at your local high school. And by the way, we have a lot of the CTEs saying our partner programs like the hospitals are shutting down their teaching functions. So I feel like there's more that the Department of Labor could be doing to solve that problem. I don't see how one ESOP comes close to solving the myriad of regional problems that exist.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: I think that beyonds what you were.

[Jay Ramsey, Director of Workforce Development, Vermont Department of Labor]: Well, I think it is a little bit beyond, but it is certainly part and parcel of this discussion. So let me just pick up on what you're saying about employers dropping programs. So senators that are on the Economic Development Committee will know that the majority of employers in Vermont have 20 or fewer employees. They're focused on their business, they're focused on making things, producing whatever, helping people, and they don't have time to figure out how to get their employees trained. They don't have time to sort out the multiple different aspects of the workforce development system, and part of the strategy here to help those smaller employers, especially in the registered apprenticeship realm, is to bring about a little bit more of a structure to it and an access point for training, which would be the tech centers. And so that's sort of our mission right now, is to try to bring some sense to the training realm in Vermont, so that our small employers have a place to send people, and our big employers too, and hear from them. They don't have a place to send this group of employees who need a little bit of basic training, if you will, on how to operate these machines or how to work safely. They want to be able to do that. So, some parts of the state have a great system in their tech centers and their adult CTV programs, but by and large, it's not well funded, it's not well coordinated. So in the interest of taking a step, the department has in our base budget about $400,000 a year that we allocate to the adult CTE programs. So while the major changes to secondary CTE are being sorted out, we're still moving forward with investing and changing how that funding works. We're no longer gonna be giving $20,000 a year grants to each tech center for their adult CTE program. We're on the cusp of releasing a request for proposals for three projects that would be funded at $100,000 each, and we'll commit to funding them for three years, and that will allow the tech centers to have some additional resources that they don't have access to for their adult programming, to coordinate in a geographical area, which some of them do, or to coordinate across the state in a sector based approach. Maybe it's manufacturing, maybe it's healthcare, maybe it's something else, but we're starting the process of sorting out and bringing some sense, if you will, from a business perspective on how this part of the system works. We have Community College of Vermont, we have Vermont State University, they offer credits, they're going toward a degree. What we're talking about is local access to short term credential training that could potentially lead to coursework at CCV or Vermont State University or whatever the post secondary institution is, but this is about local access and short term credential training for employers to use and job seekers to access. The other data point that I wanna mention is we have a really low unemployment rate still, and so that means there are not a lot of people out there looking for jobs, and so employers are hiring people who don't have a background or don't have a skillset because they need to, but they also need to have access to training for those folks. So that is part of the strategy here. Again, we're committing to three years, so that gets us to 2029. And then we'll need to revisit. But that's what we're working on right now in the interest of serving employers while the rest of these changes are being contemplated.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yes, so

[Jay Ramsey, Director of Workforce Development, Vermont Department of Labor]: is this tied in at all, you know, learning education systems? The Vermont Adult Learning, that's adult basic education, so that's through four non profit providers. That program is administered by the agency of education. Vermont Adult Learning serves the majority of the state, and then you have Northeast Kingdom Learning Services up in the Northeast Kingdom, the Chittenden, Central Vermont Adult Basic Education here in Memorial, Washington, large counties. That's a different part of the system, the workforce system, for adults that don't have a diploma. Maybe they need to brush up on some skills. They're trying to get a GED.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: So will they ever, do they

