Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: We're live.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Alright. This is the first meeting of the conference committee on H955, May 27 for the act of 02:30. I guess we'll start by especially for those watching remotely. I think most people in the room probably know who we all are, but those watching remotely will go around and introduce ourselves starting over here.

[Senator Chris Mattos (Chittenden North)]: Yes. Senator Chris Mattoes, Chittenden North.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Seth Bongartz from the Bennington Senate District.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Ruth Hardy from the Addison District.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Emily Kornheiser from Brattleboro. Peter Coleman, representative from Cornwall and a few other towns in Addison County.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beth Linde from Linden.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And our committee assistant

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: over here. And

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: then we have just so everyone knows. Sorry to interrupt.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beth St. Peters, the Office of Legislative Counsel.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Kirby Heaton, the Office of Legislative Counsel.

[Beth St. Peters (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Julie Rutland, Director of

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Joint Railways Council. Ezra Holden, joined this call once.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Is that it? Okay. Alright. So I think we're gonna start with a what, you wanna use the side by side? Yeah, that's the vehicle.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: James, the Office of Legislative Counsel. I really am going to just take my direction from you all on what you want to focus on. There's 93 pages. The side by side that you all have in front of you in some form, the left hand column is passed by the House. The right hand column is passed by the Senate. In fact, it's effective. Effective dates are embedded in each section in blue at the very top, and yellow in the right hand column represents changes that the Senate made to the extent that there is language to highlight. If the change was deleting language, there's obviously no highlighting. So it's pretty easy to visually clue in on where there were changes. And perhaps, do you want me to share my screen?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I don't need it.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Unless anybody else does. Okay.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So I might suggest that maybe just sort of go very quickly and then we'll stop you. Sure. I think it'll mostly be us sort of saying

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Okay. And we wouldn't ask you that why. Don't

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: worry. I'll tell you. You're not a convenient answer. Okay, so section one, the Senate added a finding section subsection. Do you want to go through any of the findings? Staying in Section one, but moving to Page two in Subsection B, the Senate kept the House's two pieces of legislative intent and then added three additional pieces of their own. Would you like to go over any of that language? Okay. Section two, I think the reader assistant headings are especially helpful. So we're in the BOCES or seesaw. I'm just going to use the term seesaw because that's what the bill uses. The seesaw reader assistance headings, section two, is the amendment to Chapter 10. The Senate added on page four of the side by side some language about how Seesha's should be used related to CTE access. The Senate also added as members to each applicable seesaw three of the four standalone CTE school districts. And in order to accommodate that, they changed the definition of supervisor union for this sector to include those regional school districts. There was one regional school district that was not included in its applicable CESA, and that is because the applicable CESA is the Vermont Learning Collaborative, which is your one CESA that is up and running and who you have asked to do a lot of work in this panel. And so there is separate language asking for a report back to you all on how that standalone school district could join BTLC and a provision that VTLC needs to provide that CTE school district with services in the interim. The only membership change that the Senate made to the seesaw membership aside from the standalone CTE school districts is adding Grand Isle Supervisory Union, I'm on page five, to the Champlain Valley North Seesaw. In the House version, Grand Isle SU is part of the Chittenden Central Seesaw. And Milton Supervisory District side is now part of the Chittenden Central Seasaw. And on the House side, it was formerly part of the Champlain Valley North Seasaw. So just swapped Grand Isle and Milton.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Any reason in particular if you had

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: some more followed? We took a look. The seesaw boundaries are more aligned with the with the merger discussion zones. So we had to move the CSO boundaries got moved a little bit around those. Okay.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then I the for some reason, the Ludlow Mount Holly Unified Union School District did not appear in the House language and should have as a member of the Two Rivers SU. And so that was added back in. And no other changes to the membership other than, again, the Liberty Scant Loans to each districts. On to subsection B, which is the bylaws for Seesaws. The Senate added on page 11 language. So current law requires articles of agreement. This bill amends that to be bylaws to include information on financial terms and conditions and service fees. The Senate added language that makes membership fees or that requires membership fees to be allocated according to the aggregate ADM of each member SU and requires service fees to be based on the amount of services actually provided.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So I just want to flag this as something for a later discussion, not so much why, but just needed for us to talk a little bit about, should we be having CISOs decide how they wanna just allocate their financial structure or do we wanna be prescriptive about it? Think if we're being prescriptive, I think this works fine, but just flag it to topic conversation later.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I'm on the very bottom of page 11 in section six zero four, which is the powers of seesaws, leading on to page 12. The House language which the Senate has kept requires Seesha's to offer certain services to its members. But the Senate added language that those services need to be offered when requested and when approved by the Seesha board.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: And also

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Just to say that one small district can't lag the tail, can't lag the dog. The

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Senate also added in the list of required services that may be offered when requested and when approved, information technology. The Senate made no changes to the language in Section six zero five, six zero six, six zero seven as the House passed language. The Senate added a completely new section to Chapter 10. See some leadership adjustment proposals. I'm at the

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: very bottom of page 12.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Don't need to should we walk through it

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: or least you don't want to. Yeah.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Which I

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: ask questions about it later for us. That

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: brings us to Section 2A of the bill on page 14. This, again, was added by the Senate. There's no similar provision in the House. You'll notice that the effective date here is sevenonetwenty seven. And what the Senate has done is struck all of the suggested services that seesaws could offer professional development, curriculum coordination, and transportation, and added them to the list of required services when requested and when approved. And then also added facilities master planning, and then that change would take effect on seventy one point seven. So, just increasing the list of required services. And then Section 2B is the language that I referenced earlier requiring the Vermont Learning Collaborative and River Valley Technical Center to get together and make a pitch to you all, change the seesaw membership once the dust has settled. But a requirement that any membership adjust required to any membership adjustment being enacted, BTLC is still required to offer services to Rutland District as requested. No change to Section three of the bill as passed by the House. No change to sections four through 12. Sections five through 11 are just conforming amendments, changing BOCES to Seesha, and section 12 is the Seesha transition language, and the Senate made no changes there. New reader assistance heading, Union School District Exploration and Formation. The Senate made several changes to Section 13, which is previously the study committee process in the House version. In the Senate version, that's now the merger committee process. The Senate struck Section 13 completely, but you'll see that there's a lot of yellow highlighting, but there's also not a lot of yellow highlighting. So everywhere that's not highlighted is language that came over from the House that the Senate has not changed. Anything in specific that you want to go over in this section?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No?

