Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: We're live.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: So as Beth is coming up, just a couple of things to say. We appreciate your response or your offer of 1.1 and found it to be a good fit to move things along. We accepted what you have what you said about the map, your changes, we accepted, except we moved Mill River back up into Rutland. What's that? He moved Mill River, as you and I discussed.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No, the SEM? Yeah. Whole SEM, all the towns, everything. Or just The four it's a four town SEM. Who's in that? Tidymouth. Whatever was next to Tidymouth. Smith?

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: No.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: No. Let's see here. No. Yeah. Think the other

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, we can look at

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: can can look at it. Yeah. Then we just did some we just made some language changes to your suggestions. Beth to treat this, but

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Patient's got paper.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: We wanted to make sure as we

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Seth, I'm sorry. My hearing seems be bathing throughout the day. Don't know what

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: that No, people say that

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm a partner. It's not just you. I need an Anne to speak up earlier.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Okay. And it is me. I don't speak loudly. Okay. So we talked about the map, and we'll take a look at that in particular. And then if you go to page So page one, we didn't change anything, as you can see, because there's no yellow highlighting.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: No, no, we did actually. There it is. This is Yeah.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Didn't get highlighted, okay. So instead of the little I, little I on page eight, I mean, line eight.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I have no idea where we are.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Page one, line eight.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: There's no highlighting.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: It should be highlighted. Okay.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Little ii?

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Yes, yes. And we wanted to make it clear. So we were thinking about the examples of districts on the border, two into two, and they really wanna be over in the other one. And this is just making clear of them, signal to them that they can do that. They don't have to ask the facilitator's permission. If that's where they want to go, they can go. And that relates to the email, for instance, that we just got from

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: about And

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: then

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I think we should bring down I think we should just end the whole conference. Do

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: you guys feel that?

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know. We have to go And?

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: Bennington. Oh,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I was trying

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: to match her. With

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: regard to the average class size, what about average class size? Class size. So, we wanted to make sure that we're not just gonna end up with all general classes.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm sorry, didn't we do this already? This is a repetition of what's in Act 73 for exceptions. Thank you. There's more to it. Okay, great. Sorry. So

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: we repeated what's in there for the average class size in this definition section. But then we added, again, wanted to make sure that there's room for more, we added C, specialized or targeted academic opportunities. So that those would not be countered against.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I add a little bit? So the A and B are already included in Act 73 as exceptions to the class size. The class sizes don't apply to those. And what we were trying to come up with was to address some concerns about seminar courses that may be intended to be small or specialized classes that may be offered for short time or that are not part of the regular curriculum, but maybe for lack of a better word, seminars. But we didn't feel like that was exactly what it is. So specialized or targeted academic opportunities. And we came to that language by looking at what's already in here for special ed, which is Supplemental or targeted. Supplemental or targeted academic intervention. And this is not intervention per se, but specialized opportunities for students. I think there was a concern that we didn't want to exclude the possibility of a school district doing a special class that maybe is for example, in our area, Virgin's high school offers German. And it's a pretty specialized class and it's fairly small. And we didn't want them to have to cancel their German classes because of it. So that's what this is trying to cover. And if you have a better idea of how to word it, but this is what we came up with to try to get at that idea. Is that fair?

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Yes. Okay. Yeah. And then the other parts are really just moving the districts. And I do want to think about, and I hadn't thought about the With the MRR to the Mill River, but we have tried not to break up districts. Okay.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Move all of that. Was it Was it up or was it down?

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: Can't remember.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Up. Up until the couple. Because they'll stop in the loop.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm sorry. Can we backtrack just for a second? Are you accepting the language that we gave you on the definitions? Yes. That have something on page three? The definitions I guess you can jump to page four, right? Yes. The definitions are your language on definitions. But we didn't have Beth add the specific language that you suggested on definitions. But yes. Yes.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Great. This

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: was just our proposal of other things. But yes, we were And the class size language that you have in here

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: is, I'm assuming, saying we're okay with the current schedule of class size minimums coming in, but we'd like this language added to it? Yeah. Well, yeah,

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: we're really nervous. But, yes, if we're defining minimum class size this way, but we're not, then we're just defining average class size this way.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Act 73 uses the term

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: average class size. Is that right?

