Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: We're live. Alright.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: This is Sound Education Committee back from a short break. It it is still February 18. So we had one lab that's a language introduced or truce to the convenience concept yesterday, was to start a selection around that. But in the meantime, Senator Heffernan was of self basically sit down, I working and we all were working, but he has a proposal he'd like to share with us today as well, to put in the paper.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: You don't have a map.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Take the rest of your mouth.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I'm on

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: the math, and he has purpose. I have a house. So, first and foremost, I, after going around the five schools that we've gone and listening to testimony, this is what drove me to come down to a one school system, and I call it the Vermont Unified School System. Words are words, and I like the words better than district. So, first and foremost, what I believe that this really does is help our students and parents and caregivers. It gives them a lot more choice. So,

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I won't go through

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: the bill bit by bit, but what I'll do is give you an overview, an overview of what it does. So the legislation restructuring of Vermont Education System is into a single state school district, while creating affordable student centered funding through Vermont Education Accounts. It's aimed to increase efficiency, transparency, equality, and family choice, while maintaining public accountability and rural access. Core structures of the VUSSS, as I will call it, the Vermont Unified School System, consolidating into one statewide local education agency by 07/01/2028, Establishing nine, juvenile, sorry, yeah, appointing board. Gubernatorial. There we go, thank you. I just wanted to make sure people knew what you were. Yes, say that again for me, please. Gubernatorial. Gubernatorial appointed board with state confirmation, Senate confirmation. Transfer all assets, liabilities, and responsibilities from local districts to the BUSS. Maintain continuity of service and employment during a two year transaction from 2026 to 2028. The purpose is to reduce governance structure, streamline administration, and create clear statewide accountability. Okay, we'll start with governance reform. What's that do? At state level, the BUSF board oversees graduation requirements, assessment and accountability, unified budgeting, superintendent appointment, and equitable statewide resource allocations. Requiring annual reporting to the general assembly on academic outcomes and financial performance and family engagement, which is something we don't see now. It creates each school or network must have a government board. So every school, it will no longer see school boards, but we still will see governments at the school level at each school, or a couple schools can combine. Authority, what they'll have is authority over academic programming, staffing decision, and school level budget management. An annual parent satisfaction survey beginning in 2029 as well. What's this do? It balances centralized system governance and localizes operational flexibilities. Then we'll have the Vermont Education Account. This is a student based funding model. Each eligible student, ages five through 18, or three through 21 under the IDEA, will receive a state funded education account. Deposits are based in a Vermont weighted funding formula, done by 16 BSA 04/1932. Funding may be used for, and now, like other senators, this is all, this is a concept thought up, and this is all subject to change if we pursue, but this is what some of the funds may need. Tuition to have had an independent school, public school enrollment, toll transfers required, online programs, tutoring and curriculum, testing fees, post secondary courses, disability service, and transportation to education providers if needed. Key features is using unused funds rollover to the next year. I wanna clarify that your unfunded, you still only, like, you have 2,000 leftover, it doesn't mean you have, if you use 15,000 as the base, you don't have 17,000. It just needs only 13,000 to refund that next year. Does that make sense? Yeah, per pupil. Parents may supplement costs. So if they're going to an independent school and it costs more, the parent will supplement the cost. The DUS test may bar providers for misusing or failure to deliver services. Annual statewide parent satisfaction surveys for the EEA participants beginning again 2029. I think it's accountability, which some of our senators were really worried about, and performance that will speak a lot to that. Statewide open enrollment. Universal open enrollment across all public schools. So what that means is it doesn't matter if you live in, let's say, my town, Verso, and wanna send your child to, for whatever reason, Rutland, you can do that. Now, that would probably fall on the parent or guardian to get that. Just because you pick the school you wanna take the child to, it does mean state's gonna be responsible for giving them error. If schools, this also creates competitions actually between the public schools to become better, and actually your school might pick up more and actually eventually may need to centralize lottery system, as demonstrated by the VUSS, school has plenty of students and

