Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: We have lot. This is Dennis. And

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Oh, it's supposed to

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: be Wait. Well And committee, we received the education bill this morning. The out report. We're gonna get Senator Baumgartz who's going to give us a briefing. So, move seventwenty seven to the end of the day so that we can do this, and then Senator Barker has been actually get to the education for the food center.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Yeah, so I assume that can be a little bit of walk for the anxiety.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: She has not been invited, but we can invite her.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: You didn't invite her?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, don't invite anyone to this committee, but I can.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Would you invite Beth? This is a moving target. Okay. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I just heard an kind of an introduction. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: So I think we got the bill, which came as it came from the house. So we know that said it and has changes that they've made or tried to make to it. So that would have you just let us know what you're talking about. Yes. And where where's Senate Edge is going? So so for the record, Seth Bongard's chair of

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: the Southern Education Committee. So what we did with is that we largely stayed with the house construct. The house construct of the legislature defining CSO boundaries and setting up a system for the one existing CSO to hire facilitators within the new CSOs and have those facilitators help identify areas within each of those CSOs come to the table and have discussions around mergers. And we say that one of the fundamentals of the house construct, which is that mergers are voluntary, and thinking that as the foundation formula looms and as people are at the table together, the districts are going to see in a lot of instances that it's going to make sense for the diversion. Think the more testimony we took over on the more it became apparent to us than one of other, one of

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: them became apparent, but one of

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: them is that there's a lot of low hanging fruit from merchants that are pretty obvious, pretty logical, and hopefully those districts will do that, and that will help the foundation, The foundation probably will get better on those districts that were at times. We heard, we heard, and we heard from surprisingly, I think if you go all the way back to November and December, we've heard from hundreds of witnesses, including kids panels, student panels, and teacher panels. We've really tried to go keep on the usual people you hear from in these situations. We really try to draw people in from the field, individual teachers, principals, individual superintendents. Haven't heard from every superintendent. We've heard from a lot of superintendents. And there's a it's very clear that people are ready to change. Mhmm. It's clear from talking to both everything from principals to superintendents and people recognize that there's the need to step into the next chapter of how we educate kids more modern. The other thing I'll just say, and you all know this, but one thing that really became also incredibly clear is how much people in those systems care about kids and the hard work, the challenges and the way that almost all of our schools probably not by definition but in fact are community schools. They are doing, I don't know, doing god's work and helping kids and families doing things that forty years ago didn't used to happen. It was just not that they were in same boat that they are now in the same way. And a lot of it is ad hoc, but it's all really quite important. I don't know, I'm sad to say that because it came sort of clear to all of us. So a couple of key things that we did is we took a lot of testimony about the map that we had been working on and the boundaries and a lot of investments over time. We twice put out people who work through the Superintendent's Association and the School Boards Association. Anybody who wanted to comment about the map to do so, people came in. And so we changed out the house maps for the maps that we produce as the focus and study groupings and then slight adjustments on the C cell boundaries to fit those masks. Relatively speaking though, you didn't really look at it closely, you think our C cell map was the same as the house C cell map. So it's largely just the same. The other, we made it easy to adjust CECL boundaries so that because districts can merge across CECL lines and even with a cross supervisor, we utilize the data ability of the justices of boundaries, you'll see that one, that does a long review of the interview. And the other key thing I think I'd just say is that we, at the end of the bill, the area that, if you think about the bill as the first twenty nine secondtions of the House of Education went sort of territory did our work there. Then we had the quirky sections in the middle that are really here and then there's sort of joint area, joint jurisdiction around school construction. And the only thing of substance, we might have made a couple of the truths, but the only thing of real substance we did on the school construction section was to take out the section that the House had put in about paying off existing debt and their theory their flows just correctly didn't feel there and also that a lot of areas of the state that don't have that bonded indebtedness had maintenance, deferred maintenance problems. And so, anyway, our take was that level would have to code analysis. We know that there's actually some work being done here that it's not actually sounds like it might have thought of us, but that's what we did as a starting point. So if you were to, from our perspective, we did not be in committee because of the issue of whether or not to have some kind of a forced merger at the end, in the end ended up splitting three to three and that the real reason why. But otherwise I think the large measure of this bill represents the work, the first twenty nine secondtions represents the work of the Senate Education Committee. Would be great if you would do what I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: think is going to happen since it becomes that being open what she wanted. Okay. The one divisive point was whether or not the Tory is the end.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Yeah. I wouldn't I don't wanna I wouldn't generally so much. Everybody's thinking, but I think that's that's sorry. That was the that was the issue. And frankly, we just didn't hear a lot of support. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I'm hoping that Beth is supposed to be she's on her way. My proposal committee is because we are running out of time, and we've got four more bills today that we just amend the bill with the house version, a senate version as opposed to the house, and then go forward from there. Because I think I know we've probably done some changes for you on our joint. Not what? Right. But not much. Not what.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: We can focus on that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: The big issue so we can put on all the work you've done on ceases and then we'll look at that and use that as our basis and then go forward if that would work.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: We did some, I just want to mention, it's not firm, but we tried to land a little bit of groundwork for CTE education and really, you know, I think everybody recognizes that, I'll say everybody, but everybody recognizes that every child can want to have access to CTE, want to have real access. It's a complicated issue right now with product structure. We just try to lay some groundwork for that as if you I tend to think about what we're doing as you did one step last year, another step this year building on it and building on it for next year, probably to set up the notion of mutual high schools and CDs The next chapter that we have to figure out. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: So we'll keep working on that. Yeah. Yes. And bring it down and driven up the vehicle. We'll take a look at that one too. We will go back to our very. Okay. Alright. That's can you come up and just kind of walk us through what the House has done and then it was all.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm thinking, the legislative council, you'd like me to walk you through what the House has done or what senator Bond does?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Senator Bond does. Okay. Well,

