Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: We're live.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Alright. This is the Center of Education Committee on March 10. We're going to today to work on three separate pieces of legislation. We're going start with two fourteen, S two fourteen, an activating provision of kindergarten education and geographically isolated school districts. And you have it's posted but you also have the viewer. Some language proposed by the agency and the Department for Children's Services. And I think we're going to hear first of Janet or Emily. I'm not sure if you really want to do it.

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: I can start.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: hi everyone.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Why does she see her anyway? Actually forget that, just go ahead.

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: Okay. So hi everyone, I'm Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner within an apartment for children and families that oversees the Child Development Division that co administers Universal Pre Kindergarten along with the Agency of Education. And, you know, we, you know, share the goal of making sure that all children have access to pre kindergarten education, and I've been glad to partner with you on figuring out a solution for children in Essex County and specifically in the NEK Choice School District. Last week, I had a chance to, travel to Essex County and spend time with Sharon Ellingwood here as well as Patty Brown, who are both two NEK Choice School District board members, and we got a chance to really talk about what the need is to be able to see, get a real sense of the geography and how that drives, you know, what family needs and choices are there, and, also got a chance to meet with some school school administrators in New Hampshire, as we think about how this would play out in terms of Vermont children who are likely to go to kindergarten in New Hampshire, being able to access their pre kindergarten in New Hampshire. So I know that there was good work done on proposed language for S-two 14 on the agency, the department are recommending a different approach, which we talked about the last time we were in. And so through, again, through the discussions that I've had with any K Choice school district, and then also the conversation between the agency and department, that still is our recommendation to do this sort of an alternative approach to what was in S-two 14, but we did make a few adjustments to what we had put forward to you all week before last. And so those adjustments included just being very clear that this is about the NEK Choice School District and the children enrolled in that school district having access, even though it's part of the larger Essex North supervisory union, there is a public school operated pre K program up in Canaan, And so the Canaan School District wasn't really meeting the New Hampshire option, and so wanted to focus on the NDK Choice School District. Adjusted the language before it said that this was a public school in New Hampshire located in a school district on the border. We switched it to say within 25 miles of the border, which again is what local community members told us was going to be more in line with the access patterns that families have. And then at the final sentence where we talked about the waiver, and

[Sharon Ellingwood, Board Member, NEK Choice School District]: we did spend a time talking about this,

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: Our thinking is that we would keep the idea of applying for a waiver in there, because we really do wanna maintain visibility into what is being offered in New Hampshire and how it is the same or different than what is being offered in Vermont. The intention is for it to be a very simple, not lengthy process, but more like a documentation of what the alternative standard is. We also think that this is important because based on our conversations in with the I guess, currently the assistant superintendent, soon to be the superintendent of the Lancaster School District, and they're facing the same I mean, they're facing a lot of the same challenges that we have in Vermont in terms of thinking about school consolidation, thinking about what are the numbers you need to be able to open a new classroom, how you're using your buildings well, through those conversations, it felt like that there may also be elements of the pre K program related to hours or costs that right now school districts in Vermont make choices about, that we probably do need any kind of school district to be able to have a negotiation with, for example, the Lancaster School District about exactly what that looks like, and so it might not look exactly like the statewide tuition rate and the way we have contracts right now. So again, putting it in there as a waiver, keeping the waiver provision in there, and then we did adjust it so that it says at the end where it talks about it being impractical for, and before it just said it was impractical for the New Hampshire program, and now it says any rule provision that's impractical for the NEK Choice school district or the New Hampshire program. So again, we're trying to make you know, create the conditions that will actually allow the NEK Choice school district to, you know, develop to be able to make the partnerships it needs to make across the river so that kids can actually access the program. So that's my summary of where we've landed. Happy to answer questions or if Emily wants to add anything.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Why don't we go through like Emily and then Sharon, and then we'll all three of you be there and we can then ask some questions. Emily, do have anything to add?

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Education]: I noticed that we did not provide markup to you of our language from week before last till today. So if I pulled up the markup that Janet and I shared while we were hashing the final language out, did anyone need me to go back through in more detail of the comparison of the language we showed you week before last versus what you have in front of you today? It's those issues that Janet outlined exactly.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I would say no. I think this language that you've got in front of us is clear. I think, you know, I just wanted to make sure in the end, and Sherri, if you can help us with this, that it's practical and easy for the parents. And I want to know, like, think we just want to make sure it feels like you did what we wanted by the way, but I want to make sure this just when the intent was for this to be really slow down so I just want to make sure we've maintained that. So Sharon, you go ahead. You go ahead as the school board member.

[Sharon Ellingwood, Board Member, NEK Choice School District]: Thank you. Last time we met, I did not, read testimony. And today I'm going to take you up on that opportunity. So I'm just going to read a very brief testimony. For the record, my name is Sharon Ellingwood. I support the amendment to Vermont's universal pre k law. I would like to thank senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale, the bill sponsor along with the legislators, agencies, and partners who collaborated to bring forward this thoughtful solution. On March 4, state agency members managed to crisscross nearly the whole county for Essex County for a day, and the long miles between the stops told the story better than I ever could. Special thanks to Deputy Commissioner Janet McLoughlin and Deputy Secretary Jill Briggs Campbell for joining us. This amendment is a practical and efficient way to create access for students in areas of any K Choice school district. When early milestones are not met for these children, the children and their families suffer, school boards cannot effectively budget or plan and elderly residents and taxpayers ultimately bear the cost when expensive late interventions drive up ed spending and any per pupil costs. Where local capacity does not exist, such as schools, school choice is not a luxury. It does not depopulate Vermont schools and is fixed. It ensures that some Vermont children can still access an education. So thank you for your attention and your work on behalf of the lowest population density towns in Essex County. This amendment thoughtfully addresses the circumstances of districts like ours and reflects a broad understanding of the geographic realities. Thank you. I support this. I'm so fortunate to work with great partners. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you. We asked this question the last time but just to ask it again to make sure. Are we sure we're not leaving any kids out when we limit this just to any K choice?

[Sharon Ellingwood, Board Member, NEK Choice School District]: I'm not sure because two schools were voted to close on town meeting day, right? They are on the Western side of the state. I heard that and then I thought about Sandgate.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's a different issue. I know about that one.

[Sharon Ellingwood, Board Member, NEK Choice School District]: I'm not willing to say I'm sure. I'm not willing to say I'm sure. I am in support of any student and, you know, Frontier town like we have. Absolutely.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I'm sorry if I missed this. I tried to see if senator Hashim could fill me in. There are a a sufficient number of public schools on the New Hampshire side that would take Vermont students because most of our students in Vermont Pre K, I would say a preponderance, are using private Pre K program.

[Sharon Ellingwood, Board Member, NEK Choice School District]: Is that question posed to me, Senator?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I think Janet might know best, should know that answer. Guess, I mean, not necessarily about New Hampshire, but Vermont students are using a private pre K to fulfill their forty hours.