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: over enrollment.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Waitlists will be managed at state level and public reporting on applications denials and geographic trends. Intent, remove geographical barriers, increase access to high quality public education. And again, this is about not just looking at our money, but we're looking at educating our children, students to the best of Vermont's ability. Funding reform, Foundation formula implemented. Fully implemented weighted students funding by 07/01/2028 requires clear student category identification, transparent ADM calculations, periodic review of weights every five years, and transition protection to prevent fiscal shock, which we've heard a lot from our smaller schools and such that they're really worried about a financial job or anything this. Protection to the BEAS is weighted formula term per student deposited, aligns funding with individuals as needed. As Senator Hinsdale, the money follows the student. Transition period will be 2026 through 2028. Governor designates a transition authority within sixty days. Two year phase consolidation, milestones for governance, HR, budgeting, data systems, and patrols. No required school closures for the transition solely due to restructuring, and final district dilution 07/01/2028. My biggest thing when listening and learning about we don't know where to draw the lines was you might have a line drawn where it's gonna divide two schools that have already been together, or that a student ends up here and it's better for them to go to this school for the parent and elsewhere, and they might not be able to do that. This just makes it easier, no one wants. Major policy themes, efficiency and cost control, eliminate duplication of direct governance, district governance, sorry. Streamline budgeting and administration processes. Equity through weighted funding, resources follow students' needs. I have a big concern with that. Special populations receive enhanced funding, such as canon, where we know it's gonna be very hard for that small school to be able to afford under the weighted system that we're gonna turn it to. And the biggest thing, family empowerment. That it's portable funding to where the parent believes their child's gonna get the best education for them. Universal opening enrollment, which will help expand access and diverse education provides. Accountability, which is really big. Centralized statewide reporting. And open meeting law, compliancy, annual parent satisfaction metrics, which we currently don't really have in the state. So I think that's a big plus. And local view within side state structure, level governing boards, which will make that local control that we're all worried about losing that I don't believe can get any more local than having the board right there in the school. I'm worried once we go to larger districts, that many of the smaller schools will be not heard.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So it's a question of what we're hearing.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Can you say that again, the last bit about it's all related to school boards or the evolution of the schools?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So right now, my worry, when looking at the bigger maps, the other two that we presented, is that we're, if we go down to even 24, you're gonna have, and we're gonna have to have school boards for them dictating what happens in schools they might have known nothing about. That was really drilled to one school system as well, That you'll have people that more than likely, they've got grandkids that went to the school, they're really concerned about their school, or they have children in the school, they want to be part of a governance board to make sure their interests are for savings. I think, believe that it's gonna be far better than a large school board that represents a large area that might not, I think that the schools will fall through the cracks is what I believe. That's why this was my idea. And then rural access protections, explicit recognition of small rural schools and transition safeguards. So Vermont, I think all Vermonters know that our population is declining as far as students go and that there are schools that are gonna need to be closed. As we just saw on the news in Washington that if you leave it up to the townsfolks, they're not gonna do it. But what this does say is like, can we have a couple schools down in my district that they know that time is coming? And then just like Senator Bongartz was saying, give them a one or a year and a half year to make that decision, or it's gonna have to come through a metric of the affordability to stay open. Whereas like if I have Lincoln who is doing it under the current student cost, there's no reason to mess with them until they fall below that. Of course, their spending is too high. I did do some financial impact comparisons and framework, or I should say I let AI do that more than equals. And it did some analysis and impacts across the five primary cost domains. So it's governance, administration, instruction, and students, transportation, facility, and education account. I'll just touch on a bit. Like on local school boards, current model, dozens of electric boards With the DSU, we'll have one school board for state, and an essential saving from board stipends, elections, which is, they're not really that big in Vermont, so there's no real big savings there. Potential administrative savings often estimates three to 8% operating costs in the consolidation of this. It may be more, it may be less. We know in the first year or two, there's gonna be the legalese, which is gonna be the most scary part of any redistricting, whether if it's '22 or the legalese is gonna be quite expensive. The plus side of doing one district, or one school union, unified union, is that once we do it once, it doesn't have to be done again. And if our student enrollment still declines, we may have to take whatever came out within our other districts. If we had 22 and then we're fine five years from now, well, we're still not making it, we can drop it down to ten or fifteen. So, that's why I believe that one unified school system would be the best. There's currently four or five other states actually looking into doing this as well. Mississippi being one of them. I think New Jersey's another, have those people that didn't bring it. When you say looking into it. To reduce down to either one school system or But I mean, someone introduced it in the legislature or they're taking the There various There are. Nobody's, as far as I know, nobody's introduced it yet, but they have, people are looking into doing the same thing that I'm doing. Okay. Okay? They haven't passed it. Hawaii is the only one currently that has a single unified system. And there again, we've heard from a lot that Vermont's unique and terrain driven. Hawaii is five different islands separated by a mass of water. So that's, that's basically it. There's a lot more to it, obviously. There's a lot more, but I believe for Vermont and our students that this is one of the