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just sent Charlotte a side by side. Okay. It's Let's see if it's ready. It's it's on our website. Okay. Great. Yeah. And I'm just finding it to Zoom. And I just put this together this morning. So the formatting may be off, etcetera, but I figured it was better than nothing.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I think we're all working like that today. Things are moving quicker. Glad we're all the same. Same. This session. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That okay?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Looks good.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Side by side? Okay. Yep. So this is the side by side of nine fifty five. It passed by the house first, the most recent draft of Senate Education's work. I may have the draft number wrong, this is what I understand to be their last, last,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: last work day.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hand column is the House, right hand column is the Senate. I've put effective dates in each section at the top in blue. I can already tell you that I italicized some and didn't have a chance to italicize others, so that will drive me crazy. That's the last time I'll mention it. And yellow represents differences or language that is different in the two bodies. Again, I just threw this together, so there may be some places where it's off, but we will, I think we'll work through it together. First change here is to the legislative intent section. What I have done in order to not make this hundreds of pages, is if there was no difference, I did not include it, and you will see a signifier that just says no different. So, for the legislative intent section, section one, Senate Education added a whole bunch of findings and kept the House's legislative intent. They changed some words in the first subsection here, so to ensure each student is provided substantially equal opportunities for an excellent education versus substantially equal educational opportunities. And they've added a third piece of legislative intent to create a statewide education system that supports local elementary schools, central middle schools, and comprehensive regional high schools that provide each student with universal access to CTE.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Okay.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In the interest of time, I suggest we skip over the findings, but I'm happy to

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Yeah. I'd

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: k. Yeah. Beth, what is highlighting? What is

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The highlighting of differences. So this is the yellow highlighting means there was nothing in the house. That was similar. The house didn't do findings. The house did the house didn't they had intent. No findings. Right? So the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: findings were not yellow. Did findings, and then the findings are substantially the same except they did a wording change and added three. Yep. Okay.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So if there's no highlighting, it means that there has been no change to the house language. And again, I'm sure I will be with you at some other point this week. Well, I'm sure. If I find something that I was inaccurate on, I will absolutely correct the record. Okay. Okay. So, and I've inserted all of the readers in headings. I think they are particularly helpful in this bill, at least in the governance sections or the education policy sections. So cooperative education service areas. This entire section two was an amendment to an entire chapter in Title 10. So you can see here that to the section six zero one, the policy section for seesaws, the House made some changes, the Senate Education kept those changes and made additional changes. So ensure so adding to the policy for seesaw, ensuring every middle and high school student has a genuine opportunity to participate fully in and to benefit from CTE as one of the ways in which SUs are utilizing Seesauce. There's no difference in the definition sections, so the Senate made no change to the definition section, so I did not include that text. Section six zero three is where you can see all if there's no highlighting, it means that all of the changes the house made, the senate has adopted, and so all of these changes to the establishment of seesaws have been adopted, and this is where we create the seesaws in the statute, and the only membership difference is that in the Senate version, the Senate Education version, the Grand Isle Supervisory Union is a member of the Champlain Valley North Seesaw, and in the House version, which I should have highlighted, Grand Isle Supervisory Union is a member of the Chittenden Central Seesaw.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: We'll look at maps at some point.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And the Milton Supervisory District is a member of the Chittenden Central Seesaw in the Senate Education version, and a member of the Champlain Valley North Seesaw in the House version. Otherwise, the Senate made no other changes to Seesaw membership. I think I highlighted Lobo and Mount Holly Unified Union School District because I think

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I left it out, frankly, of the House version.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But that is the appropriate supervisory union that it belongs to, I would say it would have automatically been included in it, in the same membership that the Senate gave it, which is your current seesaw VLTs, BTLC. So you can see all of this. There's no highlighting, which means there was no changes. Okay. This is all of this Seesaw membership. The subsection b of this same statute is where we list what needs to be in the seesaw's bylaws. The house made a number of changes. The senate education committee adopted those changes and added to the fourth subdivision regarding financial terms and conditions of a membership, that any applicable membership fee has to be allocated according to the amount of services actually provided. Okay. That's the only change. Powers of seesaws, again, the the house made a number of changes. The senate adopted those, and the senate education adopted those. Can we all just acknowledge that when I say senate, I'm

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: saying senate education? Yes. Yes.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm trying not to impute their work on their They're already not words. Okay. Thank you. So, at a minimum, so the House added, at a minimum, a seatbelt shall offer services in the following areas to its members. The senate attached that and then clarified that those services should be offered when requested. There was concern I don't know if senator Bongarov's remember this, but there was concern that the languages passed by the house may require a seesaw to have a bunch of staff or contracts on the books that their members may never end up needing or wanting. And so, when requested was meant to say, you gotta provide it if requested, but if not The guy wants it, then they don't have to turn it up. Right. I do think that can get nuanced policy perspective wise, but this is what we have. The financing, and we're about to jump through a whole bunch of no differences. So the financing, budgeting, and accounting, some provision, I mean, changes made by the house, then the education adopted them, no difference. Same for the annual report, public information, same for the employment statute. The Senate did add a brand new statute to chapter 10 in title 16 for which the House had no similar provision, and this is the process by which a member supervisory union could request to become a member of a different CSOF. So the board of the SU that wants to move would could vote the board itself could vote to propose withdrawal from the current seesaw and join a different seesaw. If a majority of the SU board members vote in favor, then the board would transmit the results to the boards of the two seesaws, the one they would be leaving and the one they would be joining. Then those two seesaws would take advisory votes on whether or not they like this idea. And then the SU that's requesting the change in membership would submit the results of their vote, the advisory seesaw votes, and the advisory CSAA votes to the Secretary of Education with the following information. The minutes reported by the SU, the detail, the origins and intent of the membership adjustment proposal, copies of the warnings and published notices for any public hearings held to discuss the membership adjustment proposal, the minutes reported by the SC board that detail any public hearings held to discuss the membership adjustment proposal, including the minutes from the meeting where the board took a vote to recommend changing membership and the results of the CISA board advisory votes.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: And I I just wanna make sure that CISA you can be in a mem you can be

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: a member of a CISA and contract for services from a different CISA. Correct. So you don't have to change CISAs to get services from a different CISA. Correct. Yeah.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The Secretary of Education is required to deliver copies of this information to the General Assembly, and then this is language that I cribbed directly from the charter change process. The membership adjustment proposal shall become effective upon appropriate worksmen of the proposal, either as proposed or as amended by the general assembly. Once you put those seesaw memberships in statute, only you can change them. Senate education also added a section 2A for which there was no similar provision in the house. This section would be effective. I'm not calling out the effective dates unless there's something Yeah. Irrelevant. This is relevant. This is an amendment to language that we've already walked through, which is detailing which services of Seespecial offer when requested. But what they've done in section 2A is taken these suggestions up here and added them to the list of service areas that have to be provided when requested, as well as adding for the first time facilities master planning. Okay. And that change would not take effect until 07/01/2027. Okay. Section three was repealing a report back that is moved now that you've canonized the steps, the seesaw memberships, but there's no difference between what the House and Senate education did. No difference to the seesaw Startup Grant Program between the House and the Senate, and then sections five through 11 were all conforming amendments to various sections in the BSAs that substituted Seesaw for BOCES, and the Senate didn't change any of that. The Senate also did not make any changes to the Seesaw Transition section. Union School District Exploration and Formation, section 13. This is the study committee section. You can see there is not, if there is no highlighting, it means that the Senate has adopted what the House did. So the timeline remains the same. There's no changes to the dates in here. First change of the Senate made was to some of the criteria that a facilitator is required to use or consider when grouping school districts together for study committees. So, the House had a minimum ADM of 2,000 students on the study committee. The Senate changed that to a minimum ADM of 1,500 students on the study committee. The Senate removed the requirement that school districts shall be contiguous and kept the fact that school districts can be members of different SUs. Good question.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: So, of the findings reference to the 1,500 median as opposed to what I think was originally the average of 4,000 students. Do you know where that data came from and what testimony that both in the findings in here, Senate Education is hanging their hat on, and I'd love to gain access to that for me.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have a open request out for the actual pinpoint citation, but I have the title of the the study or paper that it came from, and I can certainly get that to you after testimony.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I appreciate that.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: And that's not a median at the minimum.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Right, with the 1,500 in the findings, Oh, it says median

