 Welcome. This is September 1st, 2020. This is the Education Committee in the Vermont House of Representatives. And we are meeting today. Our focus this week will be on basically three topics. One is the recommendation to appropriations for the governor's recommended budget. The other is recommendation for the use of CRF funds. And the third thing is to look at miscellaneous changes in statute that are related to the COVID-19. So to start, we had discussed in our meeting areas of issue that were of interest. We looked at the outright budget, which we'll talk about at the end. They had asked for 60,000. 8% would be 55,2. And 3% would be 58,2, just to keep that in mind. The governor's Institute of Vermont was reduced by 5,700. And the early literacy, 79,000 mystery money. And then there was, I think it was 24,000 that was cut from the State Board of Education. So we invited the chair of the State Board of Education, John Carroll, to come in and talk to us to respond to that so we can determine what our recommendation will be. So with that, I welcome Chair John Carroll to speak to the committee. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee for the record. I'm John Carroll, Chair of the State Board of Education. Mr. Petty has posted a PDF of my remarks. And I hope that's available to you. As I see some heads nodding. That's good. So I'm going to stay with my remarks if I may. If you'll forgive me, even though I wrote them, I'm going to read them to you. So thank you for inviting me to speak to you today about the FY21 budget restatement. As a matter of principle, the State Board believes that we, like every other entity of state government, should step up and carry our full share of the burdens of cost containment during these trying times. Specifically, the Board proposes to you today to reduce its FY21 budget from 80,845, which is what was initially proposed to $70,750. That's about a 12.5% reduction in our budget. Most of these savings, we're quite confident that we can achieve these savings largely through the reduction of reimbursement of travel costs, as you know, relying upon virtual meetings as you folks are doing. We do that as well. And we see that we in the next fiscal year that we can reduce our cost by this amount. So our proposal is to reduce the State Board's spending level by 12.5%. I do want to be very, very clear that this proposal by the State Board is in lieu of anything that it's not in addition to. It's in lieu of, in replacement of anything that this Secretary of Education may have proposed. In fact, I want to go a little bit further and speak about the Secretary's proposal, which I think will make clear why the Board is making its own proposal here. We advocate, in fact, that the Secretary of Education's proposal to reduce the Board's budget be rejected out of hand. Although the Secretary is a member ex-officio of the State Board, he has no authority to speak for the State Board, none. The Secretary acted unilaterally in proposing to reduce the Board's budget by $24,000. The Secretary never bothered to consult with the Board about his proposal or even inform us of his plan to reduce the Board's budget by 30%. Just parenthetically, I might observe that the Secretary proposes to reduce the Board's budget by 30% but to reduce his own agency's budget by 3%. The Secretary states the basis of his proposal is fundamentally flawed. He states that $20,000 can be achieved by terminating the State Board's membership in the National Association of State Boards of Education, NASBE. This is actually a fiction. The truth is that the Board last paid dues to NASBE, the National Association, in fiscal 2019 and terminated its membership more than a year ago in early fiscal 2020. The Board intentionally, by the way, terminated its membership in NASBE because we needed the money to pay for anticipated obligations to retain outside legal counsel. It became very clear in late 2019 that the agency was very, very unresponsive to the Act 173 advisory group and to the State Board in the 173 rule revisions that it was proposing. And it became clear that we might need to retain counsel of our own to draft our own regulations in lieu of what was presented by the Secretary and the agency. Moreover, state law requires the State Board to be the setting for appeals of actions and decisions by the Secretary. And in the last 10 months, the Board has heard and dealt with and paid for legal counsel for two such appeals. So it's very clear that we need funds for paying for outside legal counsel, partly sometimes to have the horsepower to challenge the Secretary and his own legal staff and other times to serve the citizens of Vermont as the Court of Appeals for the actions of the Secretary. In effect, the Secretary's proposal to cut $20,000 from our, well, let me back up. So the $20,000 that we figured out a year and a half ago that we could and should set aside and save by terminating our membership in NASBE, we set aside for legal counsel for the year. And the agency and writing its budget never bothered to consult with us and never bothered to even think about this. And so their budget is fundamentally in error as it was presented in January and as it is now. So anyway, what will happen if the Secretary's proposal were implemented is that the Board's ability to retain outside counsel would be suffocated. And not only will that impair the Board's ability to hear appeals of the Secretary's actions as required by law, but it also profoundly undermines and compromises the Board's own ability to challenge and to take issue with actions of the Secretary when in its view, those actions are not supported by statute. So in conclusion then, I just want to be clear that the State Board is indeed prepared to carry its full share of the burden with a proposal for 12.5% reduction in its budget in the FY21 budget restatement. And we believe that we can do that through reductions in travel and other operating costs. And yet at the same time protect the Board's ability to have access to legal counsel when and as needed. We already this year have spent nearly $5,000 in attorney fees for a case in which the Secretary's action was successfully appealed by an independent school. So we look forward to carrying our full share of the challenges that we face. And yet at the same time we're determined to protect the Board's own autonomy and independence as an overseer of education in Vermont. Thank you very much. Thank you. Are there any questions? Representative Conlon? Thank you, Kate. Just a couple of quick questions. Could you clarify a little bit more about the SBE budget in terms of what makes up the majority of it today? Yes, I can. The big hunks are travel of Board members to Board meetings. That's intended to be, it's in the past been budgeted, I think it was budgeted for this year for $22,000. You know, we try to travel all around the state. We have 12 to 15 meetings a year. And there are 11 of us on the Board. But as I say, that can be significantly reduced this year anyway. It's going to come back to bite us next year when hopefully when things return to normal and we're not doing distance meetings, but we certainly have the opportunity to make big savings there. There have been some other elements in the state in the, I should just clarify that the budget, and I hope to change this now that this has all happened, the budget that you see for the state Board has been prepared by the agency of administration. And they have never consulted with the state Board on what's in the budget or what the amounts are, which now that I'm chair, I find really quite startling. The only reason that the agency, that the Board's budget is part of the agency's budget is that a historic accident. As you know, at one time the Board was in charge of the agency. And after 2012, we are not very definitely, and I'm very, very clear and comfortable about that. But it's sort of a historic accident that the Board's budget is sort of a piece, a very dinky piece, I might say, of the agency's budget. So other major elements are per diems, that's about $10,000 a year. And so, and it was until a year and a half ago, $20,000 set aside for this membership in NSV. And we got rid of that, knowing that we were seeing a lot of, a lot of issues between the Board and the agency, as well as appeals that we were convinced we needed our own legal counsel on many of these issues. So we took that $20,000 for, it was going to be used for dues, terminated our membership, and at least in our minds applied that $20,000 to outside the legal counsel as needed. And it's not reflected in the budget that the agency has provided to you. And if it will be helpful, I would prepare, I have prepared a, the Board's version of the budget, which is this, pretty much like the agency's only $12,000, $10,000 less than on substitute's legal counsel for this membership that we haven't had for a couple years. Thank you. And I just will say, I appreciate the fact that the Board immediately stepped up with in excess of the 8% or 3% that others had talked about and coming in at 12.5%. Representative Austin. Yes, I'm just curious because the process doesn't seem like a, well, you know, well thought out process if you weren't consulted, you know, if it wasn't kind of a collaborative process of going back and forth in terms of, you know, your expenditures and your revenues, I'm wondering like historically, has this happened before or, you know, have you, is this new, is this a new thing that happened or is this the MO? You know, my history of the Board only goes back a couple years, but I did do a little research and saw, for example, in, in fiscal 2019, the Board had legal expenses, largely associated with the state plan for Act 46 of around $15,000, none of which had been budgeted. And the Board went over budget that year, because no one had ever apparently realized the Board's going to need legal assistance. And they did, under the former chair, and very appropriately, we retained counsel to help us differentiate between what the agency was advocating and what the Board wanted to advocate. I mean, sometimes we don't see the world the same. And so we, but further to your question, Representative Austin, to my knowledge, there's never been a process of consultation between the agency folks who write up this budget. And what they seemed to do this year anyway was just take last year's budget and just carry it forward. Even though the Secretary was present during discussions, when we said, we don't want to spend any more money on, on, we've stopped spending money on memberships and we want to use all that money for legal counsel. I hope now that this has all hit the wall, I hope the next time round we get the Board has a much more active role in building its budget and owning it. And frankly, I'm just astonished the Secretary who met with us all day long on, on Wednesday the 19th of, of August. And, and his, his budget document is dated the 18th. And he never even mentioned that he was going to cut us off at the knees by 30%. I mean, it was really extraordinary. And I think the Board members are, are, are