[Jay Ramsey, Director of Workforce Development, Vermont Department of Labor]: have the two meet? Because I know Stafford Tech has evening adult learning classes that's for a technical I think that a future state would bring about this change so that adults access maybe the tech center or maybe the comprehensive high school or whatever service it is that they need, and especially for people that are relocating and choosing to live in Vermont, those other states might have a system that doesn't have so many access points. We like having access points, but it can be a little confusing for people.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Okay. So, definitely, that's nice. So it's just a got some time set aside for a committee discussion. Well, I I wanted to just start the committee discussion. I have to go ahead. Okay.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: to start this discussion, I want to take us back to December, November and December, when we visited schools in different parts of the state and made an effort to get to rural Vermont. And then a lot of, and then we've taken a lot of testimony over the last six weeks, six weeks from school districts, superintendents, school board members, students, taking a lot of testimony students, teachers and I think we have learned a lot or taken a lot about the differences around across Vermont and what the needs are and the need to put something together that is responsive to various parts of the state at the same time trying to gain efficiencies, make the system work better. So sort of if you look at it, I use the word purpose, but also could say goals to modernize. So the language here, by the way, is as important as the math. I think it's maybe even more important before we're done. Know, math's important, but the language it goes with it. So, you know, the goal here is to improve efficiency, governance efficiency, enable a higher quality educational delivery. Key is moderate the growth rate in education spending. And this really gets to the, all the people who testified for us, preserving local voice where demonstrably supports quality and cost effectiveness is sensitive and responsive to the diverse needs of the state, and uses a structured, well, here we are, uses a structured voluntary process first, which limited and targeted involuntary mechanisms only if necessary. So stop there for a minute and say that what you have in front of you is a map with, I think it's 12, I've lost track, I've moved it 20 times. 13. 13, Well, five twelve SSUs in the course. Okay. And then there's a lot of SDs that couldn't get the thing to put the boundaries on the existing SDs, there's lot of SDs in the gray area that has been, for the purpose of the map, we'll come to that in the language, left alone. But so the goal is to have these just, and by the way I also want to say off the bat this map is by definition not right. Okay. It's one person trying to make an upper pick to do what may make sense, but it did break up districts and tried to follow the SU model where we have heard very specifically the parts of the state but it's very important to them. So where the language really comes in is the goal here and I'll just say it first and then we'll get to it. The goal is to reduce, we have right now 52, between SPs and SCUs, have 52 large units. The goal is to get that down below 25 and we have 119 districts and the goal is to get that down below 60. So it's to cut the large units in half and then hidden districts in half. So what happens here, so the construct would be that if we were to pass this conceptually these SU lines would descend. Within the lines that are the supervisory districts there would be a goal for those districts to emerge to the point that they reduce their total by half by 15% and the same would happen with the districts within all the SU's. On a statewide basis it's not SU by SU it's on a statewide basis if we get down to below 60 and if we don't then the board has the ability to to merge involuntarily but there are a lot of places in these SKUs where there are smaller districts that are close to each other that could easily merge and I've got I could think of some and I don't want to go into specifics but I can think of some in the area either very easy to worship you, and that is true of all of these. That's kind of what it is, it's reducing the large units by half, and so the only part that would be done with this passage would be the SUs, the lines of the SUs. Then the SPs would have two years to come together and and and merge. And then within the SCUs, the districts would have two years to come together and make the decisions about merging. And at the end of that second year, the board would have the authority to do it and add to. There's a lot of details of this that we need to talk about and think through. But so the goal is to give the students the chance to do it themselves but to have it clear that we're going to get there because this has all been time for the beginnings of the foundation formula. Three years, the guys went about it. So this would be in place by the time the foundation formula hits in three years. So that's that's gonna require providing mechanism. Also for districts that are in some of these areas you don't force districts that are not aligned to merge like if they're if they're if they operate and they're if they operate K to eight and then nine to 12 choice You don't force them to merge with a district that operates differently because the constitution doesn't work. You can't can't merge districts that are not like it. So that's the concept. Yeah. So

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: my first broad, generalized question, which is also with an understanding that this is a very rough draft. Yep. Very early stages. Yep. You describe how this this idea is better than what was provided by the redistricting task force and also how it avoids the pitfalls that were described by

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: the townships. I think the task force proposal is not going to get us to the point that we are below the rate of increase in education's record at the rate that I think we need to get there and this will provide larger units, produce larger units, which in the student hearing is better educationally and more efficient. And so I think that nothing in here on the one, and by the way, the task force also talks about voluntary. So this has a period of voluntary. Districts can come together on their own, see that it needs to happen and make it happen. There's five, just in my area, it's very easy to go reduced by about five districts very quickly and that could happen all over state. So it could happen voluntarily, it doesn't conflict with the task force, a it's because it's voluntary at least over the course of couple of years and if not to prevent that to the extent that the OC's model will actually provide additional efficiency.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So it's voluntary for two years that it's long untold after that?

