 So, welcome everybody to Senate Education. We are Representative Conlon and Representative Bus. I think Representative Bus is going to be able to make it. Representative Conlon, hopefully, if not today, or right at one, right soon, we'll get him in a little bit later whenever he's off the floor. But we do have Ledger-Hassel here that can pick us through H7873. Ms. A. James is a little bit in a similar situation. She might be in and out because they too are going to be on the House floor. She too is going to be on the House floor dealing with some of these issues. So, that the House is dealing with. So, we told her that we would accommodate her schedule. We do have Mr. O'Grady here and who's working the proteins up on the screen. Yeah. It's been a semester before it snowed. Where's the rest of the day, right? And I said, let's go back to the lunch break. Okay. I think my sneakers, I can't go back to them. Mr. O'Grady. Please, thanks. This is Mike O'Grady with Ledger-Hassel and Kerry Wallachy through H873 and ACT relating to financing and testing for remediation of the presence of polychlorinated five meals in schools. The first thing I want to do is to refresh your memory about why you're here and you can see that evolution in section two of the bill page six or page five. So, you'll remember that in 2021, AXEM results number 74, you require that the Department of Environmental Conservation has got indoor air quality testing of all public schools and approved and recognized independent schools that were constructed or renovated before 1980. When you enacted that, you required those schools to be tested by 2024. But the next year, you move that 2024 data up to 2027 to 2025. And then last year, you moved that data up to 2027. In addition, last year in the big bills, you have created 29.2, 32.5, depending on how you look at some of the numbers, grown the education fund to the agency of education for the purposes of establishing a grant program, grants to schools that tested in excess of school action levels for PCVs to investigate, remediate and remove PCV contamination from their schools. There's been discussion largely in the house about whether or not the PCV and barrier quality testing for schools should continue. Should it be paused? Should it be fully funded? Should it be addressed as a larger universal holistic scheme for school construction as a whole? Those are all policy discussions that you all have, but what the house education committee and ultimately the house has done is it will allow for a continued testing for PCVs in schools, but with some statements of intent about how it will be funded, how investigation, remediation and removal will be funded. What will happen if the money at the agency of education gets too low to fully fund investigation, remediation and removal? And then it also takes away the deadline date by which all schools leave the test. And I'll come back to that language in a minute once we go through section one of the bill. So Mr. Gray, so it's not saying schools have to stop testing? No, it does not say schools have to stop testing, but it says testing will stop if there's $4 million or less at the agency of education that's available to do investigation, remediation and removal grants. So why test when you don't have the money to do the cleanup and the removal? I don't put the school in the place where they're in a corner and the state has no money to give them. So that's the concept there. So you'll see on page one, section one sub A, the first thing is there's a statement out in Tanner's statement that if a school is required to test for the presence of PCBs because some were not that the agency and natural resources should conduct the testing or pay for the testing. So the testing cost does not fall on the school that falls on A&R. And they were given $4.5 million in 2021 to do the testing. They've drawn some money from the environmental contingency fund as well. But they will be the ones conducting the testing. Then there is a second statement of intent that actually has two statements of intent. The first statement of intent is that it's the ten of the general assembly that to hold the manufacturers of PCBs liable for the cost of investigation, remediation and removal. And there is litigation ongoing to hold those manufacturers liable for those costs. And then prior to any judgment in that litigation, it's the intent of the general assembly that the state is going to pay for the cost of investigation and remediation and removal of PCBs and the schools that exceed the school action levels. But ultimately you want the manufacturers to pay, but before you get to that litigation award, if you get to that litigation award, then the state is going to pay for the cost of investigation, remediation and removal. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, we've got litigators, we have foil, we have this, we have PFAS. We got the money from PFAS. They like- So, that's good. That's also like, yeah. Or solar. Yeah, okay. Thanks. Yeah, Senator Weeks in the same place. If I could. So in that same sentence you just read, it did have the caveat that testing under 2021 Alex Resolves, you know, et cetera, does that limit the subset of schools? It does. For first it's only schools that were built before 2000, right? So, and there aren't that many of that were, but there were a couple that were built after 2000. You don't need to test for them because PCB material couldn't have been used in those school vessel construction. In addition, it limits that subset because that subset is about testing for the indoor air quality. And you'll see later on in this bill, if the school is out there doing construction that's unrelated to the testing indoor air quality and they find PCBs, you're not paying for that. That is their own action, their own initiative and they triggered the requirements for cleaning up on their own. It wasn't something triggered by the indoor air quality test. For example, if you are gonna do say we're pretty much large site for construction anywhere for major construction, you do for example, the soil and the test what's in the soil, see if there's any hazardous material or other things in it. If you did