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: Yeah. So that's correct. So it's really about fiftyfifty. It's just slightly over, so it's pretty evenly mixed here. I guess there's two factors that drove us to focus on the public schools specifically. So one is that New Hampshire doesn't have, like, a statewide pre kindergarten program, and there's no and the current the the local school districts that this could be a part of, they don't contract with community based programs for publicly funded pre k right now. So there wasn't like a standard in New Hampshire to like hang on to for pre kindergarten education, which would make it, you know, kind of a more difficult thing to try to qualify those programs. And secondly, for several of the programs that do schools that do serve pre K kids, those are more like private or independent schools, Those are schools that now can no longer accept those K kids. And so it feels it was feeling odd to have just said your child can't go to that school for k, but they but now we're gonna open up access for pre k. We felt like that was gonna open up kind of a different can of worms. And so again, in talking with at

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: least,

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: you know, the the school board members that we were talking with, they felt like starting with the public schools was the way to go and that there might only be one or two, there might be one or two community based programs that could potentially fit, but we weren't even sure and that was gonna be bigger lift. So that's why we decided that this was the right place to start.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But you have some level of confidence that the small number of kids who are eligible should be able to navigate and find a public program pretty easily.

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: Okay. I'll go with this. As easily as their Vermont based counterparts?

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

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: Right? So it's we know it's not a perfect system as it is right now in Vermont either, So I don't know that it's opening up access, it's allowing those partnerships, it's creating the conditions for success in New Hampshire, but there still would be work to develop some of those partnerships that again, lot of them are building from existing relationships for older students. So that's, you know, that's a good place to start from.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: People generally okay with this? Policies. So Ben, if you can jump in.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's St. James Office of Legislative Counsel.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The initial bill was a few pages. This is a paragraph. What else do we need to do?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: From a drafting perspective?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You would just ask me to draft a committee amendment.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: This language in and of itself is sufficient?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You tell me. Whether it's sufficient for your policy objectives is a question for the committee. If what you all have been talking about is where you want to go, then yes. And you would just ask me to draft a committee amendment.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Well, are we ready for consent? Makes sense to everybody? Okay. Then that is the request.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Great.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: With that then, I think we're

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thanks for the work on this. I don't know who organized that day in Essex but good work.

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: Was a good We're the Governor's Capital for a day.

[Sharon Ellingwood, Board Member, NEK Choice School District]: The governor had something to do with it. He started it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, got it. Well, good. I think we're ready to look at a draft then when we can. Maybe tomorrow, is that possible? Yep. Tomorrow?

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

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So we'll put this on tomorrow.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, me, I'm sorry. I will certainly have a draft for you tomorrow. I don't know that I am available tomorrow afternoon. So I will get you the draft and then we can schedule accordingly.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. If we can squeeze you in, we will put it down for a possible vote. If we have to wait till Thursday, we'll wait till Thursday. Okay, good. Think, unless anybody has anything else. Thanks everybody and we'll move on then to the second part of the meeting.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Thank you. Thanks, Terry.

[Sharon Ellingwood, Board Member, NEK Choice School District]: Thanks everyone.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Have a

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: great day.

[Speaker 0]: Can I get

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: some hard copies?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'm getting hard copies. Okay. Hang on, everybody, just for a couple of minutes. We're live still, but we're waiting for hard copies. So this is this is not an amendment. It's just a it's just a it's like it's a committee bill, but we'll see what we had what at the end of how we end up approaching the vehicle part. So, Beth, if you wanted to come back in.

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

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: this is the language or the beginnings of language to effectuate the the map and the language that got passed out a week or so ago. And you should recall that the basic notion is to have these 11 SUs shown on the map, and within the SUs, work districts to consolidate to the point that we've reduced the number of districts by half within the SUs. Then the big gray area is all SDs, and the goal is to have those SDs also consolidate by something like 50% so that we overall go from 119 districts to something less than half. And we go from 52 SUs down to something like half of that as well. So that was the basic intent. We also, just for people watching, also posted today the, you all have a copy of this, just listing the towns that are in each of those estimates. So that when, if people look at it and go, I'm saying this to anybody who's watching this on the video, and go, This town should be over here, let us know, because we're beginning to get a little piscipher. May be a government for Beatsboro and Stamford, but I know there's a couple of others, and so we have to. But now they're listening to making it seem to

[Speaker 0]: be able to do that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: But Beth has prepared my request, the draft to get us started on this.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So Beth, do want to do all the,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: start us on a walk through of the 7th Floor? A question for Senator I

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: did the math, going back, what's not included on here? These are just SUs. Because the valve is, like, 36,000. Yes. So you're missing the the bar off? Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Missing the Yes. Yes. The gray area. The gray area. Yes.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: Another question for you. Has vehicle run the numbers on this yet

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: to see if we have

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: a savings? No, no. This is just for people Are inducing

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: you gonna ask them to?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We probably can't do that until, let's talk about that later. That's really, really for us. That's very complicated. Again, first draft just to get the discussion started here, Beth, you're on.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Great, thank you. Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. I'm not going to go, in the interest of time, I'm not going to go line by line unless it's really the only way to discuss a concept. So if you'd like me to go back over something in more detail or speed up, please just give me direction. So the first section is a set of goals, or another thing we could call this is legislative intent or legislative priorities, or purpose. And this language is just taken from, one of the original documents that Senator Bongartz shared with, the map. I'll let that language speak for itself in the interest of time. And again, please, if you want me to focus on something, just ask. The first big piece of substantive law is related to supervisory unions. So I think the reader assistance headings in this draft are really helpful. So now we're going to be talking about supervisory unions. We have a little so section two is a redesignation, of just moving one small section within the, supervisory union chapter to a different subchapter to free up some, available, statutes. So not a substantive change, just a redesignation. Section three is a huge substantive change. And what Section three will do, and it hasn't done that yet because you all haven't decided on the boundaries of those supervisory unions, is it creates the boundaries of supervisory unions in state law. So currently, supervisory unions are created by the State Board of Education. And so, and as I'm talking about this, there's actually a conforming amendment that will add, I should add to the next draft related to the State Board's authority to do that. But the goal with this language would be that supervisory unions are now created by the state. And so once you all decide on your supervisory union boundaries, we would say the state is divided into the supervisory unions of, and we would name them. And then on page two, you would just list the name of the supervisory union and their member school districts and then the municipalities within each of those member school districts. Okay to keep going?

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

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. So section

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: First question.

[Speaker 0]: All right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Does does this look similar at all to act 46 or it wouldn't?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Would does what look similar to act 46?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I guess this I'm looking through the language of the oh, I'm in section four. I'm in section four. So I guess as we get to section four, what I'm looking at is how they propose to form or dissolve and things like that and how governance.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yep. So as I said, the section headings, the reader assistance headings, so for example, on page one, line 13, are really helpful. We're only talking about supervisory unions thus far. There's going to be a whole separate section and reader assistance heading with different sections underneath it that addresses school districts. And that does look very similar to Act 46. But for supervisory unions, my answer would be no. It looks nothing like Act 46 because this is an act of the legislature. You're putting the boundaries into state law.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: section four on page two is current law. You can see what's struck through there, or we're going to keep the title the same, Organization and Adjustment of Supervisory Unions. But now, and I'm just going to summarize this very generally, and if you choose to take this language up and if it moves, then we'll want to go back in with a fine tooth comb and make sure that everything is, all of our Ts are crossed and all our Is dotted. But again, for the sake of time today, I'm just going to kind of go broad concepts. Because you are putting supervisor union boundaries in state law, it would take an act of the legislature to change those boundaries.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: If I can interrupt here, question for the chair. What's the vehicle with this? What's the timing for this? We do not have to make crossover. Okay. Figure out the vehicle. Okay. So this is really more of a committee conversation about goals and alignment.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It says if this were a committee bill. Okay. I just wanted to see what's on the timeline. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Senator Rutland. Question on a sentence that you just said that so if Was it the unions you were referring to that would require an act of law to change their boundaries?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Correct, the supervisory unions.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: And is that currently That's currently required, right? It's not?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No, supervisory union boundaries are the responsibility of the State Board of Education.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: So I guess my, just a comment, a general concern, you know, we talked a lot about voluntary mergers as well, and I wouldn't want to take that off the table if down the road two unions think that it's a good idea to form a BOCES or to merge or to, well I guess actually it wouldn't prohibit BOCES, but if they wanted to merge themselves in the future, I don't know if that's, we want to take that off the table.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, they would have to, they can, just like they can, but they have to go to the legislature and get approved. Like a town trucker. Exactly. That's not a huge, it's a deal, but it's not very doable. They'd be able to do the BOCES, by the way, as you suggested. So