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I see, okay.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Second change here is subdivision two, notwithstanding any provision of the contrary, school districts shall participate in the study committee. It is a fine to by the facilitator. The Senate added that they must participate in good faith. No change to subdivision three A, B, A or B, and then change to Subdivision C. Everything under Subdivision 3 is part of the study committee process, either what they need to consider or how their process varies from current law. So subdivision C, as passed by the House, required study committees explore the advisability and feasibility of a new unified union school district operating a regional middle or high school. And Senate Education wants used the same language to explore the advisability and feasibility of a contemplated New Union School District providing for the education of its resident students through local elementary schools, central middle schools, and comprehensive regional high schools that provide each student with universal access to career and technical education. Subdivision D and E in the House version were the reporting requirements for study committees. The House had two different requirements. Subdivision D was applicable if the study committee said, Yes, let's form a new unified, union school district. And subdivision E was applicable only if the study committee said, Let's not form a new unified union school district. What the Senate did was they collapsed all of that into one report requirement regardless of what the ultimate recommendation was. So, a study committee to issue a report with the following information. The names of the school districts participating in the study committee, this was previously only a requirement for the report back if you didn't want to form a new study committee, with the theory if you did want, I'm sorry, form a new school district, with the theory that if you did want to form a new school district, you also have to issue articles of agreement, are naturally going to contain the names of the school districts, but so we've just added that. And the analysis, strengths and challenges of the current structures of all necessary and advisable school districts, this was previously just a requirement in the report if you work on a form in the Union School District. This is kind of a no brainer, but it needed to be said. What is the final recommendation of the study committee? And then Subdivision 4 was meant to be an amalgamation of all of the different findings for yes and no reports into one final analysis. So an analysis of how the final recommendation will enable the study committee member school districts to, under the foundation formula, maximize operational efficiencies, promote transparency and accountability, and encourage and support local decisions and actions that provide equal opportunities for an excellent education, all at a cost of parents, voters, and taxpayers' value. That is largely all current law policy for Union School District formation in Chapter 11, Title 16. There have been some word changes, especially the addition of under the foundation formula, but largely that is all current law policy. And then if the decision of the study committee was not unanimous, what's the minority view of the committee? That was previously only a requirement if the study committee voted not for the Unified Union School District. No, we're asking for it regardless of whether they voted yay or nay. Both versions kept the language that makes it clear that if the study committee said, No, we're not gonna form a community school district, they can go on their way and use current law to explore formation of any other type of school district they wanted to. Just highlighted there to signify that there was just a subdivision change, but the language remains the same. And then Senate Education added a requirement that each study committee formed pursuant to the section is required to consult with various CTE directors and document such consultation and any recommendations made by the CTE director in the study committee's final report. And then no changes to the rest of this entire section. Section 14 is the suggested groupings for study committees that the facilitators are required to use as guidance. There's really no easy way to walk through this with words. The most meaningful way There's an awful lot of them up there. The most meaningful way to understand the differences between the House proposal and Senate proposal, believe, is to look at a map, which I am not prepared to walk you through right now. The House had 21 groupings. The Senate ended with 18 groupings, and they are different. Different enough that I don't think it's worth

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: your while. Not in words. Right. It's not for me when we say that person.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Picture is worth

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: a thousand words. Very good.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The Senate added some interim study committee reports. So you are getting a very preliminary study committee report as part of section 13 next February. And then the house version had you getting a final report in 2029, and the senate added something in between those two dates. So section 14A, for which there is no similar house provision, is a requirement that the lead facilitator submit kind of a status report of all of the study committees. And by 01/01/2028, you should have all of their final recommendations. So you'll be getting those in that report. And also the agency of education in consultation with the study committees and the State Board of Education should also be submitting a written interim report to you all with preliminary recommendations for SU boundary adjustment and CSAL boundary adjustment, taking into account the final recommendations of the study committees. You are also getting back in 2029, a final recommendation for both of those things. The difference being in 01/01/2028, you will have the recommendation of the study committees, but no vote has been taken by the electorate, and it's not until the electorate approves the merger that there would actually be a change in school district boundaries, and therefore those recommendations in 2028 for SU or CSA boundary adjustments would be just preliminary. No change to the study committee results and analysis facilitator report, the final report back to you all on the Study Committee process, and no change in the SU and Seesaw Boundary Final Report. No change in the Study Committee Reimbursement Grants, seesaw executive director grants. This is the giant appropriations section that made all of the appropriations and allowable use of the Act 73 education transformation money that's traveling in the budget. Senate education made no changes. Senate education made no changes to section 18, which was the House's amendments to the Act 73 effective dates, most notably the contingencies for the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: foundation formula. Interact, okay. We've had questions, the chats about the interactive education funding calculator. Yeah, think we, didn't we decide to seek that out? We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, I think we already spent because no one knew what it was than how they would get it. Well,

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: for now it's here. It is. Good idea. Okay, next reader assistant's heading, pre K education. No difference between what the house passed. So, findings, intent, funding reports, and an amendment to your pre K statute that asks for some data to be collected and reported annually regarding the number of hours that school districts are funding through Section eight twenty nine. Data collection, this is the change to the weighting statute that requires school districts, the tuition students, to collect some weighting category data from those students at the same time they're approving those tuition requests. No changes. There are changes to the special education funding section. This is largely legislative intent, and Senate Education made no changes. Section 24. This is the no fees or tuition on top of the foundation formulas section. That's what's house passed. It would also prohibit public school from charging any student attending to school a fee of any kind above the tuition paid by a sending school, whether they were a resident student or a tuition student. Senate Education struck that and replaced it with its own language, which reads, It is the intent of the general assembly that under the foundation formula, no receiving school may charge individual families tuition in excess of the amount of tuition paid by ascending school district pursuant to 16 BSA eight twenty three. Section 24A as passed by the House was intent language to explain the effective date for section 24, which I think