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: better alternatives. So no sense if a person believes otherwise. So what I didn't follow-up in the presentation, it's a good presentation. What I didn't follow-up in the presentation is I understand there's an overarching statewide governing board, is essentially a statewide school board. Yeah. Okay. What I didn't understand is the transition to the local community, the local schools. How is the local community represented in the governing board? Are there smaller groups that report up to the The governing board

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: concept that I see is that we'll have one superintendent, and then as we found out also through our tour and that, or listening to committee that anywhere from two to 4,000 students is ideal for an administrator to look over. So, in a perfect scenario, we'll have one superintendent, and then we'll be able to break down how many administrators he needs to be able to listen to the schools. So, the way it funnels is your school's having an issue, say, they're not getting any response from, they're not getting deliveries because they'll be under more larger buying capacity, and maybe your paper needed to be delivered and it hasn't been. The school board can call the administrator, which will go up to the superintendent. If it's a real issue that you can't get any satisfaction through the administrator, then that school will talk directly to the school board, who will talk to the administrator. So there's actually several lines that can change the command that they can follow this.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Do you run any of this through a lodge council?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Not as of yet. It's like this. I brought this to see how it was gonna be received. If the powers to be here do not wanna pursue it, I will drop a lego cop rod, but I believe it has some good legs, and that it should be seriously looked at. There's, it gives school choice, which is huge. Another concern, and I'm sure the B's and the NEAs will be somewhat against some of this, and it's, competition is good, whether it's state or an independent school, it will only make our school systems better. Because if you have somebody like CBU that has a very good name, and you've got kids that are trying to go there, the other schools around are like, We gotta pick up our name because we wanna draw students to us. Now, one of the biggest things is getting the pay scales and for what I foresee in the future for that is that our best paid teachers are probably not gonna see a raise for a few years to get a level enough. And then that all has to be decided. If you get all our teachers out equal pay, we won't have coaching. Like, Abe has lost several teachers to CDU because CDU just pays better. So that would take that away because a lot of times you had, I had one teacher say, I hate to eat, but $10,000 more in my pocket is, that's better life for me and my family. So if we can take that equation out of teachers' spectrum, then I think that's another win for Vermont. Cutting down on the mixed trade costs, I've got brought up in, over a joint meeting that the power, our buying power. If we go to a statewide menu, it's like Taco Tuesday, now rather than 50 pounds of meat being bought from a local farm, you can buy five or 600 pounds from the local farm that gets distributed or throughout Vermont. Not only are we helping, they'll give us a better price because you're buying more part of it. That's what I've, some of things I see in this.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Senator Weeks and Senator Williams. No, did not. Did you answer your question? Oh, okay, yeah, I'll take it. Same white choice, essentially? Characterized? Okay, good. Are you envisioning like a subset of schools in a regional basis of like subs?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Well, glad you kinda asked. Substip for attendance? I don't, as we work through, it's like trying to decide Senator Hinsdale's picture of having a centralized CTE and high schools, that this will help Okay, I do not support the Bongartz for CTE. No, no, no. What I'm saying is that when it comes time to build that school, it's gonna make it a lot easier because you're gonna say, I'll take it, because I know that when you learn to Jen's first naive, and this is down the road because we don't have the money, but now it's like, we don't have to worry about redistricting. The community says, yep, this is what we wanna do, and it happens a lot. The transition is already easier to done. And then what we decide to do with schools, it's no longer the towns because it's state or them, and now they may be able for low cost housing, or apartments, some industry might buy one of the schools to open up office visits. It just gives Vermont more abilities to do more things. So That was gonna be such a dramatic exit.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So senator, Wood, do you

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: have other questions? No. Just a comment that would make educational services easier.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: There'll be a lot of hills to climb at first, but then once we get to all districts under one, and it'll make the flow of just, I believe, I think it's, especially two small schools, if they can share a special ed, if they can spare an advisor, if they can share, what we heard, hey, we need to share services. It just takes down that barrier that there's not a district line in the way.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So what mechanism, if you've got eight high schools within a 10 mile radius, you don't have enough schools or students to go around, what mechanism is there to make that a reality? To consolidate,