quite disappointed in that. Thank you. I will say, having lived through the kefafal we had in 2019, the summer with the Act 173 group, the need for independent counsel became very, very clear when the agency had proposed and made some recommendations that we certainly learned were sort of quite far away from federal intent and that came from outside counsel. So I really do appreciate the need for that counsel. So, and I'm just so, so you're, you're saying you're, we don't have your budget, but we do have this budget that basically just takes last years and reduces it by 24,042. Is that, does that math add up? That's what I, I understand that was the Secretary's proposal. Yes. And our proposal is to reduce it by about $10,000, which is 12.5%. Okay. Just trying to find a way. If you like, I would, I would send you this evening the sort of a line item budget as, as, as presented by the agency in January. And as we propose it be incorporated in the restatement. Okay. That would be great. We need to sort of, I need to basically respond today to the, to the Appropriations Committee. I'd see that we don't have our representative from appropriations in the room at the moment. I'm, I see a hand raised. Chip is there. Oh, good. I'm sorry. You covered up by testimony. I can send this also to Representative Conquest simultaneously, if you wish. So Chip, the, the state board has a budget that they put together that is different from this budget. And I'm inclined to, I'm just going to preempt this a little bit by saying I'm inclined to allow not to accept that reduction. And yet I will also want to, which I wanted to see where the committee stands. But I want to be able to give you something that's more concrete in terms of the state board of educations recommended budget for themselves. If you or the chair would send that along to me, that would be, that would be helpful. Can I ask a quick question? I have a floor here before I, I'm going to have to duck out in a minute. I'm afraid. What was the, what was the rationale for choosing the 12 and a half percent given that other, while the agency itself was reduced by 3% and, and others, most other agencies and departments had that same 3% sort of required, required by the administration reduction. Why did you all decide that 12 and a half percent was? Well, first of all, just to give you some indication of how marginalized the board is on these matters. I mean, number one, we knew nothing about the agency's proposal, the secretary's proposal until the secretary web alerted me to it. And then you did as well. I mean, we were totally blindsided by all this. So our approach, so we knew nothing about 3% or 8% or any of that. We, primarily I as chair, just sat down with our budget and looked at the line items and visualized the rest of this year through, through next to the middle of next year and in, in light of COVID and so forth. And our traveling and most of this comes from travel reimbursement and the agency's budget was $22,790 for this year. The agency's budget for this, for the board was $22,790. And I'm, I've looked at what we've spent already this year and I'm, I'm, I shaved nearly $8,000 out of that. And then another $1,000, $2,000 out of advertising, which we have underspent the last several years. I went back through and looked at our spending for the last several years. And so I basically just did it. Where's their softness? And I'm, I mean, I'm, I used to run a business. So I, where's, where's their softness in this budget? And I just picked out these two items and together they total about $10,000 and that, that what, I didn't worry about what percent that came to, I just knew that that was money that we could say, we don't need to spend that. So that's, that's the way we were thinking about it. Great. Thank you. So your, your total budget then, do you remember what the top number was for your total budget? Well, it, it was $80,845. And we proposed that it be $70,750. Say that again. It was, but as, as initially presented by the agency in January, $80,845. And we propose that it be in the restatement reduced to $70,750. Okay. That helps, I think that helped to have that. And I will, I will send you the line item budget. If it's imperative, I can get it to you before five o'clock today. Okay. So, so Chip, if the governor's original budget was $80,845, the current one looks like it's $56,8. And the board is proposing $70,750. Is that enough? Well, no, no. What we need from you is, is your, and to be honest, tomorrow would be okay. But what we need from you is what the, the final budget number you're going to recommend us for the state board. Okay. And, and I would love to have that, the line item budget, but that's not necessary for what I really need is the recommendation from your committee. And like I say, if we have that by tomorrow, that's, that's fine. Okay. Well, it sounds like we've got the number now. So, so if you're going to recommend the, the chair's proposed budget, I'll take that back, but I would love, would need it in that email to me. And that's just me saying that I'm just looking at at the committee. Are you at, are you comfortable with this or I see two hands, excuse me. Let's, let's just check in with Larry Coopley. You're muted. Yeah. Thank you, Kate. I think it would be wise to look at the line item budget prior to making these decisions. Notably, it's very late in the, in time here. I understand that. But I would certainly like to look at the budget, line item budget, prior to making a decision. Okay, John, maybe you could send it to the committee. I shall. Okay. And Kathleen James, did I see you? Did you have a question? No. Serena Austin. I'm just, we don't need to talk about it now, but I'm just wondering what the solution is for rectifying this process because it just doesn't seem like it's very efficient and it doesn't seem like it's best in terms of looking at the state budget and how things can operation. So what would you recommend, Mr. Carroll, for creating a process that both you and the AOE can agree to in a collaborative manner? Yeah. You know, in fairness, I think this is quote, the way it's always been done. And it, it sort of has worked, but these are, these are very different times and it doesn't seem to work anymore. I, at the moment, would say that my first approach would be to approach the secretary himself about this. And I would think it would be apparent to the secretary that we need to improve our process and that we would do that in the next cycle, i.e. in the preparation of the 2022 budget, which would be ordinarily be happening fairly soon as we approach the next biennium. So it'd be my intention as chair to begin that conversation and I'd be very surprised if there was objection or resistance from the agency on this. I think it's largely just been out of sight, out of mind for kind of everybody. And they basically have been without, you know, a CFO for humans, which didn't help either. I'm sorry, Sarita, were you finished? I was just saying thank you. That sounds like a good plan. And we also anticipate taking up, we have a bill on our wall that we just didn't have time to address. The Senate sent over us looking at some of the statutory changes that need to happen in relation to the state board of education and the change in relationship. So, you know, if we're all elected, if I end up in chair, I will be pulling that down and we'll not pulling it down, it'll be gone. But we will start that conversation again. Chip, conquest, yes. Yeah, I'm going to just, I have to leave to go back to my committee for a second and I'm going to take that opportunity moment to jump in where I don't belong, which is in the policy committee's world. But it seems to me that based on this discussion, and particularly around the need for independent counsel, that if you're going to be taking up an examination of some of the statutory authorities at the board and a sort of broader look at the board, a real examination of their budget and what they really need in order to do their job, the job that we've set out for them to carry out their authority, that would be a really helpful thing for the Appropriations Committee to get your input on, you know, forward, having had a conversation with all the players involved and based on your committees, thinking about what the board needs to carry out its mission, making a recommendation for what I would assume would be perhaps a somewhat larger budget in order to do that. But I would be helpful to the Appropriations Committee to have an informed report back about budgetary recommendation. Thank you. Makes sense. I do have to run, but I hope that I will have time to come back while you are still moving. We have a committee bill that we're going to be working on that we're hoping we can just give that language to you once we kind of figure out what we're doing to give to you to put into the budget. Yeah, and when will that, that is something that we would like as soon as possible. I don't know when you're thinking of, do you know when, when you are likely to have that? We're going to be taking it up today and then we'll be getting more testimony on it tomorrow. Okay, and this is the one about the number of days, school days? That's on the list. Yeah, and I think that that draft is on our website right now or it's about to be filled. Jim has sent it over to Phil, so that should be it. My chair did bring that specific bit of language up and asked me to check in with you. So I think if we are likely to have it tomorrow afternoon, that would be great. If not, could you just give me a heads up that it's still going to be coming? Yeah, thank you. Thank you. As soon as I hope. Join us anytime. Okay, so in relation to the other issues, so I have a request for us to wait to look at at the state board budget which we'll get tonight. Yes, I can just change my afternoon schedule and bang out a comparative table showing you the budget as originally proposed in January. The if you wish the secretary's changes and our proposal. So question to the committee. Are you going to need that to be able to decide whether you're going to support it or not? Or is it just going to be something that you'll be able to validate later? I think I would like to. I think John's idea is good. I think I'd like to look at their line item and the agency's request as well. Peter Conlon, did you have something? Oh, I was just you were asking for, you know, the fact that they've self proposed a nearly 13% decrease in their budget makes me feel very comfortable with their proposal. So you're comfortable with the proposal and we'll get the justification later would be okay with you. Yes, Larry, you want to have the justification before you decide. I agree with Peter. I think, you know, everybody else was asked to reduce 3%. So they went well beyond that. So I would I don't need to see it right now. I'd like to see it at some point, but not before it's still who needs. So you think you can get it to me by one, John? I'll get it to you. I can I can get it to you in the next hour. I would send it to Mr. Patty as a PDF and Patty would get it to the members and you. Thank you. Let's just get meeting until three today. So if we could get it, you know, before then that would be great. If we could get it by 230, that would be ideal to our best. Thank you so much. Thank you all so much. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak with you. Excellent. So the other remaining issues on that list that we had talked about were outright. We have a proposal to just give them their budget, which is 60,000. We have a proposal that says 58, 2, which is a 3% reduction. And then we had a proposal to do 55, 2. So I'm going to just who's comfortable with who's comfortable with who is I'm going to start and we'll work up. Can you accept 55, 2, which is an 8% reduction? Just raise your hands. I tell you, do your blue hands. That would be helpful. Kate, that's someone that outright agreed to in terms of an 8% reduction. That's right. That's what they had been anticipating. Yes. So we know. So that's your I've got enough people comfortable with comfortable with it. Can you accept or would you prefer? No, can you accept that? Can you accept it? I am trying to raise my hand. I've just used. Okay, good. Okay, good. We can do it. We can do it that way as well. So I have enough that we already know we can do a bottom. We've already got that. That's now. Now I want to go up. Who would like it to be the full 60,000? That's everybody. I'm going to have everybody lower your hands. And then who's prepared to go with 60 to 60,000? Okay. I've got two blue hands, which I don't think is everybody. Just to establish the rules of voting here. We can vote twice or three times. You can vote. You can vote three times if you want. Yeah. So I've got just Peter and Dylan are okay so far. And me, I would put myself in that category are okay with 60 grand. And then who would be okay with doing a 3%? This is Caleb here. I'm texting you because I'm just on the phone. I am okay with 60 and I can live with 55, too. I texted you those things. Sorry. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. This is really hard to do it like this. I'm struggling away here. We're now raising our hand for the 3% cut. Is that correct? Yes. 3% cut. Why don't you just raise your hands? I've got Caleb. All right. So it looks like so far. Let me see again. Peter, can you straighten me out? I don't even know what question I've just asked. It looks like the majority, Kate, is 55,000. Yeah. I got that. I got that every no, I got that everybody agreed that they could go with that. I haven't gotten that it's clear that that's what if there would be more that people would be willing to accept. All right. So let's do it clear and everybody raise your real hand. Yes. If you're okay with 3% as opposed to 8%. 3% opposed to 8%. 1, 2, 3. But if we prefer 8%, are we going to vote for that? You already voted for it. Okay. So we've got, I think I counted seven of us that were were okay with the 3%. I think you counted four. I saw four hands. Okay. Let's put them down again. Put them down again. Sorry. Are you looking at real hands? Okay. I'm going to do it this way. I'm just going to go around and I'm just going to find out where we are. Okay. So Peter, what's your recommendations? Well, I'm comfortable at any level and fully supportive of any level. I'm also fully supportive of a strong recommendation coming from this committee. So if that means a strong recommendation is at 8%, then that's great. But I would like to see a higher amount. However, like I said, I think more important for me is a strong recommendation from the committee. Okay. Kathleen? Basically, I thought about it all weekend. And if, you know, I guess the more I thought about it, the more I felt on principle, everybody across the board is being asked to tighten their belts a little bit this year. And so I felt that no matter how important I feel outright's work is, and no matter how much I support their mission, I felt that they should be asked to tighten their belts a little bit. So I would rather see this committee get on board with a 3% cut because that's what the agency of education was asking itself to do all across the board. So I would love to see the committee rally behind a 3% cut, which is what the agency was doing across the board. If we can't get our committee to rally behind that, then I'm with Peter. I would love to see us rally behind 8% and I can live with that, which is why I raised my hand for it. Jay? So I guess I'm kind of a combination of what Kath just said and what Peter said. I prefer the largest reduction, but I am compelled by Kath's argument that if 3% maybe, maybe I'd be okay with that. Okay. But the strong suggestion is what we should go. Casey? I guess I'm just kind of still stuck about what, because I was kind of hearing both about the federal money that came in versus what we actually allocated to them. The math, I was getting too conflicting stories so that's why I'm leaning towards the 8% because I thought that they were originally allocated 20, and then this was a federal grant that they're trying to hold on to from the state. Is that correct? Am I wrong on thinking this? They have gotten 20 from the state and 40 from the feds and then last year we gave them 60. So we gave them 60? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But you'd say 8%? Yeah. Thanks. Okay, Lynn. I'm also with the 8%. That's what they had expected and had planned for, even though they didn't want to, which nobody would want to, but I'm with the 8%. Thanks. Dylan? You know, I just, I think that this is a real priority, and these are at-risk students, and my personal preference would be that we fully fund at the 60,000. This is such a modest expenditure compared to the others that we authorized. It's very modest in the budget, and it's the only service provider providing these types of services directly to schools. And the in-demand nature of the work they do to me suggests that it is a worthwhile investment. I'd be willing to accept a 3%, but 8% for me is a non-starter. Taylor? Sorry, just unmuting there. Yeah. I'm going to say my opinion is the same as Kathleen's. I would like us to go to 3%. I don't mind a little cut. I would like to see this committee do something unanimous, and I think that when Dana came in and told us they had prepared for 55.2, they probably knew that there was a chance, so that's what they were going to get. I think of our committee could unanimously support their work in that way. 55.2 is okay with me. If people want to go higher, I will vote for the highest number that anybody puts out there. Sarita? Can we do like 6%? You know, we're talking about $1,000. We're not talking about a million dollars. So the difference between that is small, and we need to move on. So I'm going to say, I'm not going to recommend that at this point. That can be overruled. I'm with Kat. I'm with Dylan, so I'd love to give him the full amount. I do believe people are tightening their belts, and I feel like it sounds like they can run the program at the 8% reduction. So I would go with that. 8%. Yeah, okay. Matt, is this here? Can you hear me? There you are. Yes, Chris? It's still going to go to the 8%, just because outright was comfortable with it. They were preparing for it. And, you know, after hearing from a state board, we got to come up with some money here, and we're going the opposite way. So the agency came up with all these savings that they proposed, and now we don't really have anything if we give full amounts all the way around. So we got to trim some of the budgets here. So I think the 8%, they're okay with it. So the 55-2 number is good for me. And then Larry, you're at 8%, correct? I'm at 8%. And, you know, notably our budgets, the budget in particular is really being stressed at this point. And it's, you know, unfortunately, nonprofits are going to suffer from this. But everybody's got to go. So I don't know. All we can do 100%. And I appreciate everyone here giving their remarks. It's too bad we have to cut anything for anyone. However, the stress is there. The strain is there. We have a Vermont State Colleges. There's a lot going on. And I just want to make sure that everyone is aware that we don't have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to spend anymore. Okay. What I love is that actually the difference we're talking about is $3,000. But this is what I understand. The $3,000 we're going to get totally stuck on, but a million we're going to just toss off and say sure. So I will, what I would like to do then is say that we recommend this range between the three and 3% and 8%. Can we live with that? I don't actually have to take a vote. I just have to write a letter. So I'm saying, can you live with me writing it like that? Hallelujah. But Kate, I think it is worth mentioning that that range and I don't know if you'll call it unanimous or near unanimous support of the committee. Yeah, just so that they understand that we feel strongly about that. I saw the heads on the people that wanted 8% were okay with me writing it as 3% to 8%. Correct? So just to clarify, does that mean that we're not making a recommendation? We are making a recommendation. And I can actually, it's not even a, I don't even have to have a formal committee vote. I just have to have a general acceptance. So I don't have to promote a vote. So it's okay. You're going to say a range of 3 to 8% or 8%. I was going to say, I was going to give them the two numbers. This is 3%. This is 8%. Why don't we just go the 8%? Because a lot of people would like to go 3%. I think it was like 7, 4%. At the moment, I could pass it at 3%, but I'm being respectful of those of you that would like it to be 8%. So I'm being respectful to include that language of the three of you that want to keep it at 8%. That doesn't, I don't know, that doesn't make sense to me because I thought it was kind of like 7, 4, you know, going all the way up to 3 or keeping an 8 type deal. Because, you know, they're okay with 8% themselves. They said it already. Why can't we just do that? I think everyone's on board with the 8, and then a few people want to go to 3. And like you said, it's a few bucks, but if we need to give more money to the Board of Education, every little bit helps. Okay. I hear you. We are going to have to move on because we've got CRF funds, which we're dealing with multiple millions. So I'm going to need to move us on. And Kathleen, did you have something related to this? Because I've got to get us out of this pit. Okay. Sure. Are we moving on? I just wanted to clarify that I strongly prefer 3% because of the way we voted it was, could you live with or what do you prefer? And I just want to echo what Dylan said. We're talking about 3,000 bucks for one of our most at-risk categories of youth. So it was, could you live with? Not what do you pick? So if we had had to rank, I definitely would have gone with the 3%. Larry. Can they raise $3,000 as a non-profit? Can they go out to the street and raise $3,000? If we're only talking about $3,000, I think we're talking about $60,000. Okay. I'm going to have to move us on because I've got people in the room and we have Phil