After rejecting a number of amendments, the Democratic-led Vermont House on Friday passed and moved to the state Senate an education reform bill. But debate continues as the Republican governor has said the bill fails to meet the goals of reform and affordability.
H. 955, is titled “An act relating to next steps in transforming Vermont’s education system.” It would create a new foundation formula and also form seven Cooperative Educational Services Areas to coordinate services between school districts. Rather than moving forward with forced mergers, the bill would also require school districts to create study committees on voluntary mergers.
House Education Committee Chair Peter Conlon, a Democrat, says the bill reflects months of conversations with residents and school officials.
“A lot of that input plus the input we’ve received throughout the past few months has really helped shape this into a bill that is responsive to many of the concerns of Vermonters. It is still headed towards the goals that we have but does so in a way that respects local voice in a way that larger forced mergers probably don’t. And I think it really is reflective of, regardless of party, what people have told us along the way.”
But before preliminary passage in the House, Gov. Phil Scott said he’s also hearing from Vermonters who are concerned about affordability and escalating property taxes. The Republican says change needs to be implemented sooner rather than later, and he excoriated the House version of the bill, saying it merely protects the status quo.
“The legislature doesn’t seem to be completely ready to make the changes necessary. We cannot do this piecemeal. And we cannot do it the way we’ve always done it, which is slowly. The foundation formula alone won’t do it. Voluntary mergers won’t do it. We need to make these changes right now and make real positive change.”
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Democrat Emilie Kornheiser said during the last biennium, lawmakers identified five primary cost drivers of education that she says the current legislation targets.
“It was healthcare. It was mental health, school facilities. It was the cost of special education and the relationship between the number of students and the number of classrooms. And we have done work both in this bill and outside of this bill to address all five of those cost drivers.”
Kornheiser added the bill also creates a reliable tax structure for funding education while providing relief to taxpayers.
“It’s really important that as we move this work forward that our tax structure is supporting that. And so all of the tax changes need to all take effect the same year, so that Vermonters don’t experience what the Tax Department actually called tax whiplash. We really want to move towards partly a much more consistent and reliable tax structure. And so in order to get that we need to make sure that all of our changes are aligned with each other.”
Republicans have pushed back. The House debated the bill late last week, and prior to preliminary approval several amendments were offered and defeated or withdrawn.
During comments before the final House vote, Cavendish state Rep. VL Coffin, a Republican, expressed his distaste.
“This bill is a testament to mediocrity. It is mot what we were asked to do to transform our education system. I have seen amendments that would have made this better shot down, amendments that could have made this better withdrawn. We owe more to the people of this state than just to give it our some. We are failing the people of Vermont.”
The bill passed on a voice vote in the House and was sent to the Senate for consideration, where it was referred to the Committee on Rules.