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah although it's not draconian insofar as it's not trying to force down into fifteen, twenty districts overall, it's going to get to 60 or less, you know, less than 60. And that's very easily achievable by smaller districts around different parts of the state, in a way that preserved, because part of this was preserving, you heard a lot of testimony from rural Vermont about not wanting to lose their voice, they wouldn't lose their voice. You heard a lot about from districts that are non operating how important that non operating status is or the tuition status. Half of it involved in schools but districts like the which are islands in Essex County talk about how important that is in particular, not the among others. It preserves that. So I think that's the answer I have for that one for short on.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Last follow-up. Regarding the losing voice piece, when the district is merged with another district, those two school boards become one school board. So if you're merging so I mean, there would be a substantial elimination of school

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: boards, right? Yes, there be fewer school boards, but you know, like size with like size in a lot of instances, so that, you know, we didn't want to do orbits that, we didn't want to just say you have to merge like with like because then you'd be merging both type districts with one that would be the super district it would sort of dominate this this way smaller districts could merge and maintain that small smaller district feel that people talking about needing it. So yeah, you're right. Two smaller districts, we go from two school boards to one.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: This is the last one.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah, this is okay. That's all right.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So let's say two districts merge during this two year period, voluntary period, and then you get to the end of those two years and the state realizes we actually have to merge even more districts, those two districts that merged in for one during the voluntary district, they'd still be liable to potentially get merged into another?

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Is, put a pin in that one. I thought about that one and haven't answered it. Okay. Put a pin in that one.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That's all

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: I got. I think there could be something like a presumption that if you had merged monetarily, that you were not re merged, but I don't know that we want to, we can say, yeah, you're asking what would happen if we don't get the less than 60 with the voluntary. We have to think that one's good because if it's two very clamy districts, maybe that's not really gonna make a huge difference, but put a pin in that one because it's one of the things we have to think through.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Thanks.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yep. If I can, so everybody creates legends that have a provide part of the story. Then you you highlighted number of students, number of towns, number of schools in the grand list. Can you share why you use those four metrics? They really didn't. They didn't use them. They just are there. No, it really was much more geography and and as we have taken testimony what struck me as fitting together and also not with the regular business. And then, oh, we missed it in your introduction, but what's the gray area? Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: On my list?

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Those are the, the gray areas are all supervising districts. Those are challenged by the way. They're not, they're not supervisory district lines. So within that, I forget how many there are, they're supervisor and the idea would be for the supervisor, we have this, this reduces SUs by more than 50% and so the goal would be to have the S and Ts merge so they reduce themselves by 50% as well and then all the districts within the SUs emerge to produce less. So should I characterize it as the organic approach? Yeah. But they figure it out over time but. Well, two years. Yeah. Semi organic. Unlimited organic. Unlimited organic. Yeah. Because I think that with that 60, I mean, I'm sorry, with the foundation formula coming into being in 2030, we need to be, we need to have the ground weight for it with the factory going work. My own view is my guess is that we'll see even more district courtrooms than required because as foundation formula is coming up districts will realize more and more things that's for merchants. Yes. So over the period of the next two years of this organic I apologize. Version. And they do. A lot of people are talking about merging right now. Yep. So how do we keep track of it? What's the mechanism for managing this process? Is it our job? Is it AFE's job? The the the technical assistant for the for the helper of that. Agency. Have to make, put a pin in that one too. We're gonna end up with a lot of pins here. We have to think through.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Absolutely. Yeah,

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: yeah, go ahead.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, and I appreciated Senator Weeks' question about the grant list per student. I do think that was maybe one of the most compelling things we've heard last year was to try and start to mobilize the grant list per student when you're looking at construction and facilities and bonding. That leads to my bigger picture question, which is that only means something if there are some similarities to how the SUs and SDs are structured. We did travel to enough schools, I think, to see that there is a range of how the SUs work. You know, I learned a lot from White River SU because there are some things they're sharing and there are some things they're not. You heard me say that in regard to facilities. I think it's interesting that each part of the SU still controls only their school building. Certain communities were responsible if they want to fix the elementary school, certain communities are responsible if they want to fix the high school, and then they can add the tuition payment on for the rest. But they weren't all participating in the same bond votes. Right? That's what we learned.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. Do you mean do you mean that a non operating district doesn't participate in the bond vote?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I suppose, although, if they operated a k through eight, they did the bond for their k through eight, but not the high

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: school. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I I personally don't think that's a great model to move forward with regionality in high schools, especially to to allow too big of a range of how they all govern themselves and operate and vote for things. So, I mean, my big question is what does each of these SUs do and what don't they do? Because if we're gonna actually gain efficiencies, it will be consolidating administration, it'll be consolidating back end, and it'll be taking shared facilities. It