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: St. James, Office of Legislative Advil. What's the question?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Act 73, when it talks about class size, it use average class sizes? I'm pretty sure.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: When we're talking about Act 73, we're actually talking about Section 165. Subdivision A9 reads, this is what you have to do to comply with education quality standards. The school complies with the average class size and minimum standards. And then it says, provided, however, that when class size and minimum apply to content areas, an individual class may be smaller than the minimum average. So, for example, foreign language. It would be all of the classes for your foreign languages. So, if your German class was just two kids, it wouldn't necessarily mean you'd have that German class unless for some reason that bumped the average down so much that it took you below the class size average in that content area.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I don't think we need to go any further. I think my question was more the proposal you have in front of us for letter C, in what context is that being offered, guess I should ask?

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: What do you mean?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, was no difference in our languages about class sizes. Don't have to do with definitions, or we class size minimums.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I think Class size minimums. Class minimums. Yes. This is to try to allay some concerns about the implementation of those in the interim period. I think And we'll

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: yeah. So the class size minimum delay is out, and this is in.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Is that what the levels are? Yeah. That's a yeah. If we have if we're not forcing everybody into just general classes. Yeah. That's what this is about.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: I was trying to broaden. So that we're feeling more comfortable about it going and staying in effect now if this language has been Which they provide to the exceptions. Is that fair to say? Yeah. I know you're still yeah. Don't know that you ever got a paper copy of your proposal or if I have placed it in all of the many papers I have had. I frankly have absolutely no idea if someone's dirty.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Our proposal is a short four pager.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, it is their address. I have three random in here. Let's see. I have one here. You got 1.1?

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Yep, 2.1.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, this is not. This is our proposal. Oh, no, this is a house for me. Does this have Yes. Sorry, apologies. This is theirs. That's St. James 104 Pm. Is that right? Yes. That was a lot of hours.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: All right. So then the rest of this is good with you. And yours is the counter to that. So I think it's not addressed.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: It's not really a counter. It's a combo. I think we're offering this to combine with yours. Okay. So you're accepting things so you're accepting the terms once you send them the Yes,

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: in your language about the tuition going into effect. Okay. You. Those are effective with a lot

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: of people language about And

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: we're So I think then we need to confer

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, we should probably confer. But I did ask Ledge Council to add in something that we had talked a little bit informally yesterday about, very simple, about when the final reports of the merger committees is complete, that report be transmitted to everybody at the same time.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Right.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Holding on to all of them.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: That's a good right. Thank you for remembering that. There are a couple other miscellaneous things construction section that we haven't gone over. Don't know if John has that draft ready that No, John does not have that draft ready. I think John's confused about what draft we have.

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: But we can probably talk through them if you wanted to talk to them.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Sure. And then we could have that to talk about and add to. Are you gonna What's timing? We're waiting for editing. Okay. Oh, the language about if a school board member is appointed to a merger committee and loses their seat on a school board That would be great if we said that. Yeah, we want to add that.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Oh, and then that school board would get to appoint the next

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: That they would have to appoint a replacement school board member, that you have to be on a school board to be on a merger committee. Okay. Yeah. Is that what we want?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I you know, and this question did somebody brought it up to me as well because it's like, you got you're losing longevity or whatever. And I'm just like, oh, you could be a school board member or designee. And I'm like,

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: it's really That's really complicated.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, it should be a school board member, I think, because they're actually elected and can be unelected if they're not doing a good job. Yes. Right? Yeah. Or whatever.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: And then, yeah.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: If we want to talk about the wards pro Dober.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Kind of did. Is that part of it? Think the wards pro Dober.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I think our Did

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: incorporate it?

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, it didn't incorporate it, but it says that that school board could vote and move over with

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Oh, so we don't want to change it just so it's automatically layered? That's what they would No.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Long as they can do it. Yeah. Yeah.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: All right. You guys wanted to confer, and I'm going to

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We can talk through. Okay. Can talk it through. We can talk through right now. Sorry.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Don't have a break. Do want to talk about, John? Yeah.

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: I think so. But if you want

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Maybe we should take a minute so I can talk to John. Okay. So we'll do the Google. Okay. We're gonna have a quick We're have We're have a quick on one. Sorry, guys. We're gonna have a mute up. Too many things going on at the same time. Okay. Can you meet?