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I found wrong of that,

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Senate Education removed that. Section 25 was an amendment to the amount of money a study committee looking to form a new union school district would need

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: to go to the

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: voters to approve. Senate Education made no changes to that. Senate Education made no changes to the Small and Smart Schools' EQS rule making update. They did make some changes to the inter district budgeting section. This is again a directive to update the district quality standards to include direction for inter district budgeting. The only changes is that Senate Education added to make it clear that this would be inter district budgeting under the foundation formula, and pushed out the deadline for that. The House had that rulemaking to occur on or before March 31, and the Senate pushed that up December 31. And the Senate, I should have highlighted more here, but the House quoted, I believe it's section one of title 16. So you can see quotation marks in section 27 in the house column. The senate removed those quotation marks and kind of rephrased the same concept with the goal that all Vermont children will be afforded opportunities and excellent education that are substantially equal in quality. No change This to is the rule making for reserve fund guidance. I'm looking at John and not shaking his head.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I believe

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: section 27A updates to the reserve fund guidance rule making. Senate Okay, made no changes there, and the Senate made no changes to the school transportation grant report back to you all section. No changes in the student profile form, which will be used by districts to collect that weighting data for tuition students, and no changes to the length of school day rulemaking section. I am gonna throw it to John here. I'm sorry. Small as bar schools.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, sure. Yeah, so John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel. You'll recall that under the So the first thing I know, I think Beth just said this, that the underlying section from Act 73 is repealed and replaced with this section. Subsequently, it's the same thing, right? It's supplying the same dollar amounts for the support grants, but this is changing the eligibility kick in for receiving the small school support grant. What you'll recall is that each of the small school and sparse schools support grants require a two pronged determination. One is a numerical check, do you have a certain pupil count? And the second is, was it determined to be that by necessity under rules in alignment with state board rule? So what you may recall about the small school piece is that the eligibility condition was in Act 73 fewer than 100 pupils. The problem that Senate Education was trying to solve was, well, that doesn't account for the variation in grade level coverage that schools provide, so they could be wildly different sized grades but equally eligible for the small school support grant. So this is a different approach to how to measure what a small school is. Instead of a total school pupil count, it asks what the average grade size is. And so that's what you see here is the eligibility kick in is you need an average grade size fewer than 12 pupils. It does exclude pre K from the count, so it's tallying up the student count across K-twelve and then dividing by the number of grades that they offer. And it rounds downward, which technically means that the most schools that would be eligible under that determination get picked in to receive the support grant. But again, it doesn't change the dollar value, it's just a change to the numerical check on who's eligible for small school support grant.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, this language highlighted here represents what John just walked you through, and then there's conforming language on page 29, again, so that rounding upward to the nearest full dollar. The House passed version contained, section 29A contained an update or an amendment to section 11, which is your master definition section in Title 16 with several, adding several terms to the statute. The Senate did not include that language, but they did include a section 29 a. It's just different than what the house did. So instead of putting them side by side, I've I've put them one right after the other. There is the senate version included language that essentially stops the clock from ticking on compliance with class size minimums. This language so act 73 created classified minimums and put them into statute, the education quality statute. The education quality statute contains a provision in it that asks the state board to make rules related to education quality standards, where the vast majority of the details of what we think of as EQS live in those rules. Act 73 also asks the State Board of Education to update those rules to conform with the class size minimums that were added in statute. Those rules have not been developed yet. And so there was confusion in the field, is my understanding from listening to testimony, over how to enforce class size minimums, or how class size minimums are going to be enforced without the details of the rule. And so what the House did in the miscellaneous bill is essentially subsection A, which is current law, and subsection B. The House passed subsection B1, subdivision b one in the miscellaneous bill, says that the clock for when your non compliance with class size minimums can be counted against you Does not start ticking until either the rules are in effect as stated or 07/01/2025,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: whichever comes first. And what rules would be The education quality standards.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The okay. Senate pulled that language from the miscellaneous bill. It's no longer traveling at age nine thirty one and added it to nine fifty five and changed the clock. So in the Senate version, for a public school, your non compliance with class size minimums cannot count against you or start counting against you until the foundation board gets sent back. Act 73 also requires approved independent schools that are eligible to receive public tuition or that want to be eligible to receive public tuition to also comply with class size minimums. And so the Senate education also added a separate provision to make it clear how this clock stoppage, if you will, will apply to independent schools. So the state board under Act 73 was also required to update the rules governing approval of independent schools to create a process for the state board to review non compliance by independent schools, and how to you know, what does that enforcement process look like for independent schools? Basically, what this subdivision two is a lot of words to say that an approved independent school's failure to comply with class size minimums cannot be counted against them until the foundation formula takes effect. And in the meantime, the schools will remain eligible to receive public tuition even if they do not appear to be compliant with class size schools. It says that explicitly, the last sentence.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: That's kind of parallel to the public school.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. The tricky part is there's a process built in statute for enforcement for education quality standards for public schools, and we've asked the state board to come up with a substantially similar process and rules. That hasn't happened yet, so there's nothing for me to specifically cite to for the process to hold independent schools accountable. So we're trying to tie it to the same trigger, which is the foundation formula, and make it clear that in the meantime, you're still eligible to receive public tuition, even if you're not compliant. To the same extent, the public schools also would not be penalized until the foundation formula picks in for being non compliant with classifieds and the most. Section 29B was added by Senate Education. There is no similar provision in the House. It is a small change, but I believe this is a meaningful change. This is an amendment to Section eight twenty eight in Title 16, which is the list of educational programs that a school district could pay tuition to. This is where that requirement that independent schools can apply for classified minimums lives. And the citation, the cross reference that passed in Act 73 was to 16 BSA 165 subdivision A9, which includes further subdivisions that list the enforcement process for public schools. And we've asked the state board to come up with a separate enforcement process for independent schools. So, this amendment is further specifying that the compliance only needs to be with Subdivision A of Subdivision 9, which is just the numbers, the grade band and the associated class size minimums. So, for grades one through two, whatever that is, twelve, fifteen, etcetera. Just the numbers, not any of the enforcement mechanisms for public So,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: we got one question. Yes. So

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: I guess just focus on the second link. Maybe it's the same

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: as the house. What How

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: does the foundation formula get triggered from a redistricting standpoint? What has to happen?