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: it will well, the first couple of those, this is reducing the number of SUs by more than half. So, that that's there's more efficiency there. Fuel superintendents, fuel suspended, so it'll be a little bit bigger SUs with more ability to spread.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We kind of always knew that if I mean, that's kinda speaks to Steve's one district or whatever. You know, if we had one superintendent, we'd still have some governing units underneath depending on how it was structured. So to really gain efficiencies, you do have to have a shared sense of what is the SU gonna be conferred with doing versus the districts.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Speaking of putting a pin in it, because SUs are creatures of statute.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right. So We have to flesh out, like, what are they doing to actually gain those efficiencies. That was my second question. And then I didn't quite understand this notion of like and unlike districts. I mean, White River Supervisory Union was a great example of they took some K through eight, some, you know, non operatings.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Well, no, they're they're actually that district is K through 12. It's just that they accept some tuition students from surrounding towns that are like the.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So, right. So if every supervisory union is going to be pre K through 12, it's not?

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Well, supervisory union will likely have some of each, but the difference within it will be different because otherwise there'd be STDs. The reason for having the supervisory unions so they can accommodate districts that are not exactly like, for instance.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Makes them not able to

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: share resources then? Okay. That's that's the creature statue part, we can talk about that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay. I I don't see how we gain efficiencies if we say, keep your district within this larger city

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: of Well,

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: because we're making the districts merge. We're getting districts are rather we're getting enough of fewer districts. So that alone creates efficiencies.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Even in the SUs?

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. Yes, they have to, districts in, the S, the districts within the SUs have to reduce by 50 Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: When you say, when you say like districts and unlike districts, I have no idea

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: what Here's you're talking an example. One district might operate K through eight and then nine will have choice. Another district might operate, might be fully not operating.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So they just tuition their

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: students Everything everywhere. Yeah. That's a non like structure. Those two districts could be in the same SU. They couldn't be in the same SD because at an SD, you have to have like, everything has to be exactly the same. So this is a level So they would

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: keep all the towns that are non operating would be their own districts within an SU?

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yes. Like, they would likely be their own districts within an SU.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I still believe they have to share the administrative and facilities costs in an entire SU group to gain an efficiency.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Okay, noted. We'll talk about it in a but yeah, So, go ahead. Why didn't I interrupt you? No. Okay. So, I did note that and this is a follow-up conversation we were having last week in the committee that you did have the number of schools per SU and it varies very quickly. It varies from 26 schools to 11 schools. And these are the principles. Right? We're we're getting the follow-up is number of the print. You know, how many principles can a superintendent manage? It's all leadership question. And I'm curious just how important was it to you in developing them out in evaluating the number of schools in an institute? I didn't think so much about that as I did about this merging districts and it's interesting that comes with merging districts. And in developing this map did you have any collateral thoughts about whether it's about what's more important managing the number of students or managing the number of principals for a superintendent? No, didn't get to that level, Drew. I want it to be organic. Okay, so. Thank you. Yeah, it was more of a geography. That's that's what I'm gonna put that in. So I think what we by the way, senator Heffernan has something he wants to propose tomorrow. That's the we have some time set aside for that. And what would be helpful is if we can people unders just wanna make sure people get the concept here. It's reducing the large units by half and then the districts by half, at least. So which is, on whole scores is more efficient. Maybe not as, I understand your issues, your questions about the total efficiency, but having fewer SUs is by definition more efficient if you just have fewer superintendents and capacity to have a bigger back office and having fewer districts is coefficient, especially when they should obviously merge. Hopefully that's what will happen. So will this also lessen school boards then? Yes.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: It's just 25 school boards and then defining how we're gonna, that's gonna be in the governance part of if we're gonna do boards or whatever.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: We should have to get to that, I don't like. So we'd go from 119 school boards to less than 60. So I'll move to the school boards. I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: mentioned this with the House Education Peter Conlon map, but I look at the places that have interstate school districts and they're politically powerful communities. And I think that we heard loud and clear that if we're gonna make Canaan go through a whole big thing, they have been working as hard as they can for as long as they can on an interstate district. And they're not really breaking through because it's not a politically powerful part of the state. I can't figure out any other reason why we keep ignoring that their absolute best option for their kids is to have an interstate district.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah, I don't think I'm not I know that's true.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay, you just every map is, like, aspirational. But that's what The kingdom in any So,