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the best comparison to the language in Section four, it's not exactly on point, but it is what I used as a guide, is the charter change request process. And so broad strokes, again, in the interest of time, in order for a supervisory union boundary to be changed, because it's state law, you all would have the ability to change it, Like in a committee bill or in the normal legislative process. But if there is a desire from the community, from the field to change those boundaries, right now, there's a process in state law for requesting that change from the State Board of Education. Section four would require a member school district of a supervisory union, either through a vote of the school district board or a petition of 5% of the voters of the school district to request a vote on a supervisory union boundary adjustment proposal. So either the school board itself would be putting it forward to a vote, or there could be a petition of the voters, 5% of the voters who would trigger that proposal to go forward to a vote. There's on page three, there's provisions about public hearings having to be held and when they have to be held. There's provisions about posting public information related to the boundary adjustment proposal. And then the next step would be a vote of the electorate of the member school district who is interested in seeing a boundary adjustment. If that vote is positive, then the boards of the two supervisory unions involved, so the supervisory union that the school district is currently a member of and the supervisory union of the board of the supervisory union the school district wants to join. The boards themselves would hold advisory votes, and all of that information, the positive vote and the boundary proposal request from the school district, and then the results of the advisory votes of the affected Supervisory Union boards would go to the legislature, and that's what they would act on. If the electorate of the school district votes no on the boundary adjustment proposal, then it stops. The process stops and you would have to reinitiate the whole thing from scratch in order to advance any boundary adjustment proposal. That's a summary of section four.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So it's also kind of like an opt out in a way. Would that be fair to say, like, they're the law would be putting them in a supervisory union and they're, they are having to react to that affirmative action if they want to have the boundary changed or be removed or something.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: But they even, it, it would still take an act of the general assembly. So you could disagree with what they want.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. This

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: is why I've been trying to get people in.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Tell us if they didn't have one

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: of the Right.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: No. Tell us now. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It's a good and important detail. It's important detail.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And then assuming that the process I just very briefly summarized happened, and then the legislative process played out, and then there was a a bill that became law, whether that was the governor signed it, the governor let it become law without the governor's signature, or there was a veto and an override, you know, whatever combination there is, once it became law, those boundaries would be adjusted. But unless there was a law that was fully enacted, those boundaries could not be adjusted. So that brings us to page nine in section five. And that's this is all session law transitioning to new supervisory unions. So I do think going, closer to line by line is helpful here. So within I'm on page nine, line two, section five. Within thirty days following the passage of this act, the secretary is required to call a meeting a separate meeting for each supervisory union of the school districts of the members of the school directors of the member school districts within each supervisory union. The number of directors shall be determined, and directors are elected at that first meeting. And then within thirty days thereafter, the secretary calls another meeting and the board elects a chair and the other necessary officers to serve as a transition board until the operational date on 07/01/2027, or the first election of the annual officers. All of that, so lines two.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay, hold on Beth. Yeah, before you move on, thank you Beth. Question more for the church, I think you're the architect of much of this. Okay, so the first paragraph, page nine, incidents two through 105. What's the, which boards are we talking about? Pre existing boards, the the future boards. Can you kind of just give us an idea of what transpired? Well, partially have been

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: on this plan. Within thirty days, the secretary calls a meeting and it would include the directors of all of the districts within the SU.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: The new SU.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: The existing

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Within the existing Within the new SU. This is forming the new one.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But the existing members get called?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Of the existing members of the district Beth, all the districts?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes. So the way this is written, key phrase here is within passage, thirty days within passage of this act. So we haven't gotten there yet, but the next reader assistance heading is about voluntary school district mergers, and that's going to take years. So the way I have written it and what I believe it would work is within thirty days of 07/01/2026, your new supervisory union boundaries are going to be effective on 07/01/2026. So within thirty days of 07/01/2026, the Secretary of Education has to call a meeting in each of those supervisory unions to get a transition board up and running. And so it would be the school districts that are in existence on whatever that date is.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So it's the current school district board members meeting from a geographic location outlined by the new supervisory unit? Correct.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So the language in lines two through eight is largely, if not totally taken directly from current law. This is the law. This is the language in current law for when there is a new supervisory union created by the state board. So that process is current process for when a new supervisory union is formed. I'm not creating anything new here. So subsection B talks about the roles and authority during the transition oh, actually, let's talk about line nine. The operational date of the new supervisor unions shall be 07/01/2027. So the boundaries are going to be effective 07/01/2026, but those new supervisor unions won't have hired anyone, they won't have any of their new policies yet, right? They need a transition period, so they won't be operational until 07/01/2027. So that year between 07/01/2026 and 07/01/2027 would be a transition year. And so the rules and authority during the transitional period would, be as follows under Subsection B on page nine. So in subdivision one, we're clarifying that the supervisory unions in existence, and that should be 06/30/2026. I'll change that for the next draft. The supervisory unions in existence on 06/30/2026 shall continue to provide administrative planning and educational services for their member school districts until those new SUs formed by this act are operational. The transition board is required to develop bylaws for the new supervisory union, that address how the expenses of the SU, including those associated central office and those associated with the provision of special education services shall be assessed to their member school districts. And then the transition board is required to take all actions necessary to ensure the supervisory union is able to fully comply with and execute each duty assigned to the supervisory union under 16 VSA 261A, not later than the operational date of the new supervisory union. And then the transition board is required to comply with 16 BSA Chapter 53 Subchapter three for the transition of its employees. Basically, Section five allows for the transition board to be created and then essentially says in very broad strokes, do everything you got to do to be up and running. You may get feedback that this is not specific enough, and that's great. And I would just encourage you as you're receiving that feedback to then say, well, what should that specific language be? Because I am not in the field and I'm not on these transition boards, so I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage for understanding all of the specific nuances. So I think this is good language to start with but you may receive feedback that it's not good enough.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, so we had Senator Weeks. Yeah, just a

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: quick question. Just kind of help me out, put all this in perspective. This language is all about a transition whether it's to 20 SUs, five SUs, or one statewide school district or system, correct? So theoretically, this homework, this effort, is germane regardless of what we do except for maintaining status quo. That'd be appropriate.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You would say it depends on where you want to end up in that new state. Language makes an assumption that you are not changing any supervisory union duties. And so if you are assuming that, and you're keeping our other governance structure of school districts, in place, then I would say the number of supervisory unions may not be germane. Again, it depends on the details. But if you're changing, anything about the governance the governance units, of how they are formed or how many there are, or you are changing the supervisory union duties or powers or responsibilities, then you may need different language.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: To me, the most important thing that they would need in the transition is funding and technical assistance. It's an appropriation.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, there is a whole bunch of grants and appropriations at the very end of the bill.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I was like scaling it.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's it for supervisory unions. Aside from the technical language related to the boundary adjustment request and the transition piece, the big outstanding policy questions for you here are simply what are the boundaries of your supervisory unions? And I would suggest that you need to include in state law, just, the supervisory unions with multiple member districts, but also every supervisory district?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Supervisor District, yes. So, how would that work? Because in the gray area on the map, The thought had been thought had been that we would establish these 11 as you and then to say to the Sds in that gray area to find a partner and reduce the number by half and do that outside of statutory. But you're thinking