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that brings us to page 22, section 13A. Also added by the Senate requires This is the stranded school district concept. So this is essentially a charter change process for school districts that want to be part of a merger pursuant to Section 13, but were not included in that merger on page 22.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I'm using it earlier.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 13A, remember I left that off?

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Yes. That's my problem. So

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 13A is the way that a school district that was not included in a merger but wanted to be included in a merger could petition the general assembly for some action to include them in a larger state of state.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: This is isolated by rejection as opposed to isolated by choice.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Anything in particular there you'd like to walk through? Section 13B on page 24 is a moratorium on withdrawal from our disengaging school district. Which just places a moratorium on the section using the sections in Chapter 11, sections seven twenty four and seven twenty five that allows an individual town or technically a group of towns to withdraw from a union school district. And that moratorium goes through fiscal year 2035, which aligns somewhat with the foundation form.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: That was my question where that date came from. Thank you.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 13C, another section added by the Senate. Wouldn't it have been helpful if I put something in the House column? Secretary of State reports on meeting day twenty twenty eight election resources. This requires the Secretary of State's office in consultation with school district clerks to write a report to you all with recommendations for the funding and resources necessary for district clerks to oversee all of the Union School District elections that would be happening on town meeting day twenty twenty eight pursuant to Section 13, including the resources necessary to ensure ballots are mailed to all active voters for that.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So that'll need to be in next year's budget?

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Yeah, so we need to know how much it might cost.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 14 is the guidance for merger committee groupings. This is the second map of the bill. The Senate added language requiring the facilitators to consider or to include advisory representation from the four regional CTE school districts, who would be advisory members and nonvoting members of a murder study committee. And then I think the best way to see the differences between the House and Senate versions is really to look at a map. It's hard to walk through with language.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I asked Agency of Digital Services to come up with a map that overlays our merger group recommendations with the Senate proposal,

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: which I will get

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: to ask everybody to post as well. And I've got that too. This is what we had. It just that senate proposal groupings is hard. It's the thick lines under the colors of our hours. And we can go into the wise ways at another time.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm going jump to page 28, section 14a. The Senate added a requirement that there'd be have the House passed version, the Senate kept this requires an initial report back to you all in February of next year with information about what are the merger committees doing, what is their membership. And then the House version and the Senate kept it required a final report in the Senate is December 2028, but there was no reporting in between then. And so the Senate added an interim reporting requirement in January '28 for both the merger committee final recommendations, as well as initial recommendations for seesaw boundary adjustments that take into account the recommendations from the merger committees. Section 15 is that final report back to you all. The House had that coming to you in January of 'twenty nine, and the Senate has it coming to you in December '28. It requires, in addition to all of the requirements the House had, the Senate added that that final report back to you all from the lead facilitator needs to have a determination and identification of any school district that is a bad faith participant in the committee process. We didn't walk through it, in Section 13, Section 13 requires good faith participation in the merger committee study process. And that concept is tied to school construction funding later on. Section 16. This is the final report back on CSAL boundaries. The Senate changed the date from 01/01/2029 to 01/01/2028, and removed the recommendations for SU boundary adjustments and just kept it to Seesha boundary adjustments. Section 16A was new from the Senate, and this is a report back to you all on or before 11/01/2019. And the state board is required to submit a written report to you all with the name of any school district with an ADM of fewer than seven fifty students that has not successfully merged with the neighboring school district by 07/01/2028 pursuant to Section 13 with recommendations for whether and if so, how to merge those school districts with neighboring larger school districts. So not request to the state board to merge anyone. A request for the state board to essentially give you all a survey of the lay of the land with recommendations for any school districts they feel should be merged. And that's it. This language just stops at a recommendation. Section 17 is the big appropriations section for your seesaws and your merger committees. The Senate made no substantive changes other than changing some internal cross references to section 13 that changed and substituting merger for study. But all of the grants themselves and the amount of money and appropriations all remain the same in the Center for Gen. And then I'm happy to walk through this, but I think John does a better job.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So section 18 is your section that amends the Act 73 effective dates tied specifically to the foundation formula rollout. The first thing to note is just the accelerated timeline in the Senate proposal. We now have FY thirty years of the effectiveness of going effective with foundation formula and accompanying tax policy changes 07/01/2029. And then you have amendments to the contingencies themselves.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Before you jump to the we, at some point, are going to have questions about why it's a a and how you see it all working. I know we have the timeline to block that.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So changes to the contingencies on the House side. The contingencies are essentially opportunity to consider consolidation, certification of voluntary votes, receipt of that foundation form of the report under 45A, and GFO analysis, and then legislation enacted to address a host of factors. What you can see in the Senate proposal is receipt of two reports. So one is the foundation form of report, that's that same section 45A report. So that exists in both contracts. And then in place of the request for opportunity to consider plus clerk certification, you now have receipt of the facilitator report. And then in place of the JFO analysis contingency has been struck in the Senate side. And then lastly, the legislation piece has been updated on the house. It was legislation has been enacted that addresses these hosts of factors. On the Senate side, its legislation has been enacted that expresses clear legislative intent to satisfy this condition by addressing essentially the same components, but they're slightly condensed and reformulated to tie to existing work. So CTP, special ed, sparsity measures, secondary student weighting and geographic cost differences, prepaid funding mechanism, measured for satisfying legacy collective bargaining agreements, capital indebtedness. The remainder of the highlighting you see the sections conforming changes for repeals that happened elsewhere in the bill plus moving forward that timeline.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Definitely,