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Guys, I've used the term sharvino hoping that you would remember that. It's not working. This is now the fourth time I think I've said this word in committee. You can come up with a different trigger word. Let me pull out the let me I I would yeah. Okay. So, now we're all aware of sharknado. You should have a pasolomian response now.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: No, the shark is a good one.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Scott's like, I don't know what she's talking about.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's a problem.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: We all need a 13 year old to be sold.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: If that one is, my kids are too old to know. I

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: know about it, and I'm definitely not there to eat. Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: That was That's a a great thing. I was like, I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: have no idea what she's talking about. Well,

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you don't need to know what sharknado is, just know it's a weird word, it should now trigger you. Think of this. So, these are the contingencies for the foundation formula, And the contingency related to school district formation is that school districts will have an opportunity to study the advisability of new union school districts. And that's where I referenced Chirac Nido, was that what does having an opportunity mean other than an active nature, right, like really preventing folks another global pandemic, an earthquake that splits the state into four quadrants, you know. Most likely. Oh, you remember the earthquake, or not? Okay. Okay. Alright. A zombie attack. Exactly. Exactly. Anything like Right. And and this is my interpretation. My interpretation doesn't necessarily work because I don't wear a black robe and sit on a bench. But that is how that is how I am reading this. And and that if there is a resulting vote by that process, those voting results have been certified. So if something happens and there's a vote and there is no vote certification, I don't know what would prevent that, but then contingency would not have been fed. So related to school district formation, it's just an opportunity. And if there is a result can vote, those voting results have been certified.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: So those are the three things that have to happen for the foundation to continue?

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, that was just related to school district formation. There is subdivision B, C, and D, which are also contingencies that need to be met.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Okay, and those are in Act 73?

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is an amendment to act 73. Okay. This is the house version, but the senate didn't change it, and this is just easier for So, me to pull

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: it's in there. Alright. Yeah. And John has created a lovely document that explains all the contingency that I shared with some people, but I haven't shared it with everyone. It also includes lovely clip art. So, highly recommend it.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can share it with

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: the committee if you want. So, John can share. Or maybe John can share with the committee. But it's like a list of all the contingencies and an example of how it works, how they work.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. There was a provision in the House bill that talked about an interactive calculator that would be available to districts. Then we heard testimony that there was no such thing, that there may not be the resources to make that happen. Was that taken out of the No,

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you're killing it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Still in. Okay. Still in. We talked about taking it out. Yeah, okay. Now have possession. Okay, okay. I mean, I am assuming that's something that business offices will be able to do or, you know, so okay. I was just curious what the status was on that maintenance.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah. The house still assigned it. It was a floor amendment that they assigned it to a task department to do. Right. It's not really their job. Right. And it is especially with a foundation book, it's actually very easy enough

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: to do it. Right. And so can do it. Right. Do all this. Mean, we're back to that.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I'm looking at that lovely document with a clip on it. And my question is, it says one of the conditions must be met with the foundation formulas to go into effect, and it says opportunity to be considered consolidation and certification of voluntary votes. So does every single potential school district have to approve affirmatively? Is it so the foundation could go into effect if some of them approved?

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's no requirement that there be any specific result from those studies based. So, it's just that the districts have an opportunity to participate in the study committees. And if they decide to form a new school district, then there would need to be certification of the results of those votes. But there is no requirement for a specific outcome for this study.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Is that truly a contingency or is that just a mandated part of this process?

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Everything we do is made up.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, that's awesome.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I agree. Okay.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: That's a point.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: The foundation that we will go in, schools are given, encouraged, no course mergers. So, we're setting up the C SIS, they're mandatory, my understanding, to start saving money ASAP, probably not ASAP enough, but while they're helping us save money, the schools are given the opportunity to discuss forming different money saving and education enhancing organizational arrangements. And but I guess the stick with giving everybody all this time to talk is that whatever you called it is coming in the form of the foundation formula that as of date certain you will have to find a way to operate within a set amount of money. If you're running three times the average cost, you can't export that cost to your neighboring CSA. That you're gonna have to which is the incentive to talk in good faith. If you can't reach an agreement, then you will be living under the foundation formula. There's still the ramp up, ramp down. I assume when we got testimony that was still Yep. The three, five year ramp up, ramp down. Okay. So that's in there in preparation. So

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: yeah. There are other contingencies. That's just one of four.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Yeah. But it's coming. You need to be prepared be because if you aren't going to be financially painful or education.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: I mean, the way you would explain this in the comments makes me think that the foundation is going to happen no matter what happens within the and within the school district groupings. I'm just

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: That's my understanding. I think I had to it. Was walking there.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: I'm listening to Senator Cummings. The way I I'm understanding what she said is that no matter what happens within the CESAs, no matter what happens within each of these groupings, that the foundation formula is going to happen.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If the other contingencies are met.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I'd love, Elizabeth, if you would, to elaborate on those contingencies. They're a big sticking point for me is, and I'm currently a no on this on this bill to move it forward unless I feel comfortable that those contingencies satisfy my constituencies concerns with the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: foundation formula. What are your piece? Can I ask bigger?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: So one is that I don't I know that there is piece of this, but I'd love to hear it from our legal counsel addressing cost of living and labor adjustment rates for different communities. Chittenden County, who I represent, is looking at potentially with the foundation formula that's contemplated in act 73, taking a great deal of resources and giving taking away those communities' rights to approve additional spending with the supplemental district spending cap. So I do have concerns with the cap, and we could go back to what those are. I don't like the cap.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: feel like that takes away the rights of those communities to choose to spend more on their kids if they're so if they

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: so desire. You've got the program to show.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Right. Right. I know. But that that's why the foundation formula is so critical to me that if it continues in this trajectory, it's going to guesstimate some of the districts in my in my communities. And so I wanna have confidence that this foundation formula has to be recalibrated along those parameters for me

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: to be comfortable with them. That's all.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm sharing my screen with the this is the language that passed the house, and the senate has made no changes to it. So subdivisions are all the contingencies for the foundation formula, and I'm gonna ask my colleagues to jump in if I get something wrong or they just wanna add something to what I'm saying. Subdivision a is what we just went over regarding the opportunity and the vote. Yeah. Right.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: And they have to vote.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Subdivision b is actually current law, but the way we've formatted it, we needed to redo it here. And that is that you get the 45 a JFO contractor report back, the AIR report, AIR report. The third contingency is a new contingency from