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You can do that for the school districts. And I'll continue to think about this, but I think if you are creating school districts through an act of the legislature, have to include all kinds of supervisory unions. And so that would include your supervisory districts because you just leave half the state out I'm struggling to kind of use any savvy legal terms here other than if you want a whole separate process for those school districts, then I think we need to talk about that and how to build that in. But every school district in the state needs to be assigned to a supervisory union because those supervisory unions have specific responsibilities in state law and under federal law. And so if you've created supervisory unions for half of the state, then there's going to be, I think, natural questions about, well, what do I belong to if I'm not listed here? And so I think the easiest thing to do from a drafting perspective is to just include them. Now that does complicate their ability to voluntarily merge and what does that do to their supervisory union boundaries? It would take an act of the legislature to change to if two school districts are getting together and they were supervisory districts, they could merge their school districts voluntarily, but it would take an act of the legislature to create new supervisory unions. Perhaps that's just a complication we have not thought through, but I don't think you can just ignore them.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, let's come back to that. Let's move in on that one. Because yeah, what I had been thinking about, I understand what you're saying, I was thinking about them more as districts as opposed to supervisor unions and allowing them to merge the same way that we're allowing districts to merge within that. And I get the complication again. So you just have to think that through.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think this is why I really do dislike the term supervisory supervisory district, even though it's one board doing all of these things, that you have to make any differentiation between a supervisory union and the school district. But as long as you have a standalone statute that assigns specific duties to a separate body other than the school district, then I think you need to account for everyone in the state when you're making changes. It could be that you have different processes for different types. I think that is going to require some further policy thought.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So can it be something as simple as a definition? I I've been saying all along, you know, we need to stop talking about supervisor unions if we're gonna make districts. I mean, is it something as simple as, you know, semantics?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think that's maybe depending on your policy objectives. My understanding for this draft is that there was a desire to keep supervisory unions alive. And so I don't think a definition is going to solve the issue of what do you do for supervisory districts that you want to allow to voluntarily merge their school district structures and then there would need to be an act of the legislature to expand a supervisory union or create a new supervisory union. I don't think a definition is unfortunately going to fix The that

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: reason I'm asking that is because superintendents are associated with super supervisor unions. Correct. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: let's put a pin in this except for one more question. I see we'll get we'll get to, but let's put a pin in this issue when you think it through.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. I mean, I could get in trouble for thinking out loud about this, but I'm just gonna acknowledge that.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: That's never stopped.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: In a with a different crowd. It to me, that speaks to the need to potentially draw the districts into supervisory unions as well and say, okay, like, you two are a supervisory union until you can become one district, if that's what you choose to do. But bear with me because what I'm saying is we probably want similar parameters that get equity, that get more like 2,000 students per supervisory union in those areas because that's what's good for kids. So we don't I mean, we already saw people starting to say, like, let us draw ourselves in and out of this for reasons that aren't about kids. And this is the concern I brought up before. Do we need to say, we're telling you your these two districts or three districts are now gonna be a supervisory union, and then let them have that argument with us as well? Like, I don't I'm just really struggling with the idea of, like, we're just telling all of the people here, figure it out.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, so, just going back to the construct.

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

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: These, these SUs are all in the 3,000 to 4,000 range.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And then it's within that for the districts to have two years to merge voluntarily.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But we're not giving them suggested boundaries in the district.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, there are districts now, so they would continue in their current form, but then we would be saying merge and get down to less than half

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: of what you are now, we'll do it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But bear with me, what if we gave them the choice more so to become a supervisory union so they could share back end functions even if all of their school buildings are full?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: These are bigger the I think we want the back end functions will be in these large just these large SUs.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But why not in the why not let I'm it in the just I'm just focused on the gray area right now. Okay. So if we're just in the gray area and that someone's gonna be yelling at me soon, but if we're just in the gray area, I mean, what Chittenden County has been talking about is we could combine a lot of back end functions. We're not gonna close a lot of school buildings necessarily, but I think this what made me think of this is that Burlington is a super is a school district with a supervisory union overlaid on top of it. Right? So so some of the school districts in the gray area, they are also either themselves supervisor unions or they might be two districts within a supervisor union in the gray area as well. So it wouldn't be out of the question for us to say you're a bigger governance unit. That doesn't necessarily mean anything's gonna change except you have to shrink your administrative functions and and do facilities decisions together. I think I need spend. All true. Let's yeah.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead. And then, you know, really the dimension of this is if we adopted what we're talking about right now, if it was perfected, still have to function. These schools and districts have to function. They're in that transition. Right. Right. Which could be major. Right. The

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: the reason that I'll just do the example. Not naming any names in any malicious way. The reason they have South Burlington on an island is because South Burlington pays their teachers more. They would be better off in a supervisory union where they could still make some independent decisions that got cost savings without increasing everyone's costs. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: you're actually suggesting more SUs, large earnings, even for them.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I think it feels more like then we have one system for everybody that's saying, you don't have to be a new school district right away, but you need to be we we're telling you, we suggest this is your supervisor union, and then you can

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Does

[Speaker 0]: that make sense?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, yes. Yeah. Let's put a pin in this.

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

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We're gonna get through the rest because by the way, does somebody knows this? If you go to the back of this, has the, these are the SBs in your gray area and it lists their student count. So it's helpful as you're thinking.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: That's exactly, so then I'm thinking, you could merge two of those and still have like a thousand students instead of 2,000.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well actually you have most of them, if you look at them, they're all, most of them are nearly 2,000.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Or 2,000 or more, I should say. Right. And some aren't too far from 2,000.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No. I thought that was instructive, but some of the littler ones are real lit.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: There's a few little ones that we we ought to be thinking of. Okay. So get a nap.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: K.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Now you're back on.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm sorry. I just need one second. I'm home with a sick child and to prevent a cameo, if you can give me just one second.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: Seth, I'm still so complex and I like this. But why don't we still make it one supervisory, a unified system and then break it up with having administrators or superintendents to take care of your- Areas responsibility. Yeah, areas of responsibility. And up here, you'll do everything you wanna do, but all the paperwork, which is what's gonna really be a killer, will be done as we have to shrink down the part. I, and I get that some people just don't like that concept in this building, but from everything I sit here and listen to, that makes the most common sense for our state to do. So that every, you know, and people still have schools, they still have their say, but just as you draw it out here, hey, this administration is there, there, there, there,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: and then up here, it's gotta break up. I, you know, it really So what are you, I'm sure you're suggesting it's one, you're still

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: One, but because everything you talk about is saying, okay, SU, and it has one superintendent, well then we just change the name to administrator, but that's his area, or her, their area, that they're responsible to make sure, and then we're all backdoor using, it doesn't matter where in the state, it gives us better buying power. The trick is, is in teachers, because nobody's gonna wanna go down. So I understand that part. But other than that, I don't understand why we're not trying to just say that and let I haven't yet heard a good argument against that, that you would say, Jeez, we shouldn't look at

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: this a little hard. All I can say is that what I was trying to do with this is take a step.

