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Rep. David Sharpe, D-Bristol, tallies the votes on an education governance bill Friday in the House chamber. Photo by Amy Ash Nixon/VTDigger
One of the Legislature’s major bills in the 2015 session is on its way to Gov. Peter Shumlin’s desk.
H.361, the education governance reform bill, passed the House on an 83-50 vote late Friday as members of the House Education Committee tallied the yeas and nays on note pads during the tense vote.
Many of the no votes came from representatives of regions in Vermont with many small, rural schools, where fears about what the legislation will mean for their schools has been strong.
The historic education governance bill seeks to reconcile the decline in student enrollment in Vermont’s schools with rising costs and property tax concerns.
Vermont has a unique statewide property tax for education, and as costs have increased locally, taxpayers across the state have picked up the tab.
“This is the final step in a long, intense, sometimes difficult, important work,” which many people have contributed to, said Rep. David Sharpe, D-Bristol, chair of the House Education Committee. “We set our goals at providing better educational opportunities for the students of our state at a cost our taxpayers could afford; that’s a big order.”
The bill calls on the state’s 277 school districts to merge into larger, 900-pupil Pre-K-12 education districts designed to produce economies of scale and improve educational opportunities for students.
The bill lays out a four-year voluntary process that could ultimately result in the State Board of Education forcing district mergers where the secretary of the Agency of Education believes schools need to be restructured.
Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, chair of the House Education Committee, who also chaired the House and Senate conference committee presented the compromise bill to the Senate on Friday, where it passed on a voice vote.
“What this bill is trying to do is have the Agency of Education working in partnership with the schools … sit down and think through their future, in terms of population and in terms of finances and resources, that’s what we’re trying to accomplish,” Cummings said.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, objected to a $300,000 adequacy study in the bill, which would determine an “adequate” amount the state should be spending per student.
Sears said he believes the quest would be unconstitutional, since the state’s education law is based on equity. The Vermont Supreme Court ruling that led to the present formula, he said, ruled that “… equal educational opportunity is deserved by every child in this state,” stressing the word equal over “adequate.”
Sears said in a year when cuts have been felt for everything from services for people who are blind or disabled to prescription drugs and public television, adding a study for adequacy is a waste of public dollars.
The study was urged by the House, and last summer, Speaker Shap Smith received nearly 100 proposals from residents and organizations offering ideas on education reform, and many called for an adequate per pupil amount to be determined for funding education in Vermont.
Sen. Philip Baruth, D-Chittenden, a member of the Senate Education Committee and a member of the conference committee, said the compromise was prompted by a push for school spending controls.
In putting the underlying and Senate bills together, the committee returned with a cost containment measure projected to save $12 million a year in 2017 and 2018, for $24 million total, “to work in the short-term for property taxes,” Baruth said.
The bill allows for an average 2 percent growth increase in school district spending statewide in 2017 and 2018.
The proposal, from Rep. Oliver Olsen, I-Londonderry, sets a variable percentage threshold based on a school district’s prior year spending rate. Districts that exceed the threshold will pay a tax penalty for higher spending.
The proposal could save as much as $12 million, lawmakers say.
Baruth said the bill is expected to achieve long-term, deeper savings as larger, more efficient school systems. Chittenden East, for example, is expected to save $300,000 in its first year as the Mt. Mansfield Modified Union School District.
Less costs more
Declining student enrollment in Vermont’s schools, coupled with increases in education spending and tax rates, aroused taxpayer angst during the November election and forced the Legislature to find solutions.
The bill seeks to spur merger activity through incentives.
It also phases out small school grants and the hold harmless formula, which has protected schools losing students from the full tax blow they otherwise would have felt.
For school districts that join the larger systems, the small school grants will convert into merger support grants, and will continue in perpetuity.
School districts that become part of larger school systems can also retain the hold harmless formula – though a less generous version of the provision – in a grandfather clause in the legislation.
Vermont’s public schools have shed more than 24,000 pupils since 1997, according to the latest information from the Vermont Agency of Education.
Rep. Bernie Juskiewicz, R-Cambridge, vice chairman of the House Education Committee, said there is more work to be done around how education is funded in Vermont in the future.
“We get this passed, and we can start focusing on the cost,” said Juskiewicz.
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