that core sample and it came back with PCBs then the status and paying for you to clean up those PCBs is it wasn't part of your indoor air quality test. Good, thank you. Yes, sir. So can schools often not test? Even if they, even if the A&R has the, they got the phone there. So that's an interesting question. And the answer generally is no. Underneath existing language, which you will see on page five to six and section two. Currently it says all schools subject to the subsection shall test for PCBs on and before July 1, 2027. It says, so that reads like the school is on the hook, right? But if you, on page six aligns the two, the three. So A&R was arguing at one point in the house that if you took away all this money, if you caused the program, the DEC testing and the agency of funding, that the schools would still be required to test and they would still be required to test by 2027. So if the house is proposing to strike that 2027 line, would you still have the lead in there that says that DEC shall use up to 4.5 to complete air quality testing in public schools and improve recognized schools that were constructed or renovated for DEC. So there's still a testing required as the schools are not the ones on the hook to do the testing. The ones on the hook are DEC and A&R to do the testing but they're still a testing requirement. So schools can't really opt out but DEC can probably elongate that schedule for what they have left to test if necessary. Interesting. Okay, so it's not what I think initially thought was some kind of pause or some kind of stop. It's more putting financial, shipping the financial responsibility and allowing DEC to sort of. So there is a possibility of pause in this language and you will see that going from page two to page three and in sub C line five beginning July 1, 2024 and every month thereafter, A&R reports to secretary of administration and NTU information about the funds that are available to do investigation, remediation, and removal of ECBs at schools. They first report to you the amount that's at the agency for those grants, whether the funds are appropriated or sufficient to fully fund grants to complete investigation, remediation, and removal at schools. And when the secretary estimates that those funds will be exhausted. Okay. Senator Sheehan, Senator Williams. Thank you. Thank you. Two questions would, is anyone able to tell me how much is currently in the fund or remediation? So there was 28.5 that was appropriated, 16 went to Burlington. And so there's, I think the last time I heard there was a little more than six, six to seven. And is that... But I had to confirm, so both that and the caveat. And is that spoken for? Is it assigned? No, that's not assigned yet. So the between, so like after you subtract 16 from 28, you get like 12. So there's like, then like 5.35 points, you know, all five to six has been committed and do you know, you happens to know how much is being appropriated for upcoming fiscal years? Right now, there's no appropriation of people where there's money in the ECF, the Environmental Intensive Fund that you'll see in a minute, may be available right now. I don't know if any new appropriation for the agency to add for the grant or kind of. So I think just a quick comment. I think my, this seems like a dynamic approach to the situation. And I mean, at first glance, my only concern is the potential for continuing to lead schools in the sort of unknown area as to whether they should, you know, how much time they have to put in to, I guess, mitigating the challenges that come with this because, you know, aside from, you know, disrupting class schedules, there's also the challenges that come with, you know, telling parents and talking to the community. And so I just worry about a back and forth where it's like, okay, we're going to test, oh wait, they ran out of money, we're not going to test. Well, let's, let's, so A&R to EC has that schedule of pastings and they're reporting to you and the secretary of the administration about whether or not there's enough funds to do the response, investigation, remediation, and removal. You'll see that on page three, line 16, if they report that there's $4 million or less remaining for investigation, remediation, and removal, they shall not initiate testing for payment for initial testing. So it's the initial testing. So they, they've not even been in the school yet to do a plan for testing. So they're not going to do, they're not going to initiate testing at any school until there's a report back from the administration on how to fund this. But if there's a need, you'll see this on page four, lines three to nine, three to nine, when the general assembly is not in session, you're four or below, but there's a need for more money to finish out that investigation or remediation rule. So schools aren't left on the hook. $2 million can be transferred from by the e-board to- Is there any way to e-board this emergency board? To make sure that those schools get the grants to do investigation, remediation. So the intent is not to leave a school in limbo once they've tested and know that they have to do investigation and remediation, but not to test further to put other schools into a requirement to do investigation and remediation until you know what that long-term financing is going to be. Thanks. Just Senator Sheen's question for the exam. So right now that four million, there's six million in that count. All of a sudden two million goes down, goes down two million, then... It stops, right? Okay. I'll pause it. And then there's opportunity, you're not in session. Yeah, e-board could jump in. The e-board throws in $2 million. Okay. There's potential for some additional testing at that point dropped below four again. You're going to be back in session by that. Yeah. So the e-board won't be doing a $2 million transfer. You'll be back in session and hopefully you'll have a long-term concept for how to pay. Thanks. Senator Lynch. Oh, don't need you. I was going to try to win them. But I want to reserve the rest of this money. The next one I would like to get out of there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I just wanted to chime in on a couple of