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

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Cut both large units of spoilings in half to kind of get them down to And

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: I can't So what you're doing, just go on and show

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: your mind that people So yeah. Okay. Got it. It. Put pen and pencil. Yes, that, that, that, that's in pen

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: and pencil. I just got to state, okay. That's all

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: we're done. Okay, Beth, you're back on for section six perhaps?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, so we're on page 10, section six. Now you'll see there's a new reader assistance heading. So we are out of supervisor unions. We're not talking about SEUs anymore. Now we're talking about school districts. So I think this is an area where we're just going to have to kind of go subsection by subsection. So section six, reduction in number of school districts. The goal here is that on or before 07/01/2029, the state shall provide educational opportunities through 50% fewer school districts than exist on 07/01/2026 through the actions described in this section. So that's the North Star. Subsection B, voluntary mergers. And then there's a couple different groups that different expectations apply to. So the first one, subdivision one, is supervisory union member district mergers. On or before 09/01/2026, the member school district boards of the following supervisory unions shall establish study committees to study the advisability of forming expanded union school district in any combination that results in the reduction in the number of individual member school districts by 50% across all supervisory unions pursuant to current law in Chapter 11. And then we would list out each of the supervisory unions that that applies to. My understanding is that right now, that would be everything other than the gray area, all of those supervisory unions. I'm sorry?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It could be the 11 that were identified.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yep. So get together, discuss amongst yourselves, but the end result should be a reduction in 50% of school districts within those 11 supervisory unions. Then on page 11, Subdivision 2, other school district mergers. So on or before 09/01/2026, the boards of all school districts that are not members of the SUs that were included in Subdivision 1 shall establish study committees to study the advisability of forming the same thing, new or expanded union school districts and any combination that results in the reduction in the total number of individual school districts by 50% of the total school districts that this subdivision is applicable to, so that's the gray area. And both sets of studies are going to be done according to current law in Chapter 11 in Title 16, the Union School District formation chapter. And then subdivision three, there's an exception here. Districts with an average daily membership of more than 3,000 students as of 07/01/2026 shall not be required to merge pursuant to this section. There's nothing stopping them from doing that, but they're not required to.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That was testimony, I believe, we got from somebody in one of the gray areas saying we're already at scale.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: so this is to recognize that they're already at scale. You know, it should be 11.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And we're defining already at scale as 3,000. Which

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: is our arbitrary number. Yeah.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: But I'm just Unless Yeah. They see a greater efficiency. Yeah. They're welcome to converge always.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Right. It that's where I think we have to double check that math because, and I don't wanna offend anybody, but it might make sense for Winooski to merge with Burlington even though Burlington's already at scale. So I just wanna throw that out there.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. You're think yeah. Okay. You're in a way thinking about making sure that you don't have an orphan district that needs to merge with somebody and there's nobody to work with. Put a pin in that letter. We do a lot about the orphan district.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It could be South Berlin, Tennessee, but I just want to make sure we're not forcing them to have conversations that we haven't thought through all of this. So,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: you're back.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. Section seven on page 11, line 12, operation model protection. So, a lot of this language is taken directly from Act 46. And basically, we'll walk through it. But basically, what it is meant to say is nothing in this act would require two school districts to merge and one of them to give up their operational structure, in either direction. So, line 13, nothing in this act shall be construed to restrict or repeal or to authorize, encourage, or contemplate the restriction or repeal of the ability of a school district that as of the effective date of this section provides for the education of all resident students in one or more grades by paying tuition on the student's behalf, to continue to provide education by paying tuition, by operating a school offering the grades, to continue to provide education by operating those grades. So nothing in this act is meant to restrict or repeal school districts' ability to keep their current operating structure if that is what they want to do. So on page 12, subsection B, school operation, all governance transitions contemplated pursuant to this act shall preserve the ability of the district that as of the effective date of this section provides for the education of all resident students in one or more grades by operating a school for all grades in the greater grades if it chooses to do so, and shall not require the district to pay tuition for students if it ceases to exist as a discrete entity and realigns into a supervisory district or union school district. It's the same thing for tuition in subsection C. All governance transitions contemplated pursuant to this act shall preserve the ability of a district that as of the effective date of this section provides for the education of all resident students in one or more grades by paying tuition on the student's behalf to continue to provide education by paying tuition if the district wants to do so. But then subsection D says, But if you want to get together and you want to change your operating structures voluntarily, by all means, go ahead. So nothing in this section shall prohibit school districts regardless of their operating structure from voluntarily merging pursuant to the processes and requirements of Chapter 11.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So this is, you know, shorthand, that testimony Hancock and Grantville didn't recall where they talked about how important it was for the kids building up this allows them to continue to do that or and not force a merger of an area like that with a merger that is fully operational or vice versa. They're just like with like.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So, just trying to understand the full story. So, with these with the gray area of potential mergers, it's the State Board of Education who becomes the adjudicator, the relevance of the proposed best use? Are

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: you asking me or Senator Bongartz?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Start with you. I'm

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: sorry. What was the question, Senator Weeks?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So it appears that the School Board of Education becomes the adjudicator of whether the proposed state board whatever it state board of education becomes the adjudicator of the proposed voluntary mergers in the gray zone for new SUs?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No. This is we're just talking about school districts right