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: as you know, they worked it takes two to do that. Mhmm. And they have not been able to work it out with the surrounding towns, As much as they've tried, an interstate district could have happened but they couldn't get it. They said they worked on it for ten years and weren't able to make it happen. Could make it work. Hampshire side. New Hampshire. Yeah. I it's not I'm I'm not saying it's New Hampshire's fault that it didn't happen. I'm just saying the two weren't able to come together.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, they're they're in a timely conversation right now, as I understand it, about district district consolidation on the New Hampshire side. And if we could take some time to put some attention on it, have a New Hampshire education leader, legislator come tell us if there's appetite for that. I think I think that would be really helpful to those folks. No there's no efficiency gained for them in being part of this huge district.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Well it's where they are now basically. So no efficiency gain, no change.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Well I mean not No change.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Really because they have Essex County they have an Essex County SU but but now it's shared with

[Jay Ramsey, Director of Workforce Development, Vermont Department of Labor]: Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Two other as

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. I mean, you're you're certainly right about Keenan. Okay. And we could do anything.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: This is not how they look.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: If we can do anything, if we can can do anything to help Keenan and Will, we'd all like to do.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Let's start to put maps out that like tell New Hampshire like, hey.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: So. Something you need to know. So, let's Let's let's recount the some of the hints we want to put in here. Yours?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Wasn't that the, if the district merges voluntarily, like a three year time period, and then we don't hit that threshold after two years, they're going to be voluntold into another history. Yes.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: And Senator Beatsy Yours was number of schools, number of schools per superintendent. Think those are your thoughts about sort of the funding mechanism of school of the SU.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, it's class modeling. I don't know how I don't know exactly what efficiencies you're considering gaining besides, yes, fewer superintendents generally. Well, few school boards. I think we determined that school boards aren't adding a lot of

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: They're not expensive.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Cost, yeah.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Can I ask kind of a follow-up question to the cost modeling? Did JFO make their hire so we can begin so very quickly, did. They did? They're They on board? Yeah. Just. Yeah. And, absolutely, and then the duties of the SGU.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Just another follow-up question is how massive will the new SBU school boards be if there's dozens of school districts remaining even after they merge? So, a view of

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: forty, fifty people? So they, well, so you're, but let's just frame that question. You're talking, you're thinking, so your question is, because SU's a representative from the districts.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Right, so there would be one rep from

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: each Yeah, for instance, yeah, Celestial City, will it be, how will this be worth become? Yeah. Kind of a large? I'm up. Sorry. We see that. Yeah. Just a comment that, I had recommended that our government, operations colleagues need to have this conversation. They're hesitant to do anything until there's a number until we all agree on a number of districts as far as a goal. I think I think we're gonna run out of the runway, and I think that this conversation at some degree should at least begin because we can't use that as an excuse to say it wasn't touched, we didn't evaluate it at that time, whatever the rationale might be. This conversation could start now. Know, the very simple concept. You have, you can keep a 119 districts, you know, then then put the district districts, contract. How do you how do you approach that? I I think that conversation should be happening. Yeah. Hopefully, the districts will figure that out about of of emerge because that's what that's what tends to happen. They figure it on their own. Sounds like to about how we how we're gonna manage the voluntary earnings. Some of that help. Correct. So that might cut slower to what they're talking about.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Mine's related, but maybe not necessarily a GovOps question. We found that there are hotspots with voluntary mergers where there were no guardrails and some inequities or sort of inconsistencies occurred that weren't good for the kids.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: You're thinking of orphan districts.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm thinking of orphan districts and, you know, who wants like, if I think of Chittenden County and who wants to merge versus what's best for the kids or what's best for the equity of the system overall, those those tend to be different. And we'd have to articulate Yep. This is a big gray map blob, but if we just said run at each other, like, it's not generally fair to the kids, you know, all the time.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah, so you're, so just trying to figure out how to, know, I didn't show up down at Orphan District, but it's bigger than Orphan District, but I get to, I know the point.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah, I mean, someone would essentially, the guardrails would look similar to some of the metrics that are important to us, that you can't have outsized grand list value with one merger and then, you know, all ELL students that are in poverty.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: You know, for what it's not dispositive, but the one thing about the foundational book is the grand list matters less because-

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That's true.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Because you get an ex pursuit. Everybody pays the same for another. Nobody gets ex motivated.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: As long as you're all bonding together for facilities.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. That's a different question. But