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: you mean? So at that point, we started using the metrics to decide which one's in the best shape, which one has, know, can close the outer two and come closer. That's governance that we as legislators will write. It's making up the metrics that I thought about it, but I know that's a different community at that point, and I could just, it'd be beautiful here, and then by the time it gets there, it might not look anything to get to us then. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: what you're trying to do is, well, for a lot of people, one of them is balance, because on the one hand, you know, the initial proposal was for five districts, they're like, they're way too big. We gotta get and so on the one hand, you're actually going there's one. It's the one. Like, what you're doing to balance that is giving authority to those schools, to the more 40 to the schools themselves.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And it is, and what really changes that is the foundation for them. Because you're no longer really voting on a budget for your school because you're gonna take care of how many students you got, here's the money we got, now what are the school, and 90% of that money is already going to allocated places, it's that remaining amount that the boards will have a decision on what they do with it. And then if they're having an administrative problem, the board's there to handle it at first, and then if they can't, from there they go to your administrator then to the superintendent.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So an interesting question to be sorted out would be, how do you decide the representation for those schools because you won't have districts for those schools anymore. I guess you could just have anybody who wanted to run to be on the board for Vannet and just run-in. But but I get asked for

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: the other question because who gets the vote?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: When you divide under is a a town vote, you know,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: like But it wouldn't be just town because a lot of towns, more kids than just for one town, go to town. True. So you'd have to, and then some go other way. So we have to, so that's an interesting thing to go.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Well, and you will get screwed because you will have people that, that if you have a sweet choice, they may go somewhere else. So, you definitely might get that, but you may have, if somebody's running, then I see it as a vote, and no different than we do now, that it, now it will still, collectively, eventually that's gonna change, and it'll broaden out on voting structure, but it should be the town side, that 85% of the students that go to that, the towns that supply the kids for that, they should have a vote of representation of who's gonna be on the study. For lack of better word, school advisory or school board.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yep.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: But it, I just, it just, it takes away having rewards, it takes up a fee because, well, I got them South Burlington, how many schools they have? Kesha's gone, I think one or two. So then you just gotta do, you know? And then do you quack, do you take the middle school and the elementary school? You could keep them together to have one board of advisories for them. That's the choice of the TAM. So that gave me a little bit more to think about, but it's local controls will be really heard. I believe this gives us more local control. School choice, and in school choice, some won't like it because it, it, it mean you have to do better or your students gonna go elsewhere. You might get the equality that, oh, you can afford to run your child somewhere else. I can't. Well, that's, that's life. That's not, that's not, that's not, because the school system's not offering the same education. There's gonna still be about the same education. It's no different, why do you wanna go to Harvard over UBN? I'm just gonna be labeled 50 more of what I want.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, so we, at the same time we did yesterday, one on the table, one

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: on the table. Yeah. Uh- So So question thing for me is where do I go from here with this? Let's proclaim it a little bit. That

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: one superintendent's gonna be pretty busy. Yeah. Well, he'll have I mean, how do you go, because we learn from a lot of superintendents that we have So Means every night to different school boards.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: How many people under general? How many people, how many sub colonels then? Right. So we'll still have some of that. There's a hierarchy. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: It might be helpful if this matures to create an org chart. Yeah. Something to show this notionally What you're because otherwise, you get down to the little school, you know, the small community school. They want to know how they're represented. They want to know what the food chain is and then where are the decisions about local the local issues about Yeah. Consolidation or not or what have you. Where is that? That's the part that would be it would be helpful, to be able to illustrate that. Yep. Sure. We haven't talked to the superintendent. We got problems. We haven't talked to him in a year. So

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: you gotta have that chain. Yeah, principal becomes the more go to person for the school of what's happening in the school. And then, like you said, as we move chain of command, that principal would speak to that administrator that speaks to the, in the most simplest form, is what I'm trying to think now, principal,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: administrator, superintendent. So we've had to raise some of the issues that have raised from the rural about whether they get left or behind because nobody pays attention to the whole school. I know what you're trying to do, though, to try to, you're trying to account for that.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Why the school board, advisory needs to have some teeth so that if they're not having, that they can go, and that's also, they're not, if they believe that they're getting misrepresented or not heard, that maybe they can go to the AOE and go, Hey, we're not being heard, what can Yeah. But it keeps local control actually more local than it is now because you have people that go to school that would, and that governance of how you elect them, either it's beach town or area, can't say district at that point, or attending school area, attending school area gets to vote on who would be on the recorded advisory.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: A couple of curiosity questions might be a little bit in the weeds, but I think you might have a perspective. So I like the idea of family empowerment. It's a good approach, but specifically I'm interested in the homeschool. Is that