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: now. The

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: SU issue in the gray zone and how you adjust those boundaries is an open policy decision.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay, I thought that. Okay, I'm with you.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So evaluation by the State Board of Education. Under current law, so essentially what the school district everything under the school district merger reader assistance heading, the sections that we are discussing right now, is relying on current law, the process in Chapter 11 for the formation of a union school district to guide the process for these voluntary mergers. Under that process, the state board is required to approve a school district merger. So I'm in section eight. When evaluating a proposal to create a union school district, including a proposal submitted pursuant to the provisions of Section six of this act, which is everything we just walked through related to the reduction in number of school districts by 50% in the different areas, the 11 SUs and then the gray area. So when the state board is looking at those proposals that are submitted to them under current law, the state board has to consider whether the proposal is designed to meet the goals set forth in section one of this act and to reduce the number of school districts as set forth in Section six, and be mindful of any district in the region that may become geographically isolated, including the potential isolation of a district with low fiscal capacity or with a high percentage of students from economically deprived backgrounds. This is language taken directly from Act 46. At the request of Education, the Secretary shall work with the potentially isolated district and other districts in the region to move toward a voluntary merger that does not result in such isolation. And then the State Board is authorized to deny approval to a proposal that would geographically isolate a district that would not be an appropriate member of another governance structure in the region, provided, however, that notwithstanding 16 VSA seven zero nine subdivision C2, and I'll go over that in a second, the State Board shall approve other mergers formed pursuant to this act that do not geographically isolate a district. So basically what this is saying is under current law, state board has to approve school district mergers. This act is saying, state board, you are authorized to deny that approval if the new school district would leave someone geographically isolated. But if it's not going to leave someone geographically isolated, then you have to approve the merger, notwithstanding the findings that they are required to make under current law, and I'll tell you what those findings are. So under current law, subdivision C2 of Section seven zero nine, the state board is required if the state board finds that the formation of the proposed union school district is in the best interest of the state, the students, and the school districts and aligns with the policy set forth in Section seven zero one of Title 16, then it's required to approve the merger. And so this language is saying if school school districts are merging to form a new school district pursuant to this act, then the state board does not need to make those findings. It just has to approve the merger so long as it doesn't leave someone geographically isolated.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The idea is if you want to merge, you can merge.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So section nine, on or before 11/30/2027, the board of each school district in the state that is not a member of a newly formed school district or that does not expect to become a member of a newly formed school district on or before 07/01/2029, either on its own behalf or jointly with the boards of other similarly situated school districts, has to submit a proposal to the Secretary of Education and the State Board of Education in which the district proposes to retain its current governance structure, to work with other districts to form a different governance structure, or to enter into a model of joint activity, demonstrates through reference to enrollment projections, student to staff ratios, comprehensive data collected pursuant to EQS and otherwise, how the proposal submitted pursuant to this section supports the district's or the single district's or the joint district's ability to meet or exceed the goals as set forth in Section one of this act and identifies detailed actions it proposes to take to continue to improve its performance in connection with each of the goals set forth in Section one of this act. So if you're not going to merge, you have to submit a proposal of how you're still going to meet those goals in act one according to these parameters. And again, it's a very similar process as to what was required under Act 46. I'm on page 14, section 10, final state action. So we're going to start with the Agency of Education making a proposal. So in order to modernize Vermont's school district governance structures and meet the goals set forth in Section one of this act while reducing the number of school districts by 50%, the secretary is required to review the governance structures of the school districts and SUs of the state as they will exist or are anticipated to exist on 07/01/2029. The review is required to consider any proposals submitted by districts or groups of districts pursuant to section six of this act and conversations with those in other districts. And then on or before 06/01/2028, the secretary is required to develop and publish and present to the state board their plan that would, to the extent necessary, promotes the purpose stated at the beginning of the subsection, merge districts into larger school districts in an effort to reduce the number of school districts by 50% to not more than 56 total school districts. The agency shall only recommend merging districts with the same operating structures. If it is not possible or practicable to develop a proposal that realigns some districts where necessary in a manner that adheres with the protections of Section seven of this act, which is the protection for tuition paying and operating districts, then the proposal may allow some school districts not to merge and instead to continue to exist as they operate as of 07/01/2026.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So this could theoretically, this whole sector could never come into use if enough districts merged voluntarily in the first instance before the deadline?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't think so because you're asking the state board to come up with a plan in light of the current, governance structure. So I think the plan could be you don't need to do anything. The proposal could be you don't need to do anything. But I think you would still this language would still ask the secretary to to do that review of the landscape.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: But it wouldn't be but I thought this was, just to come into being if we didn't get to the 50% voluntarily, then the board stepping in to make it happen with a few districts that still needed to merge to get there.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, there's language later on saying that the state board cannot merge districts that merged voluntarily according to this act. And this is a policy choice on your point, but who is doing the review of the, governance structures to determine that those goals have been met? I think you still want the secretary, you want someone to take a look at everyone and determine whether that goal has been met. And if not, what is the proposal?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Whether the 50% has been met?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Yeah, Senator Weeks. So, I was tracking with you guys up to this point. Now, I've lost the ball. Eleven, eleven SUs are already affected with their governance units. They become more efficient, leadership and business areas, geographic areas, right? The the gray, the gray section is to be determined. Hopefully, they're negotiating amongst themselves. So, I don't understand where the 56 total school districts becomes the target. Okay, it's it's a combination of the nine,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think it's 97 districts within the 11 SUs. Hawaii does have Nader and Because they have within these SUs the districts have diverged. The SUs are set. Why? Why? Because we want to reduce the number of districts by half.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: What does that matter?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The foundation formula tends to work better on larger districts So

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: But is is it about the district or

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: is it about the SU? Are we more About the district. There's two things going on. We're we're reducing the number of SU from 52 to a total of between these 11 and these of about something like 23. Got it. And then we're reducing the total number of districts from 119

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: to 56. But the districts report up to the SU level. Yes. There comes a there's a board of the school board at the larger SU level. Yes. Who cares how many districts report out? And and to the point, if you have small hamlets here and there that have their own school district, who cares if there's, you know, they're still small but they're reporting up to a larger school district, a larger school board in a SU. What who cares what the number of what what relevance does a number of districts have anymore except they retain their small, you know, kind of very focused local view but whether there's a 119 or 56 or or some other oscillating number, what does it really matter? Well these SUs, remember these 11 SUs, they only form, they're not

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: a board per se. Are, they are, but they wouldn't have school board. Not a school board, but they don't run the schools. They do some of the back, they do the hiring, they do the financials they provide especially when they oversee special ed but the boards continue to operate the way they do right now. But the but the problem is as it relates to trying to bring the foundation formula into being the foundation formula doesn't work as well with little tiny districts. And so we're trying to move the district get them smaller districts to merge because the dollar flow within the dollars flow to districts, not to the SU. Okay. I thought the whole concept of what we're trying to

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: do here is that superintendent at an SU level is responsible for management of all the schools in their regional zone. No. No.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: They're not responsible per se. They're not just the way they are right now. This is this doesn't change the way SCUs operate and districts operate. It only tries to make them fewer of them. So districts run their schools right now and they would continue to run their schools. What we're saying, especially the smaller districts, is get your scale up a little bit Because the dollars coming into the foundational point, remember that it's it's a per pupil allocation, and it works. The larger we can get the districts to be within these SUs, the better the dollars were. So at an SU level there's no board? There was a board but it's made up of members of the districts. It's not elected. It's only made up of like let's just say board chairs and they perform kind of back office.

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

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: yeah this is not the most radical plan here. It's really just to reduce the number of districts they have to make the work better for the foundation for the coming into the union.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Is there is there a way we can get some sort of scale analysis from joint fiscal regarding this 50%? Because, you know, my question is why why isn't 45% the sweet spot for 55%? You know, why where is 50% the placeholder? And are we going to try getting more into the specifics as to what the good percentage would be that would yield the most savings without sacrificing the efficiency in the society.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The way the way you're I think your question really is, what's the student count in the district that makes the bounty reform for the work best? Is it a thousand? Yeah. Is it seven fifty? Is it 1,500? Because that's what we're trying, I think, what we're trying to get to is to is to scale up the districts. But what I was trying to do here is let them do it organically, not have a picture of draconian and have them pick a partner that's going to make the most sense for them the way they operate, way they are for other reasons, know, next to each other or whatever. So what what I what's not in here is something that says in field district is x size. Yeah. And I think that might be your because I think the student probably is the most relevant. Yeah. Bigger. Also,

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I mean.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And we could we could we could do a little playing around with that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. They have to get above 2,000 students

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: or something.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Or even to some of these districts are really quite small and you would try to get those that can to get to some of So

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: is it a percentage that we're going to be looking for to reduce or is it a student size that we are looking to merge into scale?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's a question. That's a legitimate question.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: That's the track I bought today. I

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: was just trying to get the train moving down the track with some voluntary orchards that would at least by definition improve it from what it is. And I was trying not to get too specific about who people have the virtue with because then you get into complications and it becomes more calm down. So but that's a totally legitimate line of thought. Yeah. I was curious.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I I think, again, if you're saying we're we're kinda drawing this boundary around you to get more of the scale, but you don't have one district right away, That might be a better way to achieve scale without just sort of worrying about cutting in half the number of district.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Trying to leave as much flexibility as I could to move the train down the track. That's what I was trying to do. Beth, if you're back, if you're not, it's okay. Okay. Alright.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm here. Okay.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You have me for another seven minutes.