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: the contingencies had piled up somewhat in the Bills movement between the bodies, and between last year and this year and all of that. So appreciate the Curious about your thinking on using intent language.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Okay. Well, as you noted, we were trying to make them clearer about what the actions were that needed to be taken by the legislature. So this would require that legislation be passed that address those issues and that there be a statement to say, it is the intent of the legislature that this legislation with these pieces in it meets the contingencies that are required in H95 or whatever batch numbers will be so that it's very clear to everyone watching, including the courts, that we've met the contingencies. It still would require the legislature to address all of the issues listed. But it would also require that it be clear what the intent of the legislation is, is to meet the contingencies.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: And so just to really reiterate what you just said, your assumption is that the legislation would address all of these issues and then clarify that it was addressing those issues in the intent section. Correct.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think would to happen with the set of them up, realistically. Mhmm. Thank you. Yeah.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Yeah. Just to make it very clear to the courts and everyone. This is

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: what we're doing. So we

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: will do it, and we will say we're doing it in the intent section. Correct. Because these are very important issues to address before we go forward. Yeah. Thank you. I

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: am done. That was great.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: We're done. You are done. Great.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 18, that brings us to page 35. Section 18A, the House passed language that required the Department's access to postdate calculator. I can have the calculator on their website so folks could, anyone in the general public, including study committees or merger committees, could calculate education payments, either under our current funding formula or under a foundation formula, and the Senate removes that language.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: My understanding is that there is language being adjusted in the budget for the agency of education to take the lead on this exact thing being supported by the tax department. But because there's a lot of duties and responsibilities of the agency with their budget request, that that was happening In the budget. In the budget. So that the idea will live on but executed by a different party. Mean We a

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: bunch of other work. We took this out in Senate Finance, largely because the tax department was like, this is not what we do. This shouldn't be our duty. And so we removed it at their request, but also because we felt like the math that's required to do this kind of analysis is something that school business managers should be able to do. But I think if you're addressing the budget in a different way, that sounds.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Yeah. I think the merger committees will probably want to have access to an easy to use tool from those of us who

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: want verification math. Oh, come on.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Brown on page 35, new reader assistance heading, Pre K Education. The Senate made no changes to the language passed by the House related to pre kindergarten education. Page 36, data collection. The Senate made no changes to the language passed by the House in Section 22. Special education funding in Penn language. The Senate made no changes to the language passed by the House in Section 23. Tuition, Section 24, the House passed language that would be contingently effective on 07/01/2030, with the foundation formula that prohibits any receiving school from requiring fees or tuition beyond that amount of money that it's receiving from the spending school district pursuant to Chapter 21 of Title 16. The Senate replaced that language with intent language that under the foundation formula, no receiving school may charge individual families tuition in excess of the tuition paid by the Sunday school district.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So, in this case, there really is a difference between clearly saying it and intent language that I think we'll need to talk but maybe you could take

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: a moment and kind of talk to us about this change, which is fairly substantive. The fees section, I think, have a sense you've already decided doesn't make sense. I would say that still would be depending on defined fees. And on the tuition section, we have about 7,000 kids with tuition, a half the public capital independent. No testimony was taken on this. It has pretty serious implications for a lot of schools. And it's a really, really worthwhile topic once we know the weights. Once we know the weights, then whether we do or don't be able to set tuition, that'll make we'll have a basis for having a discussion. But right now, it's premature.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I guess, what would what would lead to, I guess I'm trying to envision a world where we have a foundation formula that would be anything more than a foundation formula, whether it's a public school or an independent school approved for tuition. I guess sort of what would lead to that and how would

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: it work? I mean, how would you be able to still charge tuition and pay you properly? I don't know the answer to that. We didn't you know, no testimony has been taken on this one way or the other, and we just thought it made sense to get a get a feel for the lay of the land next year once we get the once we know the weights across the board, and then then can do some analysis. That's the time for this discussion.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Yeah, well, I mean, we can go into this further, I guess, without sort of having a sense of like, what it would mean to, you know, if the weights don't come back in a satisfactory way,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, one of the contingencies for the foundation formula coming into effect. So that'll depend on, you know, where the votes are in the body.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Yeah. I guess without a sort of like, okay, to me, it would be more like we should envision a world in which it is the foundation formula, because that's what the whole sort of concept is based on. And then that should be our premise is that it is the foundation formula that pays for the kids to go to school. And that if we're gonna discuss money coming out of the Ed fund over and above that, or money coming out of any other source over and above that, that should be taken up. If that's in fact the case, I would guess that would, we can come back to this, but I would prefer to see us as a baseline of saying the foundation formula is it and it's functioning. And if all of a sudden, every school that accepts tuition, whether public or private says this isn't working for us than address it, but I'd rather be gonna have the baseline premise be the foundation for what needs for each student. We'd rather have the default be the way

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: it is now and have the discussion once we know the ways. We could we could move on. Worthy topic of discussion for next year.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 24A on page 37 in the house version was a cut language clarifying the effective date for Section 24, and the Senate removed that language. Union School District Study Committee budgets. The Senate made no changes to the language passed by the House in Section 25. Rule making forms and reports to read our existing heading. I'm on page 38. The Senate made no changes to the small and spark schools rule making language passed by the House. The Senate made some changes to the language related to inter district budgeting rulemaking. The Senate added language to clarify that the inter district budgeting rules needed to be for the foundation formula and pushed the rulemaking deadline from 03/31/2027 to 12/31/2028. No change to Section 27A, which is an amendment to the language related to reserve fund guidance. Is that sections 5.7A?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's right.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And no change to section 27B, which is a giant report back to you all related to school transportation. No change to Section 27C, which is the development of the student profile form to collect weighting data from Pearson students. And no change to Section 27D, which is the length of school day rulemaking. Small and sparse schools, I will let John take over.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So section 29 is an update to one of the two prongs for determining what is a small school. The house has SX 73 have that the the narrow fault for the public small school. So it has fewer than a 100 pupils into your average enrollment, the proposal on the senate side is to do it based on grade side, average grade size. And so the small school prong there is has an average grade size of fewer than 12 students. There are technical things about the determination. You take the two year average enrollment and you divide it by the grades offered, but exclude pre K and the enrollment count also excludes pre K, but essentially it's switching from a total school population count with an average grade size count to determine what constitutes a small school by asking, is your average grade size fewer than 12 students?