that's leaving us in an hour and 10 minutes, and we have to do all of our CRF funds. So I'm going to put the $3,000 question on the side right now. We can come back to it and I'm going to move us over to, so that Governor's Institute, they were cut by 5,700. They said they could live with it. Okay. So they can live with that. The early literacy isn't attached to policy. It's frustrated as we all are that that's just sitting there. To me, it's a wash. Can we live with accepting that? And the State Board of Education, we're waiting to get that testimony and we'll make a decision about that. Okay. All right. So let's move on to CRF where we're talking about millions and millions of dollars. And I believe, oh no, I don't. We're going to do that. Time is up. I had Jim. Jim, can you introduce our miscellaneous ed bill? And what we're going to do is just introduce it and we'll take testimony on it later. Of course. So for the record, Jim Dameron at this console, we're going to walk through this draft 1.1 of your miscellaneous changes in educational law to address COVID-19. I won't walk through all the labels, but let's give you a sense what's here. So section one, this is basically the Secretary's recommendation as you so far discussed it, which is to reduce the number of school days from 175 to 170. Section one, it does not reduce the in-service teacher days, which is another recommendation that the Secretary made that you haven't gone with so far. So that's not here. So we'll hold that so we can ask the Vs about that going forward. And then second, it's just a technical change to include the career technical standard school districts and the appropriation you made earlier in June for Pre-KH 12. So that corrects that. Section three is the ADM provision. So this is dealing with homeschool students and basically says that if you were kind of last year, but now this year you're being homeschooled, you'll be counted this year as well. Section four is the Secretary's recommendation of the Australian Ballot. If you don't go so fast, please go right there. Thank you. Section four would extend what you did earlier in act, let's see if it's on my screen here. Last year, last session in act 92, you allowed school districts to use the Australian Ballot by way of a vote of the school board as opposed to having to have a vote of the board. This extends that to the entire 2021 school year because what you did in act 92 was just for 2020 calendar year, but also according to the section I recommended, it will require school districts to use the Australian Ballot. What you did in act 92 was you allowed the school district to decide by the school board. So this changes it possibly to a requirement. So there's a question moving back to the agency, do they really mean to have a state mandate on that? Or is it really just extending what you did last year a bit longer? So that's why the question mark is here on act 19 and 20. And then if you go down into section five, scroll down further, you would feel right there. Thanks. This waives, again it's a question mark for AOE. This waives the requirement that our teacher have an endorsement for online teaching. The question for AOE is for a time period. They have proposed for the 21-22 school year, but I wonder if they met 2021. So that's your question for them. Section six is the language we passed numerous times before dealing with vacancies on, in fact, you know, school district boards. All we're doing here is extending what you've done twice before further. If you're going to enter the bottom of the page there, Phil, keep scrolling down. This is repealed on July 1, 2022. So it would be in question over the year and a half. And section seven is the effective date on passage. So we will be taking a look at these items tomorrow. I'm hoping that we can move things forward. I think the only thing that really is the most controversial has to do with the ADM, which we're going to be looking at on Friday with Ways and Means, the homeschooling. That discussion is the only one that may be a little bit tough to put into the appropriations bill. So the school year, the queer and tech centers, Australian Ballot, the waiver on online teaching, and the elections of the Unified Union School District, all of which are not large but helpful during this period of time. And if you have questions, please feel free to send them to me and I'll make sure we have the right testimony coming in tomorrow. And I'm hoping that we can get that out of here very quickly. Tomorrow we will be hearing from the agency. There's possibility we have agency in the room. We might be able to address some of that today as well as the other usual suspects. Secretary French, you are in the room at the moment, I believe, correct? He was in the room. He lost him, I guess. Okay, so we'll wait on that then for tomorrow. So with that, we're going to move on to the CRF funds. And I think Mark Perot, are you able to help us get started with this, Chloe? There I am. I could walk you through a little bit. I think that the school board's association and the superintendents maybe make sense for them to go first, but it's up to you. Great. So we don't have a specific number that we know we're dealing with. What we're looking at is what is it that you think you're going to need? And I think Brad James. Is Brad James in the room today? No. Okay, so we'll look to the superintendent's association. And I can start you off with some background on how we got here. Would that help? Thank you. That would be helpful. Okay, so back in the Q1 budget, the legislature appropriated $50 million for K-12 in the coronavirus relief funds that we had been allocated from the FETs. That money was put into a few boxes. One of them was $12 million for the summer meals program. $29 million was made available for reimbursements to school districts for any CRF-eligible costs that they could identify. There was $6.5 million for indoor air quality programs that went to Efficiency Vermont. And then there was a little bit of money for independent schools and some money for administration. The focus I think today is on the $29 million that is going out to reimburse individual school districts for CRF-eligible costs. At the time you appropriated this money, we recognized that we didn't have a very good handle on how much money school districts would actually need. So the legislature indicated that a portion of the remaining CRF money, about $100 million, would be reserved for use in August when you come back. So reserved for use now to provide any additional CRF money that school districts could use. Unfortunately, we don't have a really hard number there. The agency of education sent out applications to districts last Friday. And school districts are going to be having to submit their applications to AOE on Wednesday. I don't have any information on what that's looking like yet. But in an attempt to try to identify additional money that might be available, we've been working with the school board's association and the superintendents and districts to try to identify what their needs might be going forward. There's needs that they've already spent money on and the big unknown is costs that they may not yet be aware of because under the CRF guidelines, money can be expended up until December 30th and still be eligible. So it's kind of an unknown. The only other thing I wanted to throw out before talking about the estimate is out of the $12 million that the legislature had appropriated for summer meals program, because that money went out so late, districts were only able to use a little over $2 million of that money. And in the language that you passed regarding that, districts had to use the money up by the end of August. So there's about $10 million of money that was previously appropriated in that $50 million appropriation for summer meals. And the way the appropriation was done, it said up to $12 million could be used. And so since only two of its been used, that other 10 actually becomes available for school districts to use as well. I had a conversation this morning with Rosie Kruger over at AOE wants an nutrition program. And AOE has indicated that school districts may be able to use $4 to $5 million of that money to pay for school meal equipment to provide. So and they thought that they could get that money out to districts pretty quickly. So that may be something you want to consider as well. But that's still not an additional $5 million available. So unless you have any questions with that said, I'll stop there and hopefully Jeff and Chelsea can talk a little bit about the information they've gotten from school boards. Okay. Of the $12.5 million, only $2 million has been used. And AOE has some ideas on how that might be able to be used to sort of continue on with that concept. Yes. It would require a language, some additional language though, because the original language that appropriated it limited its use until until the end of August, which is gone by so. Okay. Thank you. Yep. I see the secretary in the room. Secretary, would you like to speak to us on CRF recommendations or should I go straight to the school boards? Good afternoon. Sorry. We had our press conference go very long today. I'll be happy to answer any questions. And Bill Bates, our CFO is on as well. So we can fill you in or if you have any specific questions or would you like sort of a general update? I missed the first part of Mark's comment, so I'm not sure. Yeah. A general update would be helpful. Bill, do you want to walk through that? Absolutely. Can everyone hear me? Yes. All right. Thank you very much for the record, Bill Bates Agency of Education, and giving you an update on CRF, breaking it down into its individual components. We received an appropriation of $50 million of which $12 million of that was earmarked for summer food service program, 6.5 for Efficiency Vermont, LEA, $29 million, and then approved independent schools was 1.5. And if you add that up, it comes to 49 and the remaining $1 million was for accounting support. And so quick update, summer food service program, that program ran from June through August and has been completed at this point. We, Rosie has submitted her report to the legislature and also has been in touch with Mark regarding how that program played out of the $12 million that was earmarked for the program using round numbers. We're looking at having the extended $3 million, which leaves a balance of 9 and Rosie's report will indicate that there is about $4 million in equipment needs to prepare the meals. And then there's a question as to whether or not the remaining $5 million might want to be used for busing or other needs. So that's summer food. Efficiency Vermont, that was a $6.5 million grant program where the agency of education worked with Efficiency Vermont to get a grant board agreement out to them. And then Efficiency Vermont is going to be working directly with the individual LEAs. And the LEAs would then be hiring local contractors to do that work. LEA grant. So this is the $29 million. Again, this is running from March 1st to December 30. All of the