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Before you go on

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: on the so I just wanna frame my concern with these contingencies is I don't see that as a true contingency. I see that as just part of a process that's mandated that a report will come back. I would like to see an affirmative action by the legislature Sir,

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you wait.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Fair enough. I like the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: concern. The contingency.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: That's my concern on me.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: As I think it's it's semantics. Right? You all can I'm a lawyer. I can argue one side of everything. Right? Whether something is a contingency or not, these are contingencies because you have built that into the legislation. Whether they are meaningful contingencies to you, it's a policy choice that you can make.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: So the report have to come back.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They have the report have to come back. So if something happens and the contractor ghosts them,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: their contingency has not been met. On. K. Foundation for the It is on the foundation.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Okay. And in in act 73, section 45 a required certain things in that report. And you have heard, I believe, updates from JFO all along this session as to their scope of work and amendments they've made of that and all of the direction they are providing to those.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: So we will cut that all in one report presentation. So we know what's in the event. Yeah, was just gonna, I mean,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: it might be helpful to remind people what specifically, but that report included a lot of things that people had concerns about last session about the secondary weight, about the special education weight, about CTE, about various things in the formula people were concerned about to make sure that the formula was covering all of the bases that were necessary and that people wanted to make sure were included in the cost was the cost of education. So, getting that report back will have a lot of information for people to be able to say, oh, we need to add a weight for x, y, or z, or we need to shift these things around with the formula. It's it's a pretty substantial report with a lot of or it should be. It's supposed to be a pretty substantial report with a lot of information about what we can do to change the foundation formula if necessary.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Julie, do have something to add?

[Julie Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure. Yeah. Julie Richter, JFO. I know that Beth has pulled up the language of the report, and I will say we contracted for this report in January. The report is on track to come to you in December. The scope of work has been built off of explicitly off of the language that you see here. So he show you the scope of work as well. And there will also to senator Hardy's point, there will also be pieces included in the report beyond what's included explicitly in the scope of work because of the analysis that the contractor is undertaking. So for instance, they are already going to be looking at regional cost differences because that's part of the cost function modeling even though it's not explicitly spelled out in the language.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: The original proposal from the administration was that he teachers' salaries would be brought up statewide. Equalized, but Yes. It wasn't it was specifically that no one's going to go down.

[Julie Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I would defer to the administration on what their proposal was. When they first proposed a foundation formula, was based off of a different framework of analysis. So it was based off something called an evidence based model and included as one of their assumptions. They increased teacher salaries by a flat percentage, the average teacher salary. This

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: report did not require a JFO to work with a contractor to look at leveling up or leveling down two years' salaries. But the cost of regional regional cost of living will be figured in. Mhmm.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Which is critically important. I mean, I'm seeing labor statistics in parts of the state in the same position. There's one because the cost of living in those areas is much lower than in those other areas. So just I wanna make sure that that will be addressed in the final foundation.

[Julie Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I guess I would say I can't speak to where the where the contractor will or won't land on any recommendations. Right? So the way it

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: will be addressed. The way

[Julie Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: that the work looks the way that the modeling works is they look at the data. They run their regression analyses. They look for significant relationships between different variable and outcomes. And using that and holding everything else constant, they come back and they say, here are our recommendations for base weights and explicitly the pieces that that had pulled up.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Yeah. So that final decision won't be made until the report's written.

[Julie Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And the report will come in December. Yeah. So And then it's a report, and then I defer to Beth about what happens then.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: But the report triggers the opinions.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The receipt of the report meets

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: one out of four contingencies. Yeah. Yeah. But at any point, when we get that report, that's one of the contingencies. We are free to act at that point. We're getting to. To exchange any

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: We're always free to act. My concern is what the default is absent action.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I highly recommend we walk through the rest of the contingency. Yes. And then we may have a more important discussion. Subdivision C, on or before 12/15/2029, JFO has provided you all using fiscal year twenty seven data an analysis that compares the total appropriated state funds for each school district received under today's existing education funding formula. So today's funding formula with what the school district would have received under the foundation formula established in Act 73 as amended.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: So then we have

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: today versus foundation formula using FY '27 data. And then D is what I was hoping to get to with you all. This is a brand new contingency. This was not an act 73. The house added it. Senate education has not changed it. It is a contingency that the foundation formula will not be met unless legislation has been enacted that addresses the following. Suitable geographic measures for determining sparsity of that foundation formula, whether it costs more to educate a secondary student, and if so, what's an appropriate weight for that cost differential, how to account for CTE in the foundation formula, how to account for regional differences in operating costs, including those driven by regional differences in cost of living and legacy collective bargaining agreements within the foundations formula. Okay. And Check that.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: So I see why you kept asking to go through the entire thing, I appreciate that. And this is important for my constituents, So this language does give me peace.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I appreciate it. Thank you.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can take no credit for it. I believe John drafted it, and someone else made the policy choice. And it's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: in the in the tree thing.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: The other ones that are soft, but I can't hang my hat. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Well, they're awful. This is a work in progress. You

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: all have possession of the bell now.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: That's

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: true. I've been waiting to have language in front of me because it goes through the process, changes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Okay. So

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: that say these reports come back with, you know, CTE, special ed, grade weights, everything. And then the legislature, like, goes to war, and we can't decide on we can't agree on anything. It's happened. No. Can't. What happens? Do we have a foundation formula or we have not?

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it depends completely on the facts involved. This language says that legislation has been enacted that addresses the following. And the facts of what you are dealing with in that time are gonna determine whether that contingency has been met. I think broadly speaking, if you don't pass legislation that addresses some of these things, then the contingency has not been met, which means that the foundation formula doesn't take effect. But it's all gonna come down to the specific facts of each circumstance and whether this is still the law at the time. Right? You're gonna have many opportunities to amend this between now and 2030. Every year. Right. And then as we all know, no matter how airtight your staff thinks what you have done is, there is a whole branch of government that is devoted to interpreting the law and the constitution.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: A good word.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: And they don't like it if we mess in their area. So, I

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just mean that doesn't necessarily matter what I think. There's likely to be litigation. If it's challenged, like, we'll go to court. All

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: we can do is deal with the contingencies that are out there. There are national, international, who knows. We could be in the middle of a great depression, or we could be in the middle of a great boom, or hanging somewhere in between. There might be more. There might be less in the way of federal money. Federal I mean, there's all kinds of things. All we can do is make the best decisions with the information we have now and make sure we get all the information we need before making the final decisions. And I don't think there's any place, any state that has found an education funding formula that makes everybody happy. It involves a lot of money and it involves people's children and those can be highly emotional flashbulbs. So all we can do is our fast. Do we have any more questions for Beth? Think the side by side really help. Mhmm. Sandy Gulick, did you have a question? I asked about that. Okay. The calculator. It was. If that is the biggest problem I know. Yeah. Not it's not. What we have right now is we have the possession of the bills with the house proposal of amendment. We are not going to have time to redo this and to go through what is not in our jurisdiction. So we can go forward with the house proposal. We can add the senate proposal as a substitute amendment to the house proposal, will get everybody in the conference and get the fight there between the education committees and then we can go ahead with our area of jurisdiction and deal with how we pay for the whole thing. And Beth, do you have this written do you have that House Senate proposal in an amendment? I sure do. Can you share that?