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Muted. We are live and unmuted now.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. Do you wanna do your thing? Say something, and then I'll take us through these? Or I can

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Through

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: the The things that John has drafted. Yeah.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And add one thing, to bring us back to class size minimums. In sort of the shuffling around, there was language originally in the miscellaneous education bill about delaying class size minimum sort of clock ticking until rule making was completed.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: But that's what you were talking about. And

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: if nobody has any objections, I've asked Beth to put that back in.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Okay. It's funny because Seth was telling me that sounds like, I don't remember this at all. It was all

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: in between our two teams. Okay.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Great. Awesome. Perfect. Good middle ground there. Okay. School construction, if anybody wants to follow on, starting on page 70 of the side by side, these are the changes that I have asked John to make, he's drafting them. So I'm walking through them. On page 71, section 66A, changing the appropriation from $900,000 to $800,000 for the school construction aid special fund for the Facilities Master Plan grant program. Was that a sarcastic word? No, it's not. It's we shouldn't change any of the numbers in here. I was asked to Oh, Thank you. Great. Thank you. It's budget. Oh my god. Thank you. We are changing this. Yes. They're all on board. They came to me and asked me if we could take $100,000 to And get a I said yes. Is that in the table that I approved earlier today? I think we're and jumped up and down. Thank you. Okay. Sorry, panicked. No. No, you're Okay. Then if we flip to page 79, this is the legacy debt aid section. Is Section 79 or page 70? Page 79, section 74. Thank you. Legacy debt aid. There will be added section about an appeal to the Secretary of Education about a facilitator identifying a bad faith participant. Thank you. The appeal, and it's a May appeal, to the Secretary by 02/15/2029. So that would be The facilitator report is due in December 2028. So they would have until February 15 to appeal, and then the secretary would have until 05/15/2029 to make a determination. Then In forty five days? I don't know. It's just months and middles and 15s.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You said February to May, right?

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: To the first one, said December 2028. It's December 1 and then February 15. February 15. February 15. Okay. It was mainly because there are holidays in there and there's lots of stuff happening. Okay. But we need the That's more than seventy five days. Thank you. It's a lot of time. Okay. Good. Well, we need the determination made by July 1. So we needed to have dates in there so that nobody took too long. Yep. And there would be language that says that the appeal, the secretary's decision is final, and there's no appeal after that. And that the secretary would be required to create policies surrounding how it's done so that there would be some guidelines about it. And then also changing this date. Yes. The date would go to 12/31/2024. Thank you. Okay. And then in terms of the legacy debt aid, the 25%, what John and I thought was the most elegant way of doing it is just changing the definition of supplemental district spending to include the 25% of legacy debt that is not covered by state aid. And it would just change the definition. It would be that way from the very beginning. There would be no vote. Everybody knows that that's the definition. The debt has already been approved by voters in a previous vote years before. So we don't want to risk the possibility of no vote, but it would just be included in the definition. And it would reference this section, Legacy Debt Aid. Thank you. Okay? And then there are two cleanups. One is there was a study committee reference that needs to be changed to merger committee. And then there was a reference to the treasurer and debt authorization. And we need to change oh, that's on page No, it's not. Anyway, I can't remember where it is, but it's changing it to CDAC, which was what was requested by the administration. And also the way of progressing to test. So those were the changes. And I don't know if I missed anything, John.

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: Give Give me one minute. I can put the Word doc that has these things.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. I don't have one of these servants. Are there any left? Does that leave anything else? Do we have any other open issues from there? Is there any next round? Maybe

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: ask the team if are anything that isn't clear.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Did we lose any details, Tina? I don't think that we'll definitely obviously cancel. I don't think that we'll be able to give you a final answer on that until we actually put something together for a checklist. But you don't have anything in your top of your list right now? I literally don't have any in my headrest. Okay. Great. Okay. Thank you. I think then all that's left is the

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, first of all, it's been, I would call, very collaborative. And great. We remain, as I think many folks believe, of the accelerated timing of adding a year, picking off a year from the time to make this process happen. But I say that understanding the political, sometimes there are political necessities, and we're willing to accept that. And also understanding that this is a multi year iterative process that will always be needed to worked on as we go through. But I think we've got ourselves in a full agreement here, and I'm really glad that we were able to put it together without much else besides just good collaborative talk.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. It's a lot of love.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: All of you. Thank you.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So probably should have a nice little shake on it, then we can come back and sign.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: And we need to go through a draft. Don't want to shake on it until we have a draft.