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So I think I know the motivation for this change, but maybe it'd be good if you just went over it one more time.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So it was partially, I said this on the floor actually. Came in a large measure, at least the issue came from our visit to Canaan, where I think there's only there's something like 130 kids in the whole school, pre k to eight, and they wouldn't qualify a small school for this under this under under the house definition with a 100 students. And, really, they're a very tiny school. They're very tiny with very few kids in each class.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: They have so many grades.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And we did it more based on the number of kids on average per class. And so that a school like Keenan would be eligible for SUNY. And because you could also have a very you could have a k through three or four school that would have 25 kids in a class, whatever, they'd still be up on with that methods and quite work, but 20 kids in a class, and they'd still be considered a small school when it really is it ought to, think, count more for the number of kids per grade. So we did it that one. It's not a huge difference, but it makes some difference in some circumstances.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: And you're talking about the number 12. It was arbitrary. And and

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: and pick a number that's an ella the grade of which is arbitrary, but we wanted to stay in the range, but give a little bit more flexibility.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Is Kanean a k 12?

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Well, pre k. So

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: pre k so that would be a 144 kids if they all had 12 in a grade versus 100.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm on page 41. The House passed version in Section 29A included included an amendment 16 BSA Section 11, which is the master definition section for Title 16 to define certain terms included in the House language. The Senate does contain a Section 29A, but it's a different concept. So the Senate removed the House's Section 29A language. And then if you go down to page 42, replace it with a common language related to classified minimums and when noncompliance starts counting against you.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: They're such nice definitions. Why did they go away?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It seemed to us that they should It's more something that ought to be in rule so that they can be adjusted rather than set in statute.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Did you call for rulemaking on them?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No, actually. We could talk about that.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I know this sounds strange. I spent a lot of hours this year attempting to find out how long a school day is through many, many paths. And then it turned out that no one can answer or even begin to answer the question and tell someone to find a school day. And maybe this seems like a small thing, but it's very important in the context of pre K, actually, for us to know when to define a school day so that we can then define how long a school day is. And so I'm worried, while this might seem like a small detail, it becomes a much larger detail. But if we have to wait on something like rulemaking for school day, then we'll have to

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: wait

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: even longer to figure out how long the school day is. And it'll be like three years before we can ever figure out how much pre kindergarten class. Yeah, it's just the fear

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: is that this is so prescriptive.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Yeah, no, I get that.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The sentence section 29A is based off of language that was traveling in H931 when it left the house, so we had class size minimums. The house language as passed by the House in 09/31 said that noncompliance of class size minimums would not be held against a school until the state board rules were in effect on 07/01/2027, whichever came first. And the Senate is holding that same concept, noncompliance doesn't count against you, but the clock starts ticking when the foundation formula takes effect.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So I'd like to appear what's behind that. Because class size minimums was sort of one of the early things we were able to put into Act 73 that was really designed to help with cost containment.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: In the medium term. Yeah, problem

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: is that's permanent. And so there's a couple of things going on. We took some testimony We heard from some from some superintendents from schools saying, don't do this to us now as we're in the middle of trying to be involved in in merger negotiations and wonder we've got a lot of other things going on. Leave this one. Let the clock start ticking on this one once the foundation formula goes, it goes into effect. So that was part of the motivation. Just the other is, I guess, just the impact of rural Vermont as we listened, as we took a lot of testimony from a lot of schools and from districts, it was especially rural Vermont saying, you know, we're the cost containment is in the foundational formula. This really is once the foundation formula is in effect, this doesn't save any more money. It's a more potentially more efficient deployment of money. And the thinking is in part to the extent we can't let districts figure out how to do this on their own. The cost containment comes from the foundation formula. So we didn't we didn't repeal it remembering our discussions early on about not relitigating, but putting it out a little bit more in time, especially just to take some pressure off wage.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Oh, I think that part of this, not that we'd like to apply lots of pressure to our schools, but actually to provide some cost containment pressure in the interim while we wait for the foundation partner to come in. So that is

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: not just coming from the yield, but it's in fact coming from policy tools as well?

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: In the short run. In the Probably,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: it's been a that it's permanent. And I think we'd rather give more time and actually have time for the legislature to keep thinking about this. Let the dust settle. Let let's see how the mergers go. Who who works, who doesn't, where we where we end up and give districts a little bit of time to figure things out. That was our that's the rationale.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I mean, I I'll just put out there that, you know, one of the reasons to talk seriously about merging is because we have class size minimums on the books in order to meet those.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Really, I'd just add to that. The real, I think, merger discussions, the rationale for the merger discussions is gonna be the fact that the blue and how they should form another conductance. Oh,

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: think you would agree, But this is also a pretty significant one from testimony we've heard that people say, yeah, we need we need we need more people in our building if we're going be class size minimums at the half scale. Yeah. I don't wanna we'll let it

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: be litigating class size minimums, but which I'd like to

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: this is really about timing. So I know. I know what it is. Yeah.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then the last section the Senate added that I am responsible for is Section 29B at the very bottom of page 43, which amends Section eight twenty eight, which is the statute that tells a school district who they can or cannot pay tuition to. Act 73 added the requirement that an independent school that wants to accept public tuition needs to comply with class size minimums, and it referred to the entire Subdivision 9, which includes both the class size minimums themselves and the compliance and enforcement measures for public schools. And we've asked the State Board of Education to develop a separate process for enforcement independent schools. So this change is just clarifying that in order to comply with class size minimums, independent schools are only complying with Subdivision A of Subdivision 9, which are the class size minimums themselves, not the compliance or the enforcement process that's applicable to public schools. And then I think we're going to turn it over to Kirby.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Perhaps they have become known the Kirby sections.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: It totally, like, just sounds like yesterday.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not gonna be fun.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: I'm struggling probably, but