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

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Where would you like me to focus?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Wherever we left off let's just try to finish the section.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We're somewhere on page 15, think, right?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We're on page 15, line 16. So this is the criteria that the agency is supposed to be considering in any mergers that they propose.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Only school.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Sorry, go ahead.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I was going say just as people are thinking about this as you're about to go through it, I had more. I was thinking a little bit more of this rather than shall meet the following criteria shall consider But we can, that's a good another discussion for us to have. So go ahead though.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Sure. So let's just I guess then talk about the criteria. So school districts with small student counts. School districts don't need to be contiguous, but they need to the geography needs to make sense, both for the school district that's being merged and any anyone else around them that would be affected by that merger. You know, like non contiguous districts cutting off other districts. Whether there's adequate infrastructure capacity to consolidate schools, whether a merger would lead to improved opportunity for resident students, and whether mergers would lead to the potential gain potential to gain staffing and administrative efficiencies. And then on or before 11/30/2028, the State Board is required to review the agency's proposal, take testimony, this is all modeled after Act 46, so take testimony, and then issue a final statewide plan merging and realigning districts according to the criteria that we've already talked about. And then again, on line 16 here, the board is prohibited from merging school districts whose operating structures differ as of 07/01/2026. And then subdivision two requires the state board to submit a written report to the House and Senate Committees on Education with any recommended boundary proposal changes that they think would be helpful to, you know, excuse me, operationalize any mergers that the state board has ordered. So I see this as kind of an assist to you all of, here's our final plan and you may want to think about you know, realigning these boundaries for supervisory unions. Here's some recommendations. The state board's plan does not, and the agency's proposal, not apply to interstate school districts, regional CTE centers formed under Chapter 37 Subchapter 5A, or a school district that between July '26 and July '28 began to operate as a unified union school district, or at least obtained the affirmative vote of all necessary districts to form that new union school district pursuant to Section six of this act. Provided however that as part of the state board's plan developed pursuant to subsection B, the state may realign a newly formed union school district to include a geographically isolated district where necessary to achieve the goals of this act. So the state board is prohibited from further merging districts that voluntarily merged pursuant to this act, but they are empowered to add geographically isolated districts to a voluntarily merged district, if that's what makes sense.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Do you have a question?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. I mean, so I just wanna poke at the first two non applicable scenarios to make sure I still understand how they'd be impacted by this. So number one, an interstate school district would still fall under the foundation formula if everyone else falls under the foundation formula.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I don't know how that works actually because the inter, so how does that work with an interstate district like the one that's in New Hampshire, the Copenhagen with New Hampshire?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I would suggest that you have John in to talk about that but the foundation formula is going to apply to them like, in the most broadest sense.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Right. Good. Okay. So, I mean, I just in that scenario, I wouldn't I wouldn't want them to feel like they can't be some part of the conversation if they fall under the foundation formula, and now that means they need to think about what size they are. I mean, I just don't know how big, I don't know anything about them. With the CTEs, I think, you know, I just always wanna make sure they're not such an afterthought that we're not thinking about ways they could benefit from being part of these supervisory unions. Like us saying, potentially, they're gonna be part of the discussion to become a part of the supervisor union so there is more regional coordination and less funding fighting.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, they're probably better off with the larger SUs than they are right now than future construct.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Right.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So, I know just thinking about Senator Hinsdale's question about what are we gained by merging? It's it's it's always the top 16 the mergers shall lead to improved opportunity for residents and students and lead to the judgement against staffing and administrative proficiencies. That also goes to your question. Even within the s with the SDs merging I'm sorry. With the districts merging within the SEs. You have the potential, and hopefully they will merge because they can gain those things, those objectives.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Reminds me for us, lines three or four, actually, on page 16.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I don't know if

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: I'm not reading this clearly, So it says only school districts with adequate infrastructure capacity to consolidate schools should such a need develop shall be merged? Should there be commas somewhere there?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Think I would encourage you to not focus on that because it sounds like there's going to be further direction to me on how these criteria into the overall plan.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Fair enough. I just want to make sure I wouldn't misunderstand this.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, so Beth, know you have to go. Thank you. We can, we'll find a time with Daphne to pick up where we left off and we'll keep going. We have our next part of this actual break here. Why don't we take a five minute break? Thanks, Beth. Well, so let's let's go stay live.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Yeah. It's such challenging.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We are off mute. We are back after Regular hearings. Quick break. Our our board of business today is to take up a review of a new draft S-two 27 and thanks for the meeting to creating immigration protocols in schools. Well, maybe because Jill may not be there yet because

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Not great, though. Just FYI, it's Jill Martin Diaz, not Jill Diaz Martin, Jill uses theythem pronouns. Okay.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: She told us that. They Most of our they told us. I'm not I'm serious.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We are. So I wonder if she's if they are going to want to Just say Jill. Jill. Is going to want to hear this oral presentation about that we should wait.

[Speaker 0]: Just send them an email.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Has Jill seen this draft?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, Rick Seguel, officer, I did copy her on it. Okay. Beth? Yeah, copy Jill. Okay. But no guarantee that they saw it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: If people are okay, why don't we just wait the five minutes? And just so that Jill can see her wins. That's all those things. So if we can go back on it until three. Okay, it's 03:00. We're back for S-two twenty seven. We have a new draft and we have legislative councils who here with us. Walk us through it.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Once again, for the record, Rick Siegel with the Office of the Joint Center Council and should have paragraph 2.1 S-two 27. I can share my screen as well if the committee

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: would No, we have it.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You have it? Okay. So the changes are highlighted in halo from the last drafts, and I'll go through those chronologically, as the build progresses and kind of explain, why the change was made. There is one change that's not yellow on page two because it was a deletion, so there's nothing to highlight. On page two, the definition of nonpublic area of a school, you may recall that the last version of the bill had it defined, as an area of the school that it could be fact wording correctly here, during a school day or school sponsored activity. And it was not stating that the commission have been restricted to those two things. So now it is just an area of a school that normally requires authorization, by the school to enter and may and includes an area, that school differs beyond public. So again, no additions, just removing that during a school day or school swatch activity.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. On page three Quick quick, yeah. Going back to page one. I thought we had some conversation, but correct me if I knew something along the way, that on line seventeen and nineteen, we were gonna change immigration to law enforcements.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I I may recall you bringing that up. I'm not sure if the the committee wanted that. I think the issue, if if you do wanna move in that direction, is that this does involve things besides law enforcement. So my concern would be that that would be

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Well, it's more that we didn't wanna just focus on immigration. It's just the reverse of it. So this wasn't didn't want this to appear as just an immigration. One you're starting to type fill it. Oh. Anyway, that was the point. Yeah. I didn't make it at the time. I just noted it. This is like the second or third iteration. So it remains a I don't know if it's important. Somebody mentioned it. It's not My

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: advice would be so it needs to be accurate, and

[Speaker 0]: the

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: you have the chapter title, including immigration, and you have the section title. So if you changed But those are new. What's that? They're

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: both new. Right? No. We got those.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, it's it's it's in the introduced version. Right? It's not new to the snippet. It's a new language.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Right? New language Right. On top of

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the old Right. So law law enforcement would apply to a couple parts of the bill, but it would not be, in my view, a good good way to read what's in the section. But, again, it's a policy choice. I would just say it would be a bad policy choice to do that just because it's not accurately depicting what's in the sections.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I think but also, if this bill was about all of law enforcement, we have had to take more weeks of testimony. Like, this is not limited to one law enforcement agency, but it is limited to how is handled on school campuses.