information has been sent out to the LEAs. And I just got off a call with the fiscal guidance team, which is an internal team to the agency of Ed. We've already received seven applications in already on that. So those applications are coming in. And then on the independent school grant, that's $1.5 million. And most of the data information is we've already received three of those. So of all of the LEAs, you only have seven applications? So we just recently sent these out. And that was as of Friday the 21st. And we've already received seven in. One wrinkle that I will share with the group here is that in the 11th hour, AOA and their consulting firm Guide House reached out to us about FEMA. And so we have worked with Guide House and AOA to send out a survey to the LEAs. And so agency of administration has asked that the LEAs respond back by tomorrow as far as possible FEMA interest. And they've received 57 responses. So my thinking is that the business managers filled out the FEMA response first and then as soon as they've got that completed, they would be sending in a response for the LEA grant. That would be a fast follow-up. That's my gut. Thank you. Jeff and Chelsea and Sue. We're looking to you to find out what you see as the need going forward. How's my audio today? Good. Okay. I'll speak slowly. Turn off your video. Jeff, turn off your video because you're not coming. I'll do that. Yeah, thank you. Sure. Okay. Okay. So following Mark and Bill, I will tell you what the Superintendent's Association has done in collaboration with VASBO in an effort to inform the General Assembly through the Joint Fiscal Office regarding the need. And as Bill pointed out and Mark, too, on August 21st, school districts were provided the Coronavirus Relief Fund grant program application. And the purpose of that application was for them to account for CRF eligible funds that they had expended for the period March 1st through June 30 and to predict their expenditures association with COVID-19 response from July 1 to December 31st. On August 15th, when we learned that the so-called set aside by the General Assembly was in question, the so-called $100 million, I immediately asked school districts to start to estimate the dollar value that they would need. And the reason that I did was because I think that the expectation has been that school districts would do what they needed to do in order to honor health and safety guidelines and, shall we say, reopen school to the best of their ability. So our interest is in making sure that school districts are appropriately reimbursed for the investments that they are making real time in an emergency situation. I was away last week for four days. And when I came back, Chelsea, who was holding down the fort, so to speak, while I was away, told me that she had been in regular conversations with the Joint Fiscal Office who was eager to get our help in estimating a number. So through work with the Joint Fiscal Office, principally Mark Perrault, but also in conversations with Steve Klein, the superintendent's association with VASBO support reached out to school districts and asked them when they had the numbers that they would be providing to the AOE tomorrow, which is that September 2nd deadline that Bill spoke of, would they share them with us so that we could pass them on to the Joint Fiscal Office? And I'm going to talk about the process in a minute, but as of right now, we've heard from 20 out of 52 districts. And Chelsea is going to share with you what we've learned in terms of a cost per pupil, so she'll do that in a minute. In a way, well, in more than a way, it's unfortunate that the timeline for the General Assembly doesn't coincide with the timeline that was established by the AOE, and I think that this is inadvertent because by 4.30 tomorrow afternoon, we're going to have a better number than we do right now. So I've had extensive conversations with the Joint Fiscal Office about that, and I understand the pressing need to move forward with the appropriations process. So we are willing participants to try to get you the number. So we have a number that we'll share with you that we don't take responsibility for because it's reported to us by the districts. Tomorrow afternoon, AOE will have information, but for some reason they're not able to do a calculation that will tell you what they think it will be. So the timing is off. The final thing I'll say, and then I'll turn it over to Chelsea to give you the information that we've collected, is that we're receiving what I would refer to as qualified responses. If you look at the application that the AOE put out, it goes into a lot of detail about what's an eligible cost. The problem is the school districts don't know what their costs will be because they don't know how the model might change from in-person to fully remote to hybrid based on what the trajectory or the pattern of the virus is. So you're doing the best we can. You can. We're doing the best we can. You're going to allocate a number. We hope it's a good number, but it's all very, very flexible based on what happens with the virus. All of this will go to the other body. Yeah, we know. I understand all that. Steve Klein and I, I was on the phone with him at 20 minutes past seven this morning and I've been on the phone with Mark. I think it's seven o'clock last night or late. But at any rate, I'm going to pass it over to Chelsea. She'll tell you what we collected right now. And the last thing I'll say is the AOE is going to be in possession itself of this information tomorrow. So Bill said seven people have submitted. But I, but my belief is that 20, 27 districts have submitted. My belief is that 20 districts have completed their process because they have shared their numbers with us. So I'll pass this over to Chelsea, who's actually been doing the data collection and the tally for us. So thanks. I'll answer questions after Chelsea speaks if you'd like me to. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Chelsea Myers for the record. The essay, as Jeff said, 20 districts or single school districts or SU is reported out of 52. I'm saying 52 because originally the three independent tech districts were not eligible for those funds. At this point in time, we have $675.95 per equalized pupil that represents about 32,000 pupils accounted for in those 20 districts. There it's I think interesting to note that there was no absolutely no correlation between district size and the spending for equalized people. I'm happy to ask any questions. And as Jeff said, there were qualifiers in some of these data points. Are you going to be able to submit any of this in writing as to Bill Bates as well as well as Jeff and Chelsea? We'd like to look at things. Yeah, I mean, my preference on that because, you know, I rarely do I feel uncomfortable and always are we willing to play a contributing role? We're actually serving. We're doing this work on behalf of the Joint Fiscal Office. So Chelsea's sending reports almost on an hourly basis to mark. We'll continue to do that. And then we want to pass the information over to the JFO so that they can report it officially to the General Assembly. We don't what we truly are serving only as a conduit here. And I urge districts to try to complete their work early because I know you needed this information. So yes, we could give it to you in writing. But we would my preference would be to give it to the JFO and have them pass it on. You will do we mark and mark and Chloe. Will you be able to put this into a document that we could actually use? Yes, I can do that once I'll work with Jeff and Chelsea to put something together. But just to put it into context for you, you've already got more than a third of districts that cover more than a third of the students like 36% of the students are covering. So to the extent that that per pupil number is representative of the whole state, you'd be looking at about $60 million $60 million of CRF eligible costs. If you subtract out the 29 you've already appropriated that leaves a little over $31 million in additional money that school districts would need to fully reimburse them for what we've been able to identify as CRF eligible costs. But I'd be happy to work with Jeff and Chelsea and get you something in writing. That is close to a number I've been hearing in the 3035 range. Correct. Right. And if you, you know, because as Jeff pointed out, I mean school districts do not necessarily know the kind of expenditures that they're going to run into, depending on how they operate. And so you might want to build a cushion into there. And that's, I think we've been talking about something like $35 million, but That'd be great. And if we, if we have, you know, some multiplier that we're using, such as per pupil that's based on something would be also be very, very helpful. Right. And again, I mean, if we were able to get more information, based on the submissions from school boards, even if it hasn't been vetted by AOE, I think that would be helpful. But my understanding is the AOE is not going to be able to report back to the legislative until the 10th or 11th of September, which is getting pretty far into our process. Yeah. Yeah. And it will be out of our hands at that point. Correct. Which, which we just have to understand. So, did you have anything to add on that? Just, just a couple of things. Just wondering if that is still correct that the AOE is not able to provide any information for another 10 or 11 days. And also do appreciate the discussion about the unknowns that we're going to be confronting in the next few months. And as we've all seen, it's very hard to predict what the future holds throughout this crisis. And that building in a cushion as Mark suggested, I think is a very prudent idea. Thank you. Peter Karlin. Thank you. I didn't hear the number that Chelsea gave for per pupil. And I just wanted to hear that again. That's $675.95. Okay. Thank you. And along this process, I've been very concerned about, and I asked about it last week, and there wasn't really a good time to give an answer, but I've been very concerned about the guidance that went out and then came back about compensatory and recovery services for students on IEPs. And I'm just curious, Chelsea, if you happen to know if those estimated numbers included that guidance that I know was rescinded, or maybe the secretary could comment on the status of that guidance, but it was out there, which creates kind of a demand issue. And I'm just wondering where that issue may have come into play with these numbers. I do not know the answer to that. I suspect that they are not included in these figures, but I could be wrong. And I would defer to Tracy Sawyer's VCSEA to talk about what the estimated costs are for those services based on the work she's done with her membership. I could ask the secretary to comment on the status of that guidance today. Yes, please. Representative Webb, this is Jeff. If I could just chime in on that briefly. You know, Jeff Francis, could you wait one second? We just want to hear the status from the secretary on whether that was pulled