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Like, this is the middle part of the bill.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Yeah. It's the peanut butter and the jelly. It's the sandwich.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Thanks, everyone.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, I'm going to get serious now and start talking about Section 30. The first change we have relating to the legal assessment of districts about August. It is a more of a technical change made by the defendant. She used to clarify when it comes to Rad of Kiosk that the way that the language was written coming out of the house was suggested that possibly a tax payer, at the first level of appeal for more people, choose whether they want to skip the RAD appeals board and go straight to the Department of Taxes or to court. That would be a change in how it works currently and it's not part of taxes wanted. And I think the lack of clarity in the first place had to do with me not understanding quite exactly what the Department of Taxes wanted at that point. And we got some clarity about that. That is that, Chance.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: All right. Next

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: slide. This is section 36.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Pages actually go on. It's page 56.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In the house, this was a deleted section. Previously, it had been a section that created a new position of Department of Taxes for a hearing officer. The House decided to remove that and left a deleted section there. And then the Senate filled that deleted section back in with a change that's not hugely related to the rest of the bill, but it has to do with tax sales and recent legislative sessions, there were changes made to create some requirements for a town that have the ability to bring a tax sale. One of those was that the delinquency had to be at least $1,500 There are some parcels in the state that are very small and developed and would not reach unless after many, many years that kind of a tax debt. So there was a little bit of a safety valve included here in the Senate. So it's a provision saying that not withstanding that requirements, the $800 requirement does not apply provided the parcel has no dwelling capable of habitation on a year round basis and the parcel was not declared as part of a homestead.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So like a hypothetical scenario where this might apply might be like a tiny vacation community that perhaps was established many years ago? Yes. Okay.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Cool. Thanks.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's section 36. The next change is

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: section

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 53. If you remember, sections 37 through 52 are all just conforming changes. So in section 53, which is also on page 56 of your document, the house version had a moratorium on new mastery appraisals being ordered and being partnered to be conducted starting in 2028 and also in 2031. The part of taxes are testifying in Senate Finance that they would prefer that there be some flexibility around allowing municipalities to continue to do mastery appraisals during those years, even though they are transitioning to the RAD system and the Senate agreed. So subsection A of 53 was removed, subsection B was left alone and what was subsection B is now the entirety of section 53. Next change is in section 50 I.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I'm assuming I know why that all happened, but I guess I should ask.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: My recollection is that there was a concern that if we put a moratorium on them that none of the reappraisals would happen, it would be too large a gap. And so the Department didn't want to have appraisals to stop. So

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: six fifty five, in the House version, there was a change allowing taxpayer that goes and gets a municipal abatement, a mistake of the list driven, they would, or the municipality in those cases only would be allowed to be reimbursed by the state. The Department of Taxes had testified in the Senate that they were concerned that this could be used as a loophole workaround for the appeals process In the cases where you have a Board of Abatement that was very sympathetic to taxpayers and was using this a lot, the state wouldn't have any ability to do anything about it and none of the guardrails with the appeals process would exist. And the Senate agreed with that on the filing to the executive.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Did you all discuss any other ways of solving the underlying problem, which is that there could be longstanding mistakes that the municipality is not interested in abating or reimbursing because of Ed Funds liability?

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: We did not discuss an alternative that I can remember. I think we heard from the tax department, their logic seemed reasonable. But I think

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 56 is another one where the House had a sectional determined by the Senate. And in this case, it was adding to the statute on the powers of the director of EDR, a requirement that they issue guidance to ensure consistent and accurate appraisal of fair market value of properties and manufactured home parks and a home equity cooperative. The department testified that they are in the process of developing this guidance and that it was their preference for it not to be in statute as one of the 12 requirements of the PDR director. They suggested it was kind of overkill that there and set it by the screen and removed it. But the idea is the department will do this regardless of it being in this bill.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: And we originally took this out of the manufactured home bill and and put it into this bill. And I stopped tracking my manufactured home bill at some point. Is there anything about this I in there

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: don't think there's a comparable provision.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: You don't think so? Okay. I know that there are lots of things about Manny Betcha Homes in that bill, though.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: But they're going to do this report regardless. They just don't want it in statute? Yeah. Sense of when they're gonna give us the report?

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You know, it's not Well, it's it's guidance before the public.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Okay. Do you know when they'll issue the guidance? No. It sounded like

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: they were doing it right now, creating it. I just didn't want it to be a permanent duty of, like, the PVR director. Thanks.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In section 57, we have The effective date was changed. It is now 06/01/2026 to align with the accelerated timeline. In this case, this section has to do with listeners and assessors recording on the granules the number of quelling units for each parcel. This is used as one of the big ways to implement the tax classification system and

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: with an effective date

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of 2026, it means that the grammars are done. After that, would include this information. So for 2027 essentially, which the department will have to use that information to further the university to work at the point K seven. Section 58 does have some changes but there is there is the timeline change. It's now 07/01/2029. And then there are three other changes that were monthly.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Wait. You have this as sixonetwenty nine. Do you mean 07/01/2029?

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I do.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Is '7. Which is '7. All these sixes supposed to be '7? Yes. Sorry, Kirby. Didn't mean to make you blush.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Jumping into page 61, there's a change. There was some clarifying language added under the definition of long term learning that's used for purposes of tax classifications. There was an existing requirement that a long term rental would have to mean three things. The third one being that the commissioner, well, the health version was there is a bonafide by a lieutenant relationship between the parties. That was changed from the Senate version to align with the language that's used for the property transfer tax, which is very similar. So the same The is clause with

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: all of the property transfer tax? Yes. Yes.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the language now is the commissioner determines there's a bona fide by maintaining a relationship between the parties. To make this determination, the commissioner may consider whether the landlord and tenant are related parties, whether the landlord charges the tenant to unlock the rent, whether the landlord is an entity within business purpose other than avoidance tax, and any other factor of

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: the commissioner deems relevant. So this this is an attempt to close the property track or property transfer loophole.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: We closed that loophole in miscellaneous tax. Yes. And then we're mirroring that same. Yeah.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: We went down a bit.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We had

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a long discussion.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: We had a very long discussion.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I really appreciate where we ended up.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I just knew it was elsewhere and

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just wanted to make sure that Yeah.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's very similar in other two different stuff in this nice talk. Next page is on page 62. There was a new subdivision added under the definition of homestead, non homestead residential. And that is to say that a partial or partial with the dwelling units that is not part of a lodging establishment licensed under the health title. So this is just clarifying to ensure that even if there's maybe a unique setup somewhere that doesn't fall through the cracks that a licensed hotel or bed and breakfast will never be considered non homestead residential.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Thank you. Sort of found this look like a minute before this left the house. You. Closed it for you. Already found a loophole a minute before I left, to be clear.