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: So

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: we can go off, Daphne.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: We want John to show us that Word document just for

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Oh, he's ready. Oh, okay. Not not off. Okay.

[Daphne (Webcast Host/Moderator)]: Hello again. I am Daphne with the Apple split set account. Just

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: a second.

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: Make sure I got this right. Kinda hectic.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Okay.

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: So these will obviously be renumbered. They'll be part of a full package, but just for purposes of doing the full construction language. Section 66 A, which is your facility's master plan grant program, this replaces that 900,000 appropriation with the $800,000 appropriation. Thanks for

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: doing that.

[John (Legislative Counsel)]: Leads up the reference from study committee to merger committee. Section 68A is the intent language that sets up the general assembly's intent not to provide aid until a number of conditions have been resolved. One of those conditions is to report on state bonding support. Previously that was offered by the treasurer, now for conformity it's offered by CDEC. The legacy data aid piece, this is probably the most substantive one to talk about here. You have a cleanup from study committee to merger committee. We have the change to 12/31/2024 to align with the excess spending exemption that's been talked about, which is technically worded differently, but the dates perfectly aligned. The new pieces are here on page two, and you see that on or before 02/15/2029, a school district that is identified as a bad faith participant in that facilitator report may appeal the facilitators determination to the secretary of education in order to receive aid under this section. And then on or before 05/15/2029, the secretary of education shall determine whether each school district that submitted an appeal shall receive aid under the section. That determination will be final, not subject to appeal. And the secretary shall develop written policies to implement the appeals process under this subsection. I think the dates are chosen to ensure that this information is out there sufficiently in advance of the foundation formula rollout and to provide the secretary more time to review any appeals, assuming the school districts will have every incentive to submit this appeal as soon as they can, if any school district is subject to this determination. The last instance is the amendment to the definition of supplemental district spending. It's the existing law or in the future, of the interest spending is that spending that voters approved in excess of BEP for the fiscal year. But now it will be plus the annual debt service costs on any legacy school construction debt, not covered by legacy debt aid pursuant to 16 BSA 4,033. So we have a cross reference to the legacy debt aid statute. The hope is that that tie in means you can leave this term legacy school construction debt without further definition. But if you wanted to substitute the, plough the annual debt service cost on any school construction debt that exists as of such and such date, you could do that. But I think this is the tie, it's your legacy debt aid. Your legacy debt is not covered through the legacy debt aid provisions. And the advantage of this, as you guys have already discussed, is that it pulls it in through the math. So it doesn't subject it to any further authorization. And

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: this would also cover if there is a bad faith factor and they get no aid, all of their debt service would have to be done on their supplemental district spending. Thank you. Yeah. And that's it. I think I got everything. Great. Thank you. So we're all just going whiter about until editing.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: So one more one more thing just to I'm sorry. Yeah. Just to note that he had agreed on this almost, I think, but Beth forgot to put in this this draft that the fee study goes adheres to the foundational middle.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Absolutely. Just in the pewter here.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Yep. And she's doing it now. She hasn't. Thank you.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I also have one more. I was just thinking about it, I couldn't remember if we had done it in some of the findings with the numbers. Oh,

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: the website. Let's take that finding out. I think it's two findings actually.

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: Yeah, it was two.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, was it two? Let's take them out. I can't verify those numbers. I'm only aware

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: of one. Okay,

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: was one, two numbers in it. Okay. Yep. Yep.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Number four is fine.

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Just pick it up. K. Thank you. Okay. So just to, like, traffic control, we're gonna mill about. This is going to drafting they're drafting and editing. Yield is in editing. So if you can't find me, it's probably because we're over there. Yeah. Getting close on that one.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And so then we'll just await Daphne's official emails saying, come on back. Does that sound good?

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Can you hang on to it?

[Unknown Legislator (Conferee)]: And we will be knowing about it and easy to find. Thank

[Beth St. James (Legislative Counsel)]: you.