back or not. Are you talking, I think the question pertain to our July special ed guidance? Yes. Yes, we're in the process of revising that. A group of stakeholders, I would say it's special ed directors, some folks from VCSEA and also some superintendents, express an opinion that the guidance from July should be revoked entirely. That's not our position, but we are trying to take their feedback and construct a better version of that. That version was produced on Friday. My understanding is being shared with that stakeholder group for feedback. Okay, and I don't think we have... Do you... Tracy, in the room... Could I follow up on that for a second, Kate? Please, please, Jeff. With the revised guidance that you might be putting out, do you foresee that having an impact on the estimated needs of districts that they're trying to calculate right now for CRF funding? You know, it's hard with this sort of moment in time where we're pivoting between reopening costs of what are going to be the larger financial repercussions of this emergency. I don't see a large amount of reopening costs emerging yet relative to student support services. I think, on the other hand, this can be one of our most costly areas as we... as the emergency goes on. So we're kind of at that pivot point. I don't see the guidance necessarily being germane to reopening costs per se, but it certainly... it starts to speak to what will be recovery circles, if you will, or dealing with the repercussions of the emergency on the impact on students and particularly their special ed programs. I guess I should have asked a basic question, and that is whether these compensatory and recovery services are CRF money eligible? Yeah, that's a tricky question, too. I don't know if we can answer that today. There's certainly special ed eligible reimbursement, you know, from our own formula. I'm not sure if Bill has an answer to that regarding, you know, our current CRF guidance, but, you know, once again, we haven't finalized our approach to this yet, so it's almost a little premature to answer a question when we haven't finalized our approach. I will say, you know... Thank you very much. It was not our intention to create, you know, I don't think we did create a new sort of category of eligibility for service. That's how it was interpreted. But we're, you know, like every state in the country, we're in sort of uncharted territory. My conclusion and our team's conclusion that a complete retraction of this guidance isn't appropriate, and particularly we were looking at guidance that was produced from other states, namely Maine and Wisconsin, and how they put together models for, quote, unquote, recovery services. And, you know, so this is a bit of uncharted territory. We want to be responsive as possible, but we also know that there's going to be some need for us to put a toe in the water, so to speak, on this. So we'll see how this final version of the feedback we get on it, but I think the first step is to produce the finalized guidance, and then we can go from there on CRF eligibility. But, you know, what makes CRF so challenging, as you've already alluded to, is the type of time constraint. Thank you. Of course, we're dealing with compensatory education, which is a federal right. At the same time, we also have an entire school community that likely shows regression in learning. All right. Any other questions at this point? So going forward, we are going to be needing, I may have to schedule another meeting for us on Thursday. I've been given that opportunity to have another meeting on Thursday. I'm just looking at the number of things that we have on our schedule that we need to have finalized by Friday, if not Wednesday. Yes, Serita? I had written you, Kate, about just the days, if we cut back the days, five days, out of the calendar. How does that impact teachers if they're planning on that? Yeah. So I don't know if this is a place to ask it. I didn't, Secretary French would know that, or if it's a contractual issue. Yeah, please go ahead. Okay. Yeah, I don't believe it'll have a significant impact. Most districts currently, you know, because the state minimums are 180 days, divided up with 175 minimum student days and five minimum teacher and service days. So all teacher contracts have at least that in it for a total of 180 days. So certainly what we're trying to do here is to reallocate the days, but not disrupt the total that's 180 days. I will say many teacher contracts, in addition to the minimums, negotiate other days or, you know, specifics around in-service days and so forth. So there might be a bit of a ripple effect that's really hard to anticipate, but I would think for the most part it should be more or less benign, if not welcome. So I think in the cases where there might be some inconsistency with the current settled agreement, I think districts, because there's going to be interest, I think, in all parties implementing this, I think my conclusion is that in the cases where it's inconsistent with the current agreement or needs clarification, folks would execute memorandums of understanding and work it out. It's kind of the pattern we're seeing right now with working conditional language, which never anticipated pandemic. So many, many local teacher associations are working with their administrators to negotiate memorandums of agreement outside of the contract just to cover the sort of temporary work environment. And we can continue with that discussion. We also have some time tomorrow to deal with it. So let's just hold for a minute because I want to make sure, I'm sorry, Jeff Francis, I interrupted you earlier. Did you have something you wanted to add about the compensatory ad? Let me apologize because I interrupted you, but thanks for the opportunity. I was simply going to say, and I think Dan covered some of it, I don't think that the estimates that we're seeing on coronavirus relief funds, the grant program, which is what we're trying to calculate to get that per pupil number would include the compensatory services amount for two reasons. One, that sort of happened outside of the direct costs that we're asking schools to estimate. And two, I don't believe that the special ed administrators and the business managers right now are communicating in a way that would have had them calculate those costs, particularly because the application that was provided by the AOE to the business managers and superintendents did not include a reference to that, nor should it have. But it's instructive because as Secretary Frens pointed out, we are in uncharted territory and the costs to provide educational services are going to be both the costs that are articulated in that application and also the kinds of costs that school districts are going to incur because of compensatory services. So it's just a reminder that there's a tremendous fluidity to this, that everybody's doing the best they can, but we're going to be revisiting through the fall what these costs actually are. And then when the General Assembly reconvened in January, I know for a fact that it's going to be a very hot topic of conversation. So that's what I wanted to say. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Other questions? I can actually, given who's in the room, we have about a half an hour more before we lose our our our ledge assistant. I can open it up to questions related to CRF and I can open it up to questions related to our miscellaneous debt bill. Kathy James. I was just wondering if we had any kind of update on how the air quality program is going through Efficiency Vermont. I had read that there had been a lot of applications. I wasn't sure how that was proceeding. I can start that. That's all right. Yeah, I haven't had direct communication with them. Maybe Bill has, but what I'm hearing, of course, is tremendous demand for the services. And some of it, you know, I think we knew that going into this would just be a placeholder more or less to address some of these concerns. I know there are several districts that their concerns around HVAC factor prominently into their decision to not offer in person learning, you know. But I think, you know, the needs out there, I think the programs running well, Efficiency Vermont is ideally situated, I think, you know, with their connections with contractors and their understanding of the education landscape to expedite as much as they can this approach. But I'm hearing that they're already seeing an increased need just in sort of the narrow scope of this program as initially defined. Not sure what that total amount is, but I understand there is additional need to just implement the program as it was anticipated to be implemented. Secretary French, as we look at our miscellaneous debt bill, there are a couple of questions that we had in relation to the Australian ballot. And I'm not sure if you were in the room when Jim Demerey was going over that bill. Here are a couple of questions that we had. Can you pull up that bill? So section four, Jim, you're available as well. I believe this was language, this is section four of the bill, and this is your request for Australian ballot. We weren't sure if you wanted to have it mandated or to simply make it so that it was available for use. Yeah, I haven't seen. I'm looking at your language for the first time, so I'll just take a look at it. And maybe Jim Demerey, you could help. If you could scroll up for a second, the issue, what we're trying to address, and I think you've captured it, is essentially the voting methodology, whether it's a floor vote or an Australian ballot, is determined by the voters themselves. So we're anticipating, particularly town meeting or school district annual meeting for floor votes being difficult this year, this March, in particular would be challenging for those that are configured as floor votes to hold a special meeting in advance of our meeting to change their voting methodology to Australian ballot. So we wanted to address that concern. I think you've done that here by basically giving that authority to a school board, is how I'm reading it, and the school district may apply the Australian ballot to any of those who are missing, whether they're by vote of its board. So that to me would satisfy the need that you're basically creating a path for districts to do this absolute meeting to hold a district meeting, meaning the voters meeting to do this, which seemed to be a logistical obstacle. So by giving it to the school board, I think you've addressed the issue. By giving the authority, we don't need to mandate it. We're giving them the authority. That's correct. It wasn't necessarily an intention to mandate it, other than the fact that we didn't want everyone to have to go through some process. But I think this resolves the issue. It puts in a place that allows them to address the issue of the board. It's just, yeah, it's not something they typically have the authority to do. So, Tim Demery, how does this compare to what we did in the bill in June? This would be identical to it, except that the bill in June was for a calendar year of 2020. So this extends