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then the last change was the state section G on appeals was removed to in the senate version. This is to this is this is something that was not developed along the house side. It wasn't personal testimony and so sort of placeholder in the first place and the senate decided to just remove it and then when we get down to 58 A, we'll see what they want to do about it. So, the next section is section 58 A which was added by the senate. There's no similar provisions in the house. Once again, 07/01/2026, something to be effective date and it is a report back. It says on or before 12/15/2027, the Department of Taxes will submit recommended legislative language to the tax committees establishing the process for an agreed taxpayer to appeal a local or state termination affecting the tax classification of their property. What's that? So, this is not necessarily next session. Would you get this report back? It could be the twenty eighth session that this is dealt with which is still before tax culsifications take effect. So the department's going have a couple of years. I believe they've testified to the effect of they would like to

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have time to see more of

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: these pieces come together and decide how they would prefer this today. So the next chain, '58 and '59 is just the dates. Once again, that's twenty third even twenty twenty nine. For section 60, I think you get the number for January, correct? So 01/01/2029 became 01/01/2028. This is the section on the transition for the tax classification system. In calendar year, under the Senate version under calendar year 2028, the Department of Taxes will be sort of setting up a temporary form to collect information necessary to start tax classifications because the system won't be in effect yet, they'll need to do that set up a year ahead. And so this enables that and it has the department to use the information to determine and assign a tax classification for every parent's parcel and on or before October 1 of that year, we'll provide that information to JFA. Section 60. Before move on, I do want to note down before you just so that you're aware of some of the repairs. So for section 54, which is the RAD boundaries, if they pass, I want to make you aware that for section 54, that is a report from the Department of Taxes to set up RAD boundaries, the legal assessment district boundaries. But that particular section is contingent on the facilitator's final merger report being due. That's one of the contingencies that Don walked through earlier. So for that one, want you to be aware that that is the contingency that's used. For your information, that report is due 12/01/2028. The RAD system doesn't actually take over or change until 2031. So it was not changed by the Senate in the most recent amendment. So that timeline is quite a bit farther out than the rest of it now, but there's still at least one risk contingencies still set on some of the end reform contingencies. So the other one is section 60 here that we're on and we flagged that the contingency for this section is based on the foundation formula report. That is due 12/01/2026, so that will be much sooner than you'll notice now.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Can I ask a question?

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: don't think I realized there was a contingency on the RAD District boundaries. Can I just

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Yeah? So we spent quite a bit of time figuring out what the boundaries should be associated with. At some point, when the regional central districts were entirely separate from anything related to education many eons ago, we talked about doing it at county level. And then we sort of I'm sure you've all had these such conversations. And then thought it would make a lot of sense for it to be aligned with new school district boundaries. And so when it looked that school district boundaries would be determined by the legislature, we added a contingency so that that would be figured out then. And now we have sort of slowly evolved it from there. But the idea is that if RADS In addition to the fact that it's nice to have groupings that are aligned with each other for human navigation's sake, but the biggest piece is that if an entire school district, especially if a school district is larger, is all appraising at the same time, we could release, one, we would not have CLAs that are different across the school district, which would create a lot of tax That's the biggest reason that we were continuing to hold on to this idea of pairing the RAD and school district.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Okay. I mean, I think it makes sense to do that. Was just I'm not sure makes yeah, I'm not sure a contingency is necessary. I think tying them together makes sense. I'm

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: still searching 60. Part of the

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: great hope of reducing the CLA confusion. Yeah, that would be lovely. It's like a Moby Dickens. It's the like only Moby I that was a question. That you smiled at my job. Oh.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Try to go along with

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: my check-in-law. I can really. You can really? Okay, so the next change for the Senate is in section 63 on page 68. And this is a date change to move the timeline up. So the perspective repeal for the tax classification statutory changes, it was moved up from 07/01/2030 to 07/01/2029. So this particular special kind of contingency and perspective repeal is based on the legislature setting a new tax rate multiplier to be used for the reclassifications because this bill in Act 73 did not do that. There is no tax rate multiplier means taxing any of the classifications differently than the others. Systematically, that's not being done yet, but the idea is that it will be. So if there is not any legislation before 07/01/2029 to do that, to set the multipliers and make that decision how the classifications will be taxed differently, then the classification system gets appealed.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I think this is one of the contingencies that people tend to lose track of.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And

[Kirby Heaton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 64 is, actually as a team upgraded out of town, this was moved up with the rest of that timeline. I think that I have the house number wrong there because that would have been 2030 along with Section 58. Yeah, so the suicide is correct there. Is 2029, which I No, it's they didn't. Okay. And so those are the changes for test health patients. And I think our 540 has been whatever tricky to just see surroundings. Now I can turn it over to John.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks. So we're switching gears a little bit now to talk about scope construction. Happy to put it up on the screen if you would like, but also happy not to if it is. No difference on Section 65. Section 65 is just the school construction and some section. I think you may remember from this, there's no difference, but you'll remember it sets up that idea of leveraging $50,000,000 additional state bonding support for the state aid for school construction program. Section 66 is the section that essentially provides staffing for AOE school construction division. And the new changes that you see on, and I'm on pages seventy and seventy one of the side by side, the new changes that you see on the Senate side are to provide funding in FY '27, that's really the major change. And so you see that in subsection B, dollars 500,000 is appropriate in FY '27 from the general fund to AOE for those positions. And the idea is that they would come back as part of its budget request in FY '28 for permanent funding for those positions. I think that that intent is aligned with the houses contract, the real difference is just some stylistic differences, but really that 500 ks appropriation to get FY '27 funding to these positions to get the program rolling. Section 66 a is a new section added by the senate.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I'll just flag it. I think there's sort of an outstanding question about whether the budget conferees would prefer that this lives here or lives there. Yeah. I think it might end up in both, but They hate that. Oh, well,