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: what you're referencing with online? Yes, and right now homeschool is on its own at AOE, same here, it stays on its AOE, but they'll have, that their child now will have some funding if needed. Right, which they don't know. Right.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Now, second question, similar related, we have a number of schools in our county which are religious based. Is this an aspect that you consider in the bill? I do. We talked

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: to the, Jay from the principal association was in, he was like, you know, I believe that public power should go to public schools. I don't know why that's a sacred cow. It does not happen in- No parts under. Right. That we do it in other parts of our government paying out that it's my child's education that's more important to me, whether the parent, guardian, caregiver chooses that that's religious school, well, it might have, if we run into this, that they don't, LGBTQ, and that they don't see them, they don't, and that's about, but that's, we're talking their education, not their beliefs. So I know that ruffles some feathers with some people, but it's like, if we're talking about the education of the student, it's not making a student, hope it's not making a mistake yet, but you were, you as the parent say, this is where I believe my child's gonna get the best education. And it's not for me to say, well, geez, really don't think we should support a religious school. I just don't, I don't get where people, when we're talking about education, that the parent guardian know what's best for their child. And for us, for saying it's just public school, I feel we're, I feel and I believe we're way out of our week saying that as a parent.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So I can see, you know, that again, I have to get to a point where you throw the switch to say, okay, we're gonna adopt this. You already got Act 73 that's in in play.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: That's why it's called an inventor. Right.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So you'd end up with you're gonna have to have a period of time when parents are gonna decide where the kids were gonna supposed be. How long

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: is that going to take? Well, it happens over two years. So within the first year, nothing changes, but that's when we get the parent survey coming out, and I'm sure you'll have to also have that you have to decide where you're gonna send your student. And we've already, sitting through this committee, already found out eighty five percent of the students, or no one, stick to the local public school at a just convenience, at a just convenience, because they do a good job. Why? And you have the other 10% that either their child's special needs or they, they, we were talking about leave out ski schools, but now we've got, know, they're still getting academically trained and doing their sports, and that's what matters, their academics and their sports. Because I wasn't big in sports in school. I could have cared less if we had any sports to play. But that a lot of people, sports, sports education. So it's important to keep that. Another question. I do. Thanks,

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: sir. So if you can at least kinda give me a perspective on, I'm gonna call it the the trough or the quadplex of influence. You have secretary of education. Mhmm. You have the state board of education. You have a single superintendent, and you have the governing board. Four very influential individuals or organizations, groups. How do they relate? So

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: the AOE talked to the superintendent, which this is another thing that here is right now staying uniformed on my graduation. They would go to that superintendent. Superintendent disperses it to his administrators and then they get it out and then down to the principals, then to the teachers. So that stops rather than having this school call an AOE going, you know, hey, what do I do about academic curriculum on this? Well, that no longer happens because it's going up this chain and coming across, and AOE's gonna be able to work mainly, Rather than getting bombarded by 119 different school districts, now they have to go through their chain of command, and that might get answered on the way up through. It's like, oh, this is what we're finding out, we can do this. And then it doesn't even become more efficient because they're not getting hounded by, and I shouldn't say hounded, I apologize, that's maybe, questions that might be able to be answered in a higher change coming through the unified system before going over the ALE. So you're saying they're billed, that they would go to the superintendent, the superintendent. And then it goes over. And then if, again, if a school isn't like, Hey, I asked my administrator who asked that three months ago and I'm not getting an answer. Now you gotta have it documented, email chained. Now I get to go to the AOE because our question, it could be a month for them to decide on the the time of that. And then it's given that local control that, hey, you do it the right way, if you're not getting satisfaction, then go to the AOE, come back and say, hey, why don't you take care of this? Contracting, that's gonna be, that's gonna be huge. That's, but the upside is now we have one contract and once it's filled, it'll be getting more security throughout the school system of strikes or, and hopefully we can do better on healthcare, between full amenity with the bondage.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I have a question that's unrelated to the proposal, so I don't wanna start. But I do have a breakdown of questions. So anyway, good presentations, got us all thinking, that's the exercise. Yep. So I appreciate that. Yes. Sincerely. Hey, there's lots of people out there. I'm sure there's lots of churn going on right now. That's a good thing. Okay, different topic, but a topic which Senator Heffernan brought up, which is salaries, teacher salaries. It's a concern across the board. You heard last night at a school board meeting that we were just paying in. Is there, what would you tell them that would be You know, that everybody Yeah, everybody thinks that, you know, you push the button and all the salaries inflate up to the current IRS. And then you have another problem. Okay, so my question is if AOE has already done any kind of analysis on teacher salaries versus longevity, seniority, anything to that degree, in relationship to where they live, in relationship to the cost of living in that area. So that so so here's the here's the thought. Okay? To to, senator Heffernan's point about you have a statewide organization, statewide school, BSUU. If that if that can be part of the solution, if there is there a real problem? If the the salaries are close enough that with a cost of living adjustment based on region, and there are databases like that, Department of Defense, State Department, etcetera, etcetera, I wanna see if there's really a problem. Or if the problem is manageable by cost of living allowance. So if you live in Burlington and the cost of living in Burlington is 15% higher than it is in Rutland, that's part of the calculus. To see if there's really a problem, if there's no problem. So either I would think that maybe the AOE has got some of that data. If they don't or if they do, if they could be if they could be it could be validated by, JFO. But I think that there's a we already know what those salaries are. We need to see if there's a fundamental problem because whether it's a single district, five districts, 13 districts, 27 whatever it is in the end, this is still gonna be a problem we have to manage. And I and I think it would be appropriate for us to see if there's really a problem.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You're so you're asking, I think, couple of things. Right? One is the salary differentials in different parts of the state as it relates to tenure. 10, right, tenure, salary, whatever, whatever metrics they use. Steps. Yeah. And do you see in some parts of the state because forests are lower that you have higher peril in other parts of the state and it's related and then it's related to what cost of living. Yes. So it's a lot of few maintenance in there, man. They're all. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: But but if we don't have that answer, we don't know if we really fundamentally have a problem or if we're just talking about a. I asked a question a couple times when the secretary of the in here a problem, you know, that didn't pay equity straightened out, they said they were working on a plan. Okay. There you go. And it's and it probably doesn't matter how many districts you got. Its plan needs to be addressed. It's still a fraud. Right. Because Wire or 20 away from coaching. People don't wanna stay in their area because they grew up there and they wanna be with family. You know, they should be able to be there for the same wages but adjusted for inflation or losses.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So they're in for what they're working on. Right. Well, we should ask them. We wanna get them in nevertheless. I