that by approximately six months. Okay. So this takes us through the school year? Yep. Yep. Okay. Thank you. And school boards, do you have a thought on that? Yes. It's, as Jim said, the same as what was put in place temporarily earlier in the year, just extends it. And the only other, the question that came up in my mind was whether the requirement for, or the waving of the requirement for signatures, collection of signatures in order to get your name on the ballot, whether that was also going to be waved. Are you proposing that? Well, that's certainly something to consider. That was done last spring as well. Okay. Kate, that's probably not an Ed committee issue since that would, that would pertain to all candidates in March. True. I can ask the chair, I'm not sure if they're, I'm not sure what they're doing at this point. I had originally looked at maybe moving this over to their, their shop, but we're going to keep it here in hours. Okay. So that's a question. In terms of other things related to this bill, in terms of, even though I have you on board all to testify on this tomorrow, we might be able to use that time to address some of the other issues before us. The length of the school year, I believe we have the teachers in the room. Did I see the teachers? Did I see Jeff Fanon in the room? It's not. This was language that's come from just about everybody. This came from AOE. It came from the, from the school boards and the superintendents. So I'll just need to hear from the teachers on that. And there was the question that, that came up. Should it, should it go further than this to talk about teacher's days, or is that better left as a local issue? School boards, as you do the negotiating? I believe the secretary had recommended adding on five days and that is not in this draft. I have, I, I could give you some feedback tomorrow when I testify on, on this, if you would like. Okay. That would be great. Secretary French, the regional tech centers, the, these are the independent ones. There was a question, they had been left out of the definition that we had used when we gave funds to independent schools. And a question remained about whether that was made up with the use of gear funds. And I've forgotten what that stands for. Governor's, I don't know. Governor's education, emergency relief. Yes. Okay. Just to back up, I think I caught that while last line of questioning on the calendar. I don't see, I don't have the language in front of you. If you're proposing to reduce the number of student days, but not augment the professional development days, just to reduce the student days. I'm not sure if that's what was being, I think that's what Sue mentioned. I think that, I think that would be very disruptive in terms of contracts and require some reconsideration. I see length of school year. So I, my proposal was to sort of keep it together at 180 days to reduce the teacher or student days by five, but add five to the teacher days. And that was a common concern expressed by many school districts that they wanted to have additional professional development days. So I think the entire 180 days is usually the basis of a contract. So if you're seeking to impact that, that might have broader disruption than what I was referring to. I would support keeping it whole at 180 days, shifting the numbers in terms of the tech center. So you were, I think, if I remember the correspondence, you were seeking to address the issue of tech centers in particularly we have three that are standalone school districts, but don't qualify as LEAs for the purposes of CRF funding. So one, the governor, the gear fund or gear funding is about $4.4 million. And the governor has expressed an interest in directing those funds to support tech centers across the board, which would include these three, but that's, it's $4.4 million. So that's certainly one thing to consider. I think the other thing, I think the question was, could you include them in your definition of an independent school? You had created a separate appropriation for independent schools under CRF. I think you could, and we went back and looked at our CRF guidance on this. You really have the authority to do that. If you wanted to, you could define independent schools and the three tech centers, you're going to provide this number of dollars. As long as the expenses are CRF algebra expenses, you have full authority to do that. So you have one, there is going to be some gear act money flowing towards tech centers, I believe, but 4.4 million is going to be spread across all 13 centers. And you could change how you approach your independent school language in the CRF appropriation to include them if you wanted to. Okay, thank you. I think we're going to save the rest of this for tomorrow. We have people lined up to testify on that. I'm going to give Peter one more chance here as well. And then we do have a document from John Carroll. I just had a technical question sprung to mind. If these three independent tech centers are not considered LEAs, does that mean they also don't qualify for ESSER money? That's correct. That's my understanding. And does our legislation solve that in terms of ESSER as opposed to CRF? No, I think, you know, that was the intention of talking about this issue today. I think the fact that gear is going to send some money in the direction of tech centers, because even when they are part of a district, they are then, you know, from the larger LEI, I'll take Rutland City as an example, which has staff for technical center. Rutland City is an LEA for the purposes of ESSER and CRF, but the tech center would share how those funds get utilized along with all the other schools and district needs appropriately, perhaps. But there's no discrete strategy to address the unique needs of tech centers. So that's why the governor's expressed interest in allocating gear funds in that direction. In the situation of Rutland, the school board, like Hannaford, are going to fall under any LEA categorization for ESSER. So they're, you know, they wouldn't receive that ESSER consideration that Rutland or Stafford would. Thank you for clarifying. Thank you. That's helpful. So we'll look at that again tomorrow. We're going to be pulling that up. And so I've been asked committee to take a look at that. If you have people you want to hear from, I'd like to make sure that we've got that going, because I need to get this through. My intention would be likely to pull out the ADM language, because that's actually going through a different committee, likely going through a different committee. But we'll keep it in for now. So we have feedback from John Carroll, who got his information to us. So, Phil, could you pull that up? Just a second. Secretary French, he spoke to us about a budget that they had, that the state board of ADD had prepared. I don't know if you ever had a chance to see it. No, I haven't seen their budget proposal. Okay, there was a request that maybe things go a little bit better in communicating those budgets in the future. Recognizing that right now we're in the middle of a global pandemic, and those communications are not as easy as they usually are. So, I don't have John in here to walk us through this, but I think that it's fairly clear. So we're looking at the left column is the original proposal. The middle one is the current one that we're looking at, and the third line is the state board, their proposed budget restatement. So is that it? Okay. Committee, what would you like to do? We've got basically about 10 minutes. Can we accept their 70,750 as opposed to the 56,845? How would you like us to answer the question, Kate? Is there anybody that would propose something different than the 70,750? Chris Meadows. What's the RETN contract? I think, I forget what it is. That's for the filming of the board meetings. That's the cable TV contract. And to the chair's point, I mean, a year or so ago, we broke out the state board budget from the agency's budget intentionally. So there isn't going to be necessarily communication or, I would say, coordination. Our intention is to have the state board speak for its own budget. So I'm happy to answer a clarifying question like RETN because I know the answer, but I'm not going to advocate for this one way or the other. But you should expect by design if we keep this construct that the state board on its own would prepare some sort of proposal. We can certainly bring that forward in our total proposal. Yeah, I think that we are probably going to take a look at that next year. It certainly is something, a discussion that was started, but never quite finished. It got placed on our wall in March. And that was that. So is there anybody who would not like to propose the 70,750 budget? Kate. Yes. Can I assess? A question, Kate? Yes. Chris, did you have something first? No, Sarita can keep going. That's fine. Okay. Go ahead, Sarita. Are you sure, Chris? I couldn't raise my hand. I couldn't find my hand. So, okay. So, Secretary of French, I think what I wanted to understand for the legal counsel, the $20,000, is the agency, you know, it looked like that's what was taken out from the AOE from the state board. So I just wanted to hear your either rationale or understand your thinking for doing that. We had, you know, there hasn't been a lot of budgeting for legal expenses for the state board. I think that's a typical approach. We saw Act 46 in particular, where the board, we ended up in a place where the board couldn't necessarily be represented by the agency, you know, because the board had a unique role to play in that Act 46 process. So there were legal, new legal costs experienced by the board to implement Act 46. And when we were then coming out of that process, and I remember formulating the budget, and I was asked, do you see anything like that in the horizon for the board? And I said, no, I don't, you know, Act 46 to my view was an anomaly, both in terms of process, but also in terms of legal costs for the board. But I think this does get to the heart of what is the role of the board, and to what extent they require outside counsel as part of their scope of responsibility. And I think, you know, that's, I think something for the chair and the board itself to defend or make a case for per se. So to the group again, is there anybody that would oppose me recommending the $70,750 budget? Okay, I'm seeing no, I'm not seeing anybody. Oh, I see one. No, I just have a question, my question. Okay, Chris, yes. I'm used to seeing, like, this is just the budget, you know, what we said, and then what school board or state board said, I'm kind of used to seeing actuals like current year actuals, and then where they're going to end up, because right now I'm just looking at numbers comparing two budgets, I don't see, you know, normally is legal counsel $60,000 a year, is it $2,000 a year? This doesn't actually make it look like I can figure out if there's any more fat to trim, so to speak. If I don't know where they are right now and where they're kind of going. That's a good point. I think that often they relied on a legal counsel from the agency. Yeah, to