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: I I don't know.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: It's here now. I'm flagging it just so I don't forget to flag it.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Long as we don't accidentally appropriate $1,000,000.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Right, that's true. It is of the $1,500,000 in the Senate set aside for education.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 66 A is another appropriation. This is newly added by the Senate. This is 900,000 general fund to the school construction ed special fund that goes effective this summer. And it's an FY '27 for the facilities master planning grant program. It is not for the full breadth of that program that is exclusively available to SUs for the development of master plans as per the study committee process. So 900 ks for master planning to aid the merger process. Section 67 is rulemaking from AOE on full construction. The changes push back the due date from 03/31/2027, 03/01/2028. So an extension there to add some specificity to the directives to AOE. So prioritization of bonus incentives that reward school districts for consolidating school governance structures could be through this study process or by other voluntary means. Improving access for public school students to excellent educational opportunities, including CTE shared specialized services for high needs students and improved comprehensive curricular offerings. Both of those changes are attempts, think in the Senate to be consistent with what is in subdivision one on the house side, just with added specificity, the new directive that you have on the Senate side is rewarding school districts for remediating or eliminating health and safety issues. And of course, the basic thing I would note here is that these are the directives that are given to AOE, but they have a broad grant of ranking authority. So they may build out other prioritization bonus incentives, whether you include them here or not. For instance, they might have done bonus incentives related to health and safety issues, but this makes clear that this is something the general cares about and they should choose. Section 68 is the advisory board report on construction opportunities. And on the house side, it was this general identify opportunities, provide a full sighting study, analyze compatibility of the different configurations of all opportunities identified. The Senate has narrowed this down a bit to say, identify three to five feasible opportunities for the construction and renovation of regional high schools. And they have to call out to that same line we just talked about. In place of a full citing study, they say preliminary citing study and they strike the requirement for analyzing configuration. The way I would describe the different positions are the house is asking for like a broad set of, as I read the language, all kinds of opportunities you could have, different configurations. And the Senate is saying three to five opportunities with a more limited setting study offered, but that would still have the cost location of other tractors relevant.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: I wanna own that in the house, whenever we had casual conversations about this, people would always say three to five, and I would always ask, why three to five? And no one had an answer. Do you have

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: an answer of why three to five? One of the goals with this was to reduce the scope of the things we were asking this largely volunteer committee And to so I think we got the three to five because you guys had mentioned it all the time. And so since you were talking about it, we're like, Okay, three to five, and wanting to make it more feasible for this.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: It may also match the recommendations of the redistricting task force opportunities for consolidation. Oh, possibly that's where you all got the three

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: to five. John, if by some chance they were doing their work and there was a sixth that just made so much sense, would they still be able to add that? Yes. Thanks.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So that's the advisory board report. Section 68A is a new provision, a new intent language added by the Senate. This is essentially language that just says, don't hang your hats on the effective date for the state program. There's still pending decisions need to resolve funding and operationalization of the AOE school construction division before any A is gonna be offered under the program, state of school construction program. Sections 69 through 71 are the same in both chambers and those relate to small issues that advisory board AOE responsibilities that are kind of conforming changes for a limit made elsewhere in the bill and in the policy section, which expresses again that vision to leverage additional safeguarding support. Section 72 is the application section for the state aid for school construction program, your preliminary final application for construction aid. This is the big for school construction aid section. And the first change you're gonna see is on page 75 of the side by side. The Senate took a different approach to solving this issue of there's an eligibility condition for state aid that requires achieving the level of proficiency in district quality standards for the facilities management. The house tried to solve a potential sequencing problem related to new districts. And remember the Senate answered the question. I think the thinking here was that it's a self assessment in the first instance. So why not just have folks make more of an effort than just stating that they're doing it? Take some steps to demonstrate proficiency, which would apply equally to both old and new districts. Also added on the Senate side, a new eligibility condition. This is at the bottom of page 75, Romanette six. And this is tied to another bill that has traveled through the Ed committees relating to PCBs. This matches exactly that language. It basically says, if you have an old facility constructed or renovated pre-nineteen eighty, The applicant needs to have completed indoor air quality testing for PCBs. I'd also note that part of the eligibility conditions in any event is related to master planning that has to consider environmental contaminants in the first instance. So it's possible that that was going to be captured anyway, but this makes it better. That's a very difficult question. Possibly duplicative. Okay.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Yeah. I mean, I think we wanted to make sure that school buildings that were requesting aid had done the PCB testing. So we were not putting state money or local money for that matter into a building that really needed to have PCBs remediated as part of the renovations.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So this similar language is about to pass in H542 as well. I don't know if there's an issue,