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: it's much easier to get,

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: So you're thinking about the bonding question.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm thinking that that's the one thing that doesn't Yeah. Get addressed in a vending So you're going to have great high school to put that like this and that's usually where we see inequities.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yep. Yep. The school construction is a key part, like, something that I've been in school construction. So keep it busy. Yes. When you're done with with this now, I do have a request, a timing request prior to the meetings with this, but I I don't wanna interrupt this. Okay. So I see a school quarter week pretty much. This and we're gonna go into meetings with we're gonna get, you know, 75% of our conversations with our constituents are meetings with you. They're gonna be about act 73. One of the common questions is property tax versus income tax. I don't have an answer, but I understand that the finance committee took testimony. I'm wondering if I'd like to request that the chair of the finance committee come in and brief us what they want.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: What is this?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Just so that we're I think

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: tax first property.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Just so that we're Yeah.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: We understand. Yes. It's a financial issue.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Is that a serious proposal or just a basic

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: It's coming up. I mean, it's probably a quarter of every conversation as well. You're not fixing anything without fixing the source of revenue. I just I overheard it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, yeah, tax equity is a different conversation than education.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Fifteen minutes of just share with us what they learned. That's it. We'll share. Fine. Well, think parts in of it, can answer it. Yeah. That's it. Okay. I don't know where it's going. Yeah.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: And then people are asking about it. It's flavorful. I can. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I can help you. You you cannot replace the stability of the property tax with an income tax, period. And and that's beyond the mechanics and logistics of how differently they're collected. The income tax is way more volatile than the property tax, and it will always be a hybrid of the two, which it is now. It's just not that important.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: I understand. Good for today. I'll try to frame these up and help us get the process of sorting through this. Of course, before people who need whatever, you know, we need to make that with.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Are you going to present in house education like Peter Kotland? Yeah, they asked me. I have a curiosity about this is how the house will react to this.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: So I think that what I really try to do is I want to go back to this. I really try to, we took a ton of testimony and we heard some things loud and clear, I think. And I really tried to incorporate that in this in this proposal. About the needs of well, how was just how different the needs all around the state and repeating them. It's not a one size consultant. So I believe for the next two years, manage the. School board and school districts and, you know, how we tie or reinstates. Yeah. That that what we have down. So I think, you know, we were to advance this, the the next two years, districts would be really absent themselves with patient origin or something at home. There's a mechanism, there's a least language, you have a mechanism for a district to say, we're so different for whatever reason that we should be required to vote. That's fine. Can take that to the state of the board. But we'll look. Okay, I'll organize these questions so we can start there. So by the way, we're also obviously going to have to have people come in and comment on the exactitude of the narrative. That's what I just did. Chair Cohen was careful to say, you know, I just put some lines on to get the discussion started. And, you know, I may not like Windham County, for instance, you know, I don't have that exact invite, for anywhere else to the world who's listening to this if you're, you know, superintendent or school board member and you have, you look at this and go, that's not right, then, come and tell us. So, we'll we'll talk. Sorry. Think that's yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: If we have some polls in the schedule this week, can we hear about the school counselor bill?

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. We have some polls.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: If okay. I mean, it doesn't sound like it's gonna move before time meeting day, which I respect. I just think a really big key to a lot of this is how much we actually let school counselors do their job when it's flexible pathways and and student well-being.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah, that means, you know, if we get some time, that raises an Apple thing also that raises, there's a whole bunch of issues tied up to that around.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Unfunded mandates. Well, frankly, it gets to a bigger conversation that people are expressing they wish we would have, which is that we pay for school social services out of the education fund. And it would be a lot easier to stop doing that if we created actual clarity and standards for what mental health services and social services look like to schools and then fund it separately.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: Nothing got that done, but

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, it would be nice to joke when the counselors do their I think we could try to achieve that.

[Jay Ramsey, Director of Workforce Development, Vermont Department of Labor]: Thank the principals.

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: So, we've got a busy weekend on this. We'll try to get the library filled, see if we're ready to go tomorrow. We'll do a little kind of walkthrough, try to get a little bit more testimony and we'll wait for the language from the Superintendent's Association on the '27. She could be with us and we're hear from Senator Heffernan tomorrow. So what's what's on standby? Walked you in that forty five minutes for Senator Heffernan at the match. Okay. I'll be ready get back to you. Alright. Anything else, anybody? Okay.