things. One, thank you, Judge Counsel. You brought up a point about schools originally anyway. Schools would test when they had work they were going to do, which is exactly what happened in Burlington, which started this one cascading effect. We were going to do renovations for our building. We tested and the numbers came up higher than the extremely low numbers that were originally in, that were designated by DEC or ANR or all of the above. So that's what triggered the whole thing. So that's like a standard process. I also wanted to say that the $16 million that's supposedly going to Burlington has not gone to Burlington as of yet. So that's, I just wanted to clarify that. So I'd like to say something on the record on that because I had been saying that Burlington had it requested it. And it turns out that they did request it. They requested it at the end of February. So that's the first request that's been put in for the $16 million, but they have requested it. They have not put it in for it, right? So it's been requested but it hasn't actually gone out. Well, I mean, they've only put their request in a little over a month ago. And so, and apparently they're working, there might be some disagreement on what needs to be reimbursed. I know, so. Do you think that the $16 million? No, we don't want to know. I mean, why would we possibly want that? Yes, we do. And okay, so TBD, we'll look forward to some resolution one way or another on that. I think the agency in the school district are going to have to work through what's going to be reimbursed under. Because remember, it's a reimbursement program that all of the agency grants any money in reimbursement for investigation, remediation, and removal of PCBs. If it's not related to PCBs, it's not going to get reimbursed. And so that's part of what I think is going to go on and burn intent about the negotiation of what gets reimbursed up to $16 million. Which I think the school district could probably get there for PCB costs. But it's not going to go to the phone. Sure. No, no, no, no. It's interesting. There's no, even though PCBs caused it, the whole thing, they could only use that money for PCBs. But the cost is for an interest. Well, which brings me to my next point, which is that as from my experience, removing PCBs is not a simple task. So when you mentioned they don't want to leave districts in limbo, I mean, the whole thing is limbo. So I'm wondering, can you clarify that a little bit? So it really depends on what you test for, where you test for it, and what population is exposed in that place. So if it's just adults at a low level and a room that has some ventilation, you probably can do mitigation instead of full mediation. If it's your preschool classroom, the level is going to be lower. The need for response might be higher. So DEC has a phase level. And that's DEC. Once you hit the federal levels, then you're into mandates and things that you have to do in a certain amount of time. And people will tell you that schools have four years once you hit the federal mandates. That's kind of true. On average, it's like four years, but Twin Valley just got a two-year letter. And so they were told that they have two years to develop a plan and one year from the development of the plan to remove, remove the moves. Do the feds pay for that? When it's a federal mandate, the feds don't pay for it? Perfect. A few other things that I just wanted to say if I can at least. One is, is there anything in this bill that touches on the testing program? Because my understanding is as the mitigation and removal, it's all complicated, but the testing is also complicated. You can go into a building one day and test and get a five. You can go in two weeks later and get 30 and go. So is there anything in here that touches on the efficacy of the testing? There's nothing really about the testing except removing that deadline date that we already reviewed that schools have the, where it says all schools had to test by 2027. Other than that, the action levels, the methodology, frequency, basement, none of that, it's a drug. But having helped do testing of these buildings, I know exactly what you're talking about. Because you can go into the pink lady at certain times a day and there will be zero, but you go in later in the day after the heat's been running, somebody's racked up the radiator, you're gonna get levels. You're gonna get levels of thanks in the system. And so I understand that, and this methodology is supposed to take care of that, but it's not the first. My, thank you. My last comment, maybe, and I'm not telling any of you anything you don't already know is that we have the second oldest school building stock in the country. We've had a thorough path force process that will hopefully be ongoing and continue. We're in a, what many folks are calling a financial crisis. So I just have to question again, the wisdom of investing money in this very aged stock of buildings that hopefully we will be either taking down or improving or whatever it is we're gonna do. So it just, thank you. And we have the chair, who can- Well, I was just gonna say, he's probably a better person to talk to that issue. I do have another question though. Back to Senator Beulah's question about Burlington and funds. So generally in terms of this process going forward, that district applies for the funds at a certain time and those funds that they can give reimbursed for are strictly related to- For the investigation, remediation and removal of PCBs related to indoor air quality testing. If it wasn't discovered as part of the indoor air quality testing program, it is on the school to handle this, the state is not going to pay for that because the mandate, the program and the funding for it it all stems from the testing indoor air quality. Right. If the school is gonna go out and do its own construction, say to put on an extension, build a new gym, et cetera. And they do their soil testing and that triggers state and that can trigger state and federal requirements at that point. And that is not part of the indoor air quality testing program, it's not part of the grant program at AOE. And just if you're asking, do we know how much Burlington has asked for up to this point, if they just put it in a month ago, based on the, what they've evaluated, we know how much they're, of that 16 million. So because I erroneously said the last time I was in, I can't even remember what committee I was in, I think it was in ways means, I said that they hadn't asked for it yet. I did my due diligence to find out when they asked for it and how much they asked for it. They've asked for all 16 million. Okay. So that would be for this meeting. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I always say I'm never going to speak again. I always do, but I just have to point out, and correct me if I'm wrong, but a scenario by which air quality is tested, it triggers a high level, which then triggers remediation and remediation at which point soils are tested. If the remediation requires new construction or renovation that soil is tested and then the soil is high, and that's not going to be covered by this. I mean, I just want to point out that that is strange. I don't know if the state has addressed that issue yet of the cascading effect, but it's not beyond the veil. It's that could be something that the state is going to need to look at. You've, in Valley might be an example of that where the levels are high enough that the EPA has put in a someone saying accelerated response plan. And if they're going through their response and they discover that there's more that they need to do, they might have to, they might need the money, they might need the money. I did questions from Mr. O'Grace. Representatives Conlon, it's completely up to you how you want to do it in terms of your timing. Who's on the floor? I know you have a lot. I'll follow up. Great, okay. We pass that to Mr. O'Grace. Who's there? I'll apply that. Welcome. Thank you. Peter Conlon, Chair of House Education, following up on the Commission Council testimony on 873, the FECD bill. This really sort of provides you all with an alternative to the bill that's currently on the wall, which could be stripped of its construction task force language, and which is the straight up pause that we sent you last year. This is more of a trigger as probably has been explained to you with the agency of natural resources commitment to continue the testing, using additional funds from some of their solid waste funds. We became increasingly concerned that if the testing continues and there's not a pause put on, that the money that's set aside, aside from the broken money, could be used up real fast. And so this is really meant to be a trigger to stop the pause, to stop the testing when that money available for mitigation, remediation, and abatement hits $4 million. I offer it to you as something, as an alternative, however, I think that the number should be looked at very carefully. I'm not sure that the dollar amount, I think $4 million is probably low. It's currently sitting at 7.1 million. But just to do the quarterly testing, the schools that are out there, you're talking probably in excess of $200,000. And you said that again. Yeah, just to do the quarterly air testing, because those who have tested, and have tested above the school action level, have to be testing at least quarterly. Some there's even some interim testing involved in addition to the quarterly testing. For example, at North Country, that's $80,000. At Bellows Falls, I think that's high sixties for Porter. At Green Mountain High School, I think it's about 40. Quinn Valley, I'm not sure about. At Quinn Valley, I would really recommend you have folks come in. They have now rung the bell of the EPA, which everybody else will eventually, they are now under a two-year order, I think, to fully update the PCB as a result of the indoor air testing. So that's the basic concept here, is that just to basically say, all right, well at least when it reaches this level, we're gonna stop it. We're not gonna just fall out of the stop. I am frankly very concerned that the dollars, even as they exist today, do not match our commitment in Act 78 last year, that said that the state would not turn this into about budget heavy. How did you reach the $490? To a certain extent, we pulled it out in the air. Okay. Questions for Representative Tomlin, if you're gonna mind. Oh, okay. Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, please, yes. So I'm finding all the time to do this to you. No, you go ahead. No, no, please. My question is simple one, I think. In your research estimation, testimony, wisdom, et cetera, I think you would prefer that we take up the build and sitting on the wall, as opposed to this one. But this is a backup. I would say having been now, I've visited the schools, talked with people there. This Twin Valley situation is brand new. And I think, yeah, I'm sure you have thoughts on the program as quick as possible, is probably a better way to go. Senator Weitz? So just for clarification, I believe you said it, but just wanna make sure I understand. So at the $4 million trigger, do you believe, is it the expectation that the $4 million residual would be enough to continue, would be enough for remediation of what's found at that point, or is it just a trigger to stop additional testing? It's a trigger to stop additional testing, I would say the answer to yours is, I'm not personally confident, but I think it's a huge question mark. So for example, U32 just got started into the investigation since they triggered school action levels. Who knows what that's gonna find? While investigations go on and on at these schools, and really nobody other than Twin Valley has hit even the point where they gotta have a plan. Testing continues. So you never know what you're gonna find in the next school. And I guess a higher main concern that anything could turn up at any time that could wipe this money out very quickly. So I just will point out that I would say that the General Assembly and the administration may have a different idea of what was meant in Act 78 of last year. I think that the Agency of Natural Resources is operating under what they think is the correct solution, which is to mitigate, i.e. perhaps run fans. Until such time as even the EPA, which is a four-year deadline, says you gotta do something now