[Speaker 0]: Well, the police officer. But to

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: the ambulance, I'll drop it.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. On page three, the, subdivision three. This is a little bit of new language, but mostly, previously, this language was in a different subsection, the Guardian. Let me make sure I get the exact one correctly. It was Guardian Detainment. So the suggestion from the Vermont, the f f the SBA was to kind of include this within the immigration resources. So a superintendent shall foster, to the greatest extent possible, a relationship with a legal or immigration advocacy institution that will provide assistance to a student with regard to immigration related concerns, including a situation where a guardian of the student has been detained by immigration authorities while the student is in school. So the previous language, again, was provide assistance to a student in the event of the guardian. So this expands the relationship with that institution, that they provide us to a student with kind of generally immigration related concerns, including that specific situation of the previous version of the bill referenced, was a guardian having been detained by immigration authorities. K. On subsection c, student records, this was my change. The previous version had the term legal pupil, and, I didn't feel like it met the rest of the bill, so replacing legal pupil with a student. In my opinion, it makes the bill just more consistent in its language usage, and that's been replaced in C, line nine on 12 of the students and 15, again, the students. Okay. On page five, this is new language, again proposed by, the SBA. So this is the subsection dealing with law enforcement on-site, specific to law enforcement on an immigration related matter. So I think the concern was that how are schools going to enact procedures that, you know, basically effectuate these policies. So six says that on or before 01/01/2027, AOE, in consultation with the Vermont Superintendent's Association, shall develop and review at least annually model administrative procedures to help schools execute the policies that were in the subsection. And this subsection is just that law enforcement on-site, when they appear, the superintendent, if you recall, or their designated has to make sure that they have a warrant to enter the school on an immigration related matter. On page six, the policy required, this was previously subsection B in the latest, in the last version of the bill, And the the understanding was that that that policy requirement, and later on in the bill requiring, schools to adopt a policy and a model policy was kind of duplicative, duplicative. So what we've got here is new policy required to subsection g, and one of the model policy, which was in the last bill, it's on or before 01/01/2027, I'm on page six, at the top of page six. AOE, in consultation with the AG's office, the Vermont Independent School Association, and the Vermont School Boards Association shall develop and review this annual, a law policy that reflects the requirements set forth in this section, so the entire section. All of the immigration protocols, would be indicated in the law policy developed by AOE. Substitution two is language from the last version that has the adoption of the policy, basically, that you shall adopt a policy either on your own or use the model policy, that AOE is going to create. Page seven, the Immigration Resource Guide. New language added to this guide on line four through eight. The Guide shall include immigration and civil rights related resources, information regarding Standby Guardianship (pursuing the fourteenth ESA February, and a list of immigration, human rights, and relevant advocacy organizations available to provide immigration assistance to students and staff. This is that guide that superintendents must, distribute to their schools. No other changes to that section or the effective date.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: Question. Yes. Did we check with the Vermont Independent Schools and the Vermont School Board Association to see that they'll be able to meet this timeline?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Alright. Well, if the other schools can do it,

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: they can do it. Well, it's just to give a rough draft of the policy. Correct? The policy. It's AOE. For the other schools. Yeah. I know AOE, we didn't check with the others to see if they thought upon one of you. I believe they fit, but I don't believe we ever asked. We're just gonna mandate that they do it without

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: so At least passing by. The agency that will do it. Right and all they do is consult with these organizations so I think it's okay okay Jill, did you have any comments?

[Jill Martin Diaz, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project]: Hi, for the record, Jill Martin Diaz from Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. Thank you for the opportunity to rejoin the conversation today and be a resource. I've had a chance to look at the new bill language. I see how the conversations evolved since I was last year before the committee. And I think that the structures that you've that this version puts in place seem to be appropriately inclusive of the variety of different types of scenarios in which a young person might find themselves in contact with the immigration legal system and in need of support. So I think that this looks great. I have no concerns to raise with the committee at this time, but I'm happy to answer any specific questions.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Any questions we've asked? We didn't warn this for a potential drug, but please do. Why don't we so therefore, I think to be fair, should have hoped

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: we could put it all up.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Do we have to?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No. We we don't we definitely don't have to. Held in solutility once upon a time, you know, you have to mourn about. But I I mean, and I would say be patted on our calendar. Vermont School Boards Association reached out to be helpful, a draft with us. I have not heard anybody who wanted to speak who hasn't been given that opportunity to speak on it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: By the way, school board associations, any comments?

[Speaker 0]: Unless you have questions of, say, why we do? We did, I think, certificate jobs. Did you get through it? Yep.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So you all kind of work together on this, right? Yeah. Yep.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, you know, one loose thread. Okay. Julio Thompson said something that I wasn't paying close enough attention, but I raised I don't know if the Aging's Office wants to be the main guidance source. Is that okay. Okay. Well, now I

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: Section three. Section three.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The guide. Yeah. Jake?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Based on you know what? He said I have some concerns, but I'm not too concerned because we can address it in the house if we don't get an answer in time about whether or not they feel comfortable being a lead communicator with superintendent.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Where are we? Where is that?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Section three.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Page seven.

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

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Because they're they're referenced out of birth, it's H two, in subsection B, that's the the guide that the office creates, and they distribute to superintendents, that's been in the bill.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So Mhmm. It just I flagged it at one point and I texted Julio, and I forgot that it got back to me and said, we might want it to be AOE with us consulted, but we're okay with it moving. And if we feel like we have an issue, we can bring it up in the house. Honestly, they're good.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Is everybody feeling comfortable? Good. Okay. Well, that's Mr. Cook.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Senator Hashim?

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: We have to make a motion to vote it out positively. Yeah. So

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. But Well parliamentary. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's that's happening. Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: No. We do. Yeah. Good. Senator Heffernan?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: Yes. I don't like some of the language, but all of them is okay. Senator Mount Vincent? Yes. Senator Weeks?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Senator Williams? Yes. Senator Bongartz. Yes. Now,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: who would like to report it? Any volunteers? You to introduce Yeah. Morning. Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I was waiting to see if Howard was taken.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: He can. He does all the conditional and sees yourself.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: That's true. Okay. I can do it.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: If you're busy, I'll have to do it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We're just filling it out. Perfect.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Here. You can kind of chip. Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Just back me up. Whatever someone needs

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: to do. Colby. What's your Get out. Call you. I'll call you on the slip copy of it?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yes. A clean copy and, like, a editable copy because that's what I use. It's a workshop. Sure. What I need to think of.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: If you

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: feel like Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. You want. Do you

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: want me to do you want me to it up somewhere, if you will? I

[Speaker 0]: think that's first of getting an email, so we don't Yeah. I mean, no.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I didn't it could be forwarded to you.

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

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. Do something right now. Should I sign it right now? If we have it.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's in a PDF, and it all.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So just Thank open up the box. Yeah. Patient. Transportation? Yeah. Right?

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

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

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I am.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: This printer. Thank you. Can you copy that? No. Alright. You don't need a copy

[Jenna McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner, Dept. for Children and Families (Child Development Division)]: of that.

[Speaker 0]: I I have to that or do I Oh, okay. Gonna send it to.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I will pick it up. Okay. Yes. Thanks, Melissa.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yep. I'll be right back. Yes. And don't let me walk away without.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Are you gonna make that copy?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. It's it's it's okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Aren't you glad to do it?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yep. I'm just

[Speaker 0]: it's gonna cost a copy.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So I think we are actually adjourned.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. I'll excuse

[Speaker 0]: myself