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Do you want me to do it on screen or just share the document with the committee?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: We could do it on the screen, I guess.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: No worries.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: This thing is. Okay.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will send Charlotte a copy when I'm not multi dashed. You.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Two minutes on your call. It's so nice. Is this is that Level.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: This is the John Star human. A tree is all around it.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Are you ever getting a?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: It's been the. Alright. It's a funding already. Actually. Okay. Thank you. You just said it. Did you send it?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Should I can send it to Charlotte.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I'm posting it to Charlotte. Yeah. He was sending to Charlotte.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Mean to keep it to garden?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah. Send it to Charlotte. Keep your tree. It. It's nicer and taller. It's all green.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Are they trees or are they different emoji?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: They're trees. Peppier treats. Peppier than the big smiddy.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: That's the biggest drop. One

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: of my missing.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: It should look like another popular.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Oh, tall. I love it. That's why it's better off.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: That's where I want.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Now there's a stop there. It doesn't work.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Oh, I'll tell Let's keep going. Would you you start your leg in, like, high school?

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I started it with Sharpie and Donaldson. Alright. Would you like me to share my screen? Yes. Okay. So I sent Charlotte during that interlude a PDF. So this is the most recent draft from Senate Education. I have not done anything in preparation to share it with you all, so there's still the highlighting in it. So yellow highlighting are changes made from the House version, and blue highlighting are changes made since the last draft. So had I been coming to you all knowing that I would be doing this today, I would have taken out all the blue and just made it yellow. Okay. So there's no It would be

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: it depend pending editing and minus highlighting? This has been edited. Okay. So just minus highlighting.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This might well, if you want to adopt it, I would encourage you to keep the highlighting and to show you the changes that you've made between the house version. Okay. Or you can take them out. That's fine. But we have this. You do have that. Yep. Yeah. Which helps out. Okay. So I don't know if you want me to walk through, but I everything in the side by side, I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: cut and pasted from this document. Okay. Committee, we've been through the side by side. Are do you wanna walk through this entire document? All I'm trying to do is get us a base formula. So that we can go to conference and those of us from this committee that get appointed.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm happy to hold study sessions.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I'm assuming that the study of the committee will contain someone or ones from education who have had the time to delve into this. If we agree with the general outlines, we just have a document that doesn't just rubber stamp the house and allows discussion to continue. And then we can go forward with ours and we can go to committee and write the numbers out.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I'm gonna ask one technical question. I know that they, I think they amended just, Senator Bongar has mentioned it, some little thing in the school construction section.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not a Which would not be side by side, but I think We have a we have change.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Proposal that would change that

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: so it would supersede what they did. And I actually talked to Yeah. Senator Bonnemartz about it, and

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: he was okay with it.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah. The direction we were sort of going.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Any once we do something formal, it will get amended on to the final Okay. Docs. Is that necessary? Have possession, so we didn't have the ability to amend this document. We now have possession. We have reached agreement on a school funding or a school construction, and we will, before this leaves here, do that amendment. I have a feeling we will have some other amendments before we got it, But you can't start from ground zero and start trying to you do ceases and moses and all the rest of it. CTE is still out there and being looked at. Special ed is still out there and being looked at. Transportation is still out there. I gather that part of the thesis will be that discussion on, because that was the testimony we had here, that if you've got three small schools with one kid that needs special ed testing, it's very expensive for you to each hire someone for an hour or two, You should probably pay for a whole day. But if you get three of them and you can do three in one day, it's a lot less expensive for everyone's. Does does her have an amendment for our stuff?

[Unknown Legislative Counsel (Finance Committee)]: Her became a student council. I do have some language drafted based on, what you've told me so far from our account. But, you know, we didn't have a bill, so it's just language that's Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: You can't amend what

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: we don't see. It seems like there was just one thing that we still haven't made the decision on, a a list of things that we were talking about.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Well, we haven't looked at that that some people wanted to be if the property exemption and the income the income and house values.

[Unknown Legislative Counsel (Finance Committee)]: Those are in job sections, the the whole debt exemption replacing the property tax credit.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: The property tax credit. We look at the numbers that we wanted to consider that. I mean, that's not in the bill. It's in the bill. But

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just in Act 73. There's nothing new in these pieces here. You'll recall last week, Senator Chittenden put together language related to updating the report, but I think the committee backed away from it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Yeah, so we decided. That was think what is that what we backed away from? The proposal to ask everyone

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Do a homestead exemption. But I think before it's been acted Yes. We want to look at once we know and I guess we can't do much of anything until we know how many second homes and their value there is, what that grand list looks like.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And Act 73 did pass the Department of Taxes with producing a report on an alternative homestead exemption structure, so you will be getting that report. It will be kicked down.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Extreme attorney. Mhmm. So we are we just I know you might. I hate to encourage him because it was doing we might be able to get this bill by tomorrow. I think we can. I think we'll sit down and we will go through the whole thing. But the first question is, are we ready to just stick Senate Education's work on to this bill, which we just went over. Do you need a motion or what do you need? Yeah, we need a motion to amend nine fifty five. What would it be? I want

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: to make clear that this motion is not adopting it as a committee report. It's just a straw poll, Chris, to start from this to consider the discussion.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: They would do their part of the

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: bill to their reports. This is not what they're hearing.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: The same language they couldn't get out of

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Senate Ed. Right. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: So I have draft 6.2

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Senate Ed doesn't have a report.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: We have possession.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We have

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: possession. But Senate Ed doesn't have a report. You need to on a committee

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to Right. So they're not gonna present anything on the floor.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: No. Well, we could see to them or ask that they we could ask to have them present, or we just don't present. Do you repeat motion, madam chair? I need a motion, and it is draft number six point

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Are we we doing a straw poll or a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: We could straw poll. I