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: think we should you have to formally ask them if if if they're if they're working on it and if they're if they are as well when they believe they could afford it. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Were you typing that down that way?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I'm sorry. I'm just. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You won't. Okay. That's okay. That's okay. Don't I send the secretary an email and see what happens. I think I I look pretty offensive.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So I think the framework for you know, Birmingham was still the law of the land. So, you know, the framework is still out there and everybody understands it. So I I don't think that would

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: be an issue. Yeah. In which regard to the single Yeah. Unified. Yeah. So you're and you're talking about the foundation for a little bit, but

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: That's why we can, that's why school bars are not, you don't have everybody, you know what your budget is. I got a thousand kids, it's gonna be,

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: probably 15. So, yes. One more. So, and we, you know, my four years in this business, we're real good at passing bills and laws, but not real good at providing oversight. What mechanism do we have to have as a voice to evaluate this process if we've decided to roll with it.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: The one that I just gave you? Yeah. They report, so they have to report to us, the legislator, every year. Who's they? The superintendent of PUSS. And then the parents have to evaluate their school every year as well. So you're getting feedback from the parents as well as, so there's accountability all the way through. So if you have somebody that's not doing a really good and bad job, think it would spring up in a survey.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: There are benefits to simplistic, for But there's also, there'll be people that don't like it. Know? Bob, maybe I don't pay for a bunch of advocates to get you off of them.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: About education for our children. That's what I'm thinking. It's about not of course saving, making efficiencies in Vermont, that we are, where our budget is every year, not doubling.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Five years? 60% in five years, I think. Is that ordinance of experience? 60%. 41%. Okay. We'll do that. But any event? Better enough. Yeah. Taxes 41%. Cost of education,

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I think, 38 or 30 nine. So tomorrow we have

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I got asked to stutter whether we could set a time set aside some time at some point just to hear from some kids administrators about impacts of the innocent and so I told them to give them a

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: little time. Do that tomorrow.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And then as the governor said it will and then it doesn't say it here. We'll have committee discussion at the end every day as we try to keep moving forward. And so the drivers of bill, I think after tomorrow, could decide whether we ought to put the push on to get it done. We'll know, I think tomorrow, know. The number I think we've got, we've got It's on the table. I understand the concept, and it's some of the specifics.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Wow. Well, thank you

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: for your time. Yeah. Well, thank you. It's actually

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: gonna keep I'll just give you my yeah. Well, it's somewhere between 1 and 27. There you go.