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: but living in two different places. I think if it passes there, makes sense to have it here so that you're insured one doesn't strip it of the other, but I think we do have a process through our statutory revision. True. On page 76, you're gonna see highlighting on the Senate side that it's existing law. I think folks are familiar with this, but there was a potential sequencing issue with awarding state aid and a form of bonding support. You wouldn't know what to bond locally until you received your state aid package. And talking with the senators, the thing that came out is that the actual authorization for indebtedness for school construction is merely an authorization and not the actual issuance of any debt. So you can maintain the sequencing that's envisioned in ACT 73 as in current law for these sections. And so the Senate position just steps to existing language because there is no actual sequencing issue and my apologies for creating a larger problem. Happy resolution. Thanks. And it did lead to something on page 77, which is clarifying, which is that the sequencing solution on the Senate side, this is at the final application stage, at which point you would have of course already have received that bond authorization because you would have received that before preliminary, clarifies that the district shall not issue any bond until the secretary notifies the district of its state bond support. So that provides some helpful language related to what the district should wait to do before taking any next steps. Okay, there are some substantive changes at the bottom of page 77.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: And can I jump into this? I have read this a couple of times. For whatever reason, my brain is having trouble processing all of your percentage changes. And I just wonder if, John, we could basically put together a comparison of the two capital stacks for us. Okay. That would really help my head. Thank you.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: I can just tell you briefly that we were trying to make them both 75% so that if it's legacy debt or new debt, most you could get was 75% of state aid to cover them. That wouldn't be an advantage or disadvantage for either group of school districts.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So I think the difference between the two from our perspective that I would love to hear how you all got to this on, I think that with legacy debt passed under sort of a previous voted construct, and the voters of that community didn't necessarily consent to supplemental district spending. Under the foundation formula, they would likely need to engage in supplemental district spending to cover that difference. And so there could be a scenario where under future bonding or debt, there couldn't be a scenario where they did not approve supplemental district spending but passed a bond. Under an existing legacy debt scenario, there could be that scenario. And then are they then in a position where they have to default on their bond? Are they in a position where they're digging into the foundation formula that wasn't designed for that, for their bond? And so that's why we constructed the two differently. I understand why you would make them similar, but I think we need to reconcile that scenario at some point.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Yeah. I mean, that's a fair question. I think the assumption is the district will ask for their voters to approve supplemental district spending and say, this is for a bond you've already approved, and we need to pay the you had approved it under the previous methodology, and now we just need you to reapprove it under this one.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: And I suppose foresee the scenario where that does not work.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Voters say no. We're not doing it. Yes. No. Yeah.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Let it maybe flag that for a future in combo.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks. So we are looking at the final page that you said was for entering the award construction aid. The first way to draw between the possible aid packages under the House Incentive Proposals. Under the House, you have an aid range of 50 to 95%, that's 50% base, additional 45% both, if you have a potential 95% if you have that's not able to. On the sentence side, the same coverage of bonus incentives provided we need 45%, but the base amount is lowered to 30. And so instead of 50 to 95, you have a range of 30 to 75% available. But there's another big difference between the two. On the house side, the bonus incentives are available to any districts that go through the full application process and have met all the conditions. They've met it through eligibility, they've received priority points, they've been placed on the list, they've received bonus incentives, got a final approval, authorized for bond, etcetera. On the Senate side, if you see the new highlighted language at the very bottom that says projects for which the applicant is a consolidated school district are eligible for additional bonus incentives to fund up to an additional 45%. So what this means is if you are not a consolidated school district and I'll come to what that is in just a second, you're only eligible to receive the base amount under the state aid program meaning pay consent. So only if you are a consolidated school district, could you get that additional 45% to take you up to 75% total coverage. Consolidated school district, which we'll come through in just a second, is essentially a check on whether you follow the merger process under this bill or if you meet a minimum people panel, think it's 2,000 ADM. So the consolidated school district is the kind of a focus on scale. Did you merge in the ways envisioned or did you meet a minimum pupil count? Before we get to that definition, I think I just explained, but on page 78, we have a slight change to the CDEC recommendation for state bond and support. On the house side, the request is for the treasurer to make this recommendation in consultation with CDEC And on the Senate side, it's an annual recommendation from CDEC itself recommend going to the treasurer. Don't know that that's that substantive change, but there it is.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Just to note, John, and I can show you in the bill, There's another instance where we call it out, and we didn't make the change.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We Is

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it in the

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: intent section? It may be in the intent section. I highlighted it when I was on the floor, but just to note it so we

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: can And I'll take this moment to say, all of the language process changes that you've all made for school district construction is very appreciated. Thank you for all the diligence.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You'll see here the definition of consolidated school district. It's as we've just discussed, it's that school district results from a merger identified as advisable in the final recommendations under section 13 B H nine fifty five or a school district with an average daily membership of at least 2,000 students. Section 73, there's no difference. This is your appeal to deferred maintenance prohibition on the aid. Section 74 is your legacy debt aid. This is kind of a conversation you were just having. One of the big differences is when these go effective. House, that's effective July 1. Senate, that's continually effective with the foundation formula. I I think that actually should be 2029 for FY '30. And there are a few differences. One is the callback to something that Beth had mentioned earlier that bad faith participant language from the facilitated report section 15. The House position, as I'll call it, I don't think it's the right, it's a simple position to describe 100% coverage with legacy debt A at a particular date. That's what it is. The Senate position throws in some qualifiers at different points. One is the school district's eligible. School districts shall be eligible to receive this aid only if the district is not identified as a back page participant in that facilitator report. So the position is default, you're kicked in for legacy debt aid, but if you are identified in this report as a bad faith participant, you would be kicked out. Other pieces to note, instead of 100% coverage, you have 75% coverage. And instead of it being debt that is incurred as of December 31, related to facility construction renovation, it is debt that is approved by the province of the district related to the same pieces of school construction and for which school construction has begun as of that same date.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: But what's the date again?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: End of twenty twenty five, December 31. Okay.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: Could I just back up to page 78 and the definition of consolidated school district? I think I know the answer to this, but I just wanna confirm. And I think both versions of the map, there are areas that are at scale and aren't being asked to be part of a merger study committee. And I assume that they would still be captured under this definition of consolidated school district.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Yes, I believe they are. And we can definitely double check, but that's the intent is that the 2,000 is both the goal for the merger project where we landed in this, actually, on both sides, I think we're at 2,000. And so that if a district is already at that scale, then they would be considered consolidated and could qualify.

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: That file George, we have a run I

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: know where it is.

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 12/31/2025, the date only for

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We will be back.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, yes. So there's no one who's like

[Representative Emily Kornheiser (Brattleboro)]: So just for instructions for our committee assistant. So we'll just

[James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. We'll we just have to

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: go