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: mean, I

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: I I'm not gonna vote for this, And I'd like to have a chance to offer an amendment. More comfortable

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: with the straw poll because I just wanna make sure that this is not our our committees.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: It's it's not. It's just being able to move forward with the bill and not do the stuff that's not in our jurisdiction to to that we're adopting what the the work that they did in their committee, and then we'll look at the sections that are our jurisdiction. It's my understanding. Yes. We do nothing.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I mean, at some point, we are going to have to amend or we are going forward with the house version, which means

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: To to that point, the only thing I'm trying to make clear is, hey. I heard you say you have an amendment that you want to be considered, so I just don't want this to be our committee reports vote. Okay. We're continuing it. Then I do I have continued the conversation from the testimony last week. I just wanna put it on the table to treat homestead parcels. K? So homestead declared parcels to not hit them with a second homes tax if they had an 18

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: That month we will that we could discuss. That is part of our part of this bill. We're trying to resolve what happens with the education's jurisdiction part of this bill. If we do nothing, then the house version holds, and it won't be subject to committee of conference discussion because there's nothing different in there to be discussed, so the only thing that will get conferenced will be the money sections.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I'm fine with firming that we want to incorporate this language into our committee of doctrine that has not yet been decided upon.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Let's do a straw. Wouldn't it

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: be useful to hear what Senator is going to also answer?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I wanna just get a sense. Can we do that? And then we'll get another version, and then we'll make a choice. Are we willing to add a version, the one that we've got? This is not a final vote. Then senator Beck can present his and then we can decide which version we want to officially add. Are we interested in doing anything? If we aren't interested in going forward,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: we're left.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Vote my opinion, so I wouldn't want to vote yes and see

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: your second It's not Strawpole. Strawpole. Alright. Senator Beck, what is your proposal?

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Yeah. I

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: have draft language, but let's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I'll I'll do a 30,000. Can you have a draft, sir?

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Yeah. I have draft language. I just received a couple hours, so I haven't had a chance to fully go through it, so I probably shouldn't put it out there. But can you wait if you Yeah. I I mean,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: you It's your amendment, so I

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: would I can give you 30,000 foot, and we could look

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: at language once the headship is actually going through it. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay? Alright.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Fair enough. Can you set I just need to I think it's

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: probably easiest to put a map up on on screen. But we haven't seen any We Yeah.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: I just don't remember.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Did you bring this to the an education committee?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Which

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: which jurist did that? I'm confused.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: This is, you know, in substitute for Virginia.

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: an issue. So I think that we

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: should focus on our area.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Well, you know, they, they took a bill that they couldn't get out their community three, three, and they sent it over here.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So they have no position.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: You don't have time to be redoing maps. You're welcome to present it, but I've been told to get this bill out of the car tomorrow. Yeah. So I think Might

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: get a

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: day. Financing version.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: But on something that's something.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: But We're trying to get

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I'm disinclined to vote on something that I don't understand. Haven't had had a chance to be a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: guest boy. So we will and I will not vote until tomorrow, but we need If you've got a proposal, we need to see it, and we need to see wording.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So, yeah, then I said that. I just had the language for a couple hours. Go ahead.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: Right. Just gonna have get you Is it is there a drafter with that has it online that can share it so we can book it?

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Yeah. I just yes. It just I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: haven't even had a chance to. So maybe we should wait because it's on our stuff before we when we do send you a link. I'll I'll say what senator Chittenden says. I'm still relatively new here, but it seems as though because the education policy bill should be taken up in the education committee. I'm confused why we would be taking up education policy in the finance committee when we're always differentiating between what's our territory and what's not. It probably should,

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: but what the Senate Education Committee did this morning was they decided to move the bill out of their committees where they didn't even have they don't even have a position.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: But we're sending we'll be sending this back to them. Correct?

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Yeah. I mean, not

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: no. I don't know.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: It'll go to the floor.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: I mean, they could I guess they could

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: ask Was this if the appropriate thing would be to have had an amendment to the education section presented to the education committee.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: They don't have the bill.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: But they can make a recommendation to us. We don't have the expertise. That's a what? A quarter of an inch thick

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: or half inch It's a 100 quart, maybe. To go It's hard to overlook.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: We aren't doing that. We are I mean, I just I'm trying

[Elizabeth “Beth” St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to make sure

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: gets better. So would you like me to go down to Senate Education, present it to them, and then they will communicate back to the state?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I think that would be Would that work? The most helpful way to do it. That way we can work on what is our jurisdiction which has dollar signs, and they could take a look at that, and if they have an amendment they can let us know. I'll communicate with them. Okay. Okay. Alright.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So now I don't know.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: Back to the struggle on what Senate Education could even ask it out of their committee. We

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: were thinking

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of adopting an amendment that would take what they couldn't get

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: out of committee, not change it at all, put it

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: into our finance report, make our changes where we see fit finance wise. It's that.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Before senator Beck leads too, if I could. So senator Beck, really quick before you go. Yeah. I just wanna say it's incredibly important to me that we hear what you wanna put on the table. Right. The senator Mazza, who I take took a lot of leadership from, he always said, you got to hear every point of view. So the last thing I want is this committee not considering this. And if we are taking education stuff and incorporating into our finance committee, then this is germane to me because it's going come from our committee. So I really appreciate the time you've I been taking do want hear you. That we need to hear a

[Sen. Scott Beck (Member)]: walk down the hall. Fine.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: But we will be here until the June.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: This is important enough that we gotta Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Gonna hear you anyway if we hear something that we act on that isn't doing what we possibly could do that we're missing because we haven't heard everything. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: But senator Beck has now left. So I need senator Beck to get his amendment or his drafter to get it. He said he hasn't read it, so I can't do anything with it now unless he wants to put it up on well, edit it. So I'm gonna give us a fifteen minute break and we will see if Senator Beck can get a draft up on the board.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: But I would before we take a break, madam chair, I think the point is is that much of what's in his draft is not in our jurisdiction. So he needs to present it to the education piece before he presented to us. We shouldn't be hearing the amendment in not in our jurisdiction before they do and taking a position on it. And

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: and I is disagreeing there.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: And also, I think we should be working on our our finance. Just saying, do want it? We can get this bill done.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: If well, I like having said it, Ed. The last thing I wanna do, though, is shut this down and and not here, but not give this its proper

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: I know. I consider it. I I I appreciate that. I am. Promise

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: that Listen. We're looking at a bill that supposedly is a senate head bill at this point Yes. In which they have not taken a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)]: position. Okay. We are on