the president, you know, our budget proposal has that. Our budget proposal had the 56, so in the context of our larger presentation, which I think you've probably seen at this point, I forget, you know, when we put the budget, our formal budget presentation together, we go through all the actuals and so forth. This, my understanding is this presentation, since it has the chair signature on the bottom was created by the chair, so or the state board, so they chose how to arrange this information. I'm sure if you asked for additional information, they'd be able to do that, and we're happy to work with them if you need a different portrayal of the numbers. So to that point, secretary, if you guys have a contingency in your budget for if the state board needs legal counsel outside of your ability, or is that what this $20,000 is for? Yeah, you're getting close to where I don't feel comfortable advocating for this. I will say that, you know, we would use act 46 as an example. There was a conflict of interest essentially between, you know, if you remember, the secretary of education had to create or propose a statewide plan for governance. And then the state board had to take that plan and act on it. So there was necessarily a conflict of interest between those two positions. And it necessitated the state board to have its own counsel in that process. But that's, in my view, an unusual situation. Typically, you know, the agency as well staff from a legal perspective, we have five full-time attorneys, including one assistant attorney general. So we, you know, we manage our costs in that regard fairly well. So on that sense, just about the act 46, where did they get the money for that attorney to just come from you guys to be able to fill that void? No, they had some money in their regular just working within the construct of a regular budget, you know, sort of contracted service. It wasn't necessarily tagged as outside legal counsel, but they had some flexibility in their budget to address that issue. And again, this is just going through this year. It would be my intention if I'm back and I am chair that we are going to take up a review of the whole state board of education, which would include the answers to many of these questions. The question is, we just need to get through this year. Can we see them through this year with this budget that they see that they need, that is $70,750 for the year? Is there anybody that would be against me proposing that budget to the, to the Appropriations Committee? And I'd say raise your little blue hands if you're against that. Okay, I'll just say I just don't have the information based on these two budgets. So I mean, if the decision is made, that's, you know, someone's prerogative, but I just don't have the data here that I need to see. Okay, so I have, I basically have two, I think, that are saying that they're not ready. And I have, we have eight minutes before we lose our ledge counsel, our ledge support. So. Okay, can I, this is, uh, Kayla, I'm sorry, I don't have a blue hands today. Just a quick comment, you know, I, I think that I'm not against that recommendation, but I do find, you know, knowing that I've advocated for outright Vermont and knowing that at the end of the day, the general fund is a bit of a zero sum game. I struggle to advocate for too many things without understanding how the seesaw tips in the other direction. And that's really the way I felt about our sort of endorsement of the 23.8 million for the, for the state colleges. I'll just leave it at that. It's just very, very hard when I know there's a hierarchy of needs and then I'm not being asked to assign something, you know, I'd like to find all of it, you know, I think we all would, but I think it's just hard sometimes when we don't get to see, and I know that's the job of the Appropriations Committee. I just want to go on record of saying that's a, that's a struggle for me when asked these questions. And I'll just leave it at that. But I realize the process is difficult. I couldn't agree with you more. This process is very, very challenging for all of us. And I know our committee really likes to make an informed decision that we're struggling with that. At the same time, all we're doing is saying, making a recommendation and the committee can take it or leave it because they're looking at, they're looking at a whole slew. They've got the whole, the whole thing. And there's money that's going to be moving around all over the place. So they're just looking for what would you recommend? And at the moment, we're not recommending much money. The difference here is, you know, what is it, $14,000? The difference with the other one was, so we have, we have less than, less than, I think, 50,000 or so that we're dealing with to recommend as an increase to the entire, budget that was put forward. Okay, then I'm going to, I will, I will, I will put that in my, my note. Larry Coopley, did you have a question? No. Okay. No, I did not. Thank you, Kate. I don't know, my hand was up. Okay. And, okay. I just want to remind folks, well, no, I'm not going to. I think we're, think we've closed that one. And then the last one is, and we've got four minutes before we have to go off. The last one would be, we're okay with Governors Institute, we're accepting that they're losing money, we're accepting the $79,000 on the, on the early, oh, just quickly, young friends, we're just so confused about that money. When was that money in the $79,000 for the early education? Or maybe you can even answer it tomorrow. But we didn't understand that and we're just struggling a little bit with how that relates to that. It doesn't necessarily, other than thematically, they're on point, you know, but my understanding this, this predates, this goes back some time, this money has not been spent for several years. At one point, it was attached to some initiative, but that policy language doesn't exist anymore. So basically we don't know how to spend the money. So that's my understanding of it. So as far as the outright Vermont, I'd like to propose that we do three and give them the wiggle room, give the Appropriations Committee the room to, to reduce it to eight percent. You okay or not? I know, I know that four are against that, correct? That you want, you're, you're, you're stuck with the eight, you, you want the eight and would go against the three. I love that we're talking $2,000 Secretary French and we're all in a tizzy about it, whereas, you know, 200 million, we're good, we're, that's quick. Jay, Cooper? Ah, gosh. I'm okay with the three percent. I was compelled by Katz testimony on the issue. I agree with Dylan, you know, it's a, it's a very worthwhile service. It's probably of all things to fully fund, that would be the entity to fully funds, particularly because it's just a couple of thousand dollars, but how soon do we, we have until tomorrow? Tomorrow. To make all of our recommendations. Yeah, that's, I will send on for the other ones that we, the ones we're only speaking at this point for, we're only speaking for outright and the state board, the rest of them work, we're accepting. Hmm. So I just, I guess what I mean to say is I'm, I'm okay with whatever the committee ends up going for. As I said, initially I preferred the largest cut, but, you know, I think it's true. This is a, an effective and important organization. And if we end up folding it six all the way, then I'm happy with that too. Um, Secretary French, one thing that, that I still worry about is special education. You're currently have some significant challenges with the federal government. Are you well enough staffed and supported to be able to address those challenges? You know, in terms of COVID, it's uncertain yet. I think we're well staffed based on our previous requirements. You know, we're, I think as you're well aware, when I started, we didn't have a state director special ed or a division director or assistant division director. They all retired in the same timeframe. I think we're in a much better place now, but it's, I still fully expect under COVID this to be our most challenging area in a lot of ways. And it will put a significant demand on the agency's special ed team and our legal team and our finance team. So, but I think we're not alone. If that's any consolation, I think all states are going to be challenged in this area. I think you're right. Okay, we're on for tomorrow. Phil, thank you so much for, for staying with us today, Chip. I will send you something about what we have so far and hope to get the outright sorted out tomorrow morning or tomorrow. Can I just ask, did you all have a discussion about CRF, additional CRF funding? We have. We, we are, we've started with that at the moment. It looks like we're working with, with a number for the LEAs. And it looks like it's in the 30 range so far, based on per pupil needing to put in a, you know, a cushion. So we, we should be able, I'm hoping we can sort that out tomorrow. I'm sorry. I also know that we, we need to hear the University of Vermont, well, I think the higher ed, I'll deal with who had spoken about that. But we, we basically have about, oh, I don't know, maybe 15 minutes of testimony on that that, that has been put forward and nothing in writing. So I've asked for them to sort of help justify what this prediction is. This is not easy. But it looks like we're going to have something that may be able to use a per pupil spending, which could be a way to calculate how much is needed. And you, do you want that broken down? Or can you just leave it as this is what they're going to need for COVID related expenses? Well, I, I guess that'll really depend on your, what your proposal for the spending is. But I think the thing we need to know as early as possible, I mean, understood that you all have a lot, a huge amount on your plate, you know, is the, is the total, what's the total going to be, how we put it in the budget, and what language needs to go around it will depend on what your proposal, you know, how that money is going to be spent. But, but I think there's a little bit longer timeframe, slightly longer, like a day longer, for the CRF proposals to come to us. So if we have everything having to do with the general fund and the budget that you've just been talking about now tomorrow and the CRF spending proposal up by Thursday. Mark and Chloe and Bill, will you be able to work on something for us so that we'll have something concrete to deal with? Back in about five minutes. Kate, weren't we told that in 24 hours, we should have much more information to come up with that number? Right. Thank you. If we can hold out till Thursday, that's going to be very helpful. That would be really, really helpful. That's my understanding of what our committee's expecting from other committees. So 24 hours, yeah, it's a little more than five minutes. If you folks could, if you folks could burn the midnight oil and come up with that, that would be very helpful. I know that you're waiting for information to come in. And with that, I think we need to go because our Phil needs to go start another meeting.