or you do a renovation project. In their testimony, they said, well, we feel we can work with our federal partners and that four years is maybe flexible. I think the situation in Twin Valley, they say exactly the opposite. And just that I saw Act 78, the language you have in there as saying, we're committed to not having these costs fall in the town on the school districts. I think if you're talking about mitigating for seven years, 10 years until you do a renovation, if you even have one on the books, I'm not sure that's a very good situation. That is right. If you want to take a field trip right now to any of the schools that are running these fans, 100 fans, 24-7, see what it's like. What are we supposed to get a report back from the cussing of the first phase, the cussing already went through? I think, you know, whatever you want to know is probably available on the agency of natural resources. I'd say we're looking at that information. We're asking maybe the art of education or ancient education, I'm not sure which one. Because in my district, I had quite a few principles came to me when it first started, that this form stopped. That's why I asked the question. Peter, does this represents in part something the agency was pushing for also? No. No, okay. I think that they have a strong desire to keep the test and going. Okay. But this plan in testimony, the administration signaled that they wouldn't oppose it. The administration would not oppose this. That's right. They may have some differences of opinion on the $4 million. Anything else? Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Hello there. How are you? Good, how are you? Good. Representative Tashubas from Woodstock Plymouth Reading and the House Education Committee. Thank you so much for having me today to talk about BOESIs. We're told that name may change. The name, yes. We did discuss the name a little bit. I know that the administration or the agency, excuse me, would like to potentially have it changed because in other states, BOESIs is responsible for a governance structure for career and technical education. Right, right, right. And so it might come across confusing. I don't think that the House Education Committee, we did not discuss it enough, nor do I think we're particularly tied to the name. Yeah. It's more the nuts and bolts of what it is that we can do with it. So it would be incredibly helpful for those of us that haven't followed this work is tell us sort of the problem it's trying to solve. Yes. That'd be great. The executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association stated in our committee a couple of weeks ago when speaking about superintendents and school board members, he said that they need to look to themselves for leadership as well. And so this bill gives school boards and superintendents the ability to lead from within. So you may be asking, well, what is BOESIs? BOESIs is a collaborative that allows supervisory unions to pay a fee for service in order to operate at scale and reduce the duplication of services. We are not new to this particular form of established, to create an established system. In fact, we're one of only nine states in the United States that does not have an established system. So here's what BOESIs can do. We all want to do both purchasing up paper, technology, tables, chairs. That would be able to happen, not just in one BOESIs, but there could be the ability to offer that service to any supervisory union in the state if that was your specialty. We're like, we know our tables and chairs and everyone just would contact them and get their tables and chairs right there. There could be a member price, there could be a non-member price. So that is one way. Federal grant writers, we all know how expensive those are. They require a very specific expertise and skill set. There's no reason why we need to have them in every supervisory union, nor is it even really possible. So if there's a BOESIs, let's say it's in the southeastern part of the state, they've got that person nailed down. Great, everyone just contracts a fee for service with that particular grant writer. Murat Basmai, just to interrupt while you're on that. Sure. So one of the things we had hoped wraparound schools, community schools would do is that schools that really needed it the most would get those dollars. Sometimes what happens is it's the schools that have the time and the energy like you're describing to write these grants and the people, you know, how are behind it to do it. Would this create any kind of conflict in any way? Having that sort of the grant writers all in sort of one area, even though it might benefit, might not benefit that particular area. And you may have just given it as an example to say that could happen, but it could always happen in other ways as well. Let me start by saying this is brand new. So we may find issues that come up in the future and we may have to visit this legislation because it's whenever you start something new, there's gonna be a trial and error and it's definitely needed. However, to speak off the cuff about it, I actually think it could be equally helpful because everything is then funneling through one grant writer that's writing that grant to the federal government. And so it's gonna provide a lot of ease and proficiency. That federal grant writer will be able to kind of see the very nature of all the different applications and how they differ from rural districts to potentially greater populated districts and to truly be able to bring to us, to the agency. Here's really how diverse the skill set is. And here's how we probably need to step up to assist to provide greater equity throughout our state. That is my dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Senator Williamson. So who's gonna be the referee? Make sure that the schools review it, get the grants for it. So it would be a fee for service. So there's no referee involved. If you wanna pay, you get to play. And if you think that you are particularly, I mean I think that's also the reason why it's great, the community school model that's only one type of grant example. But that is, I mean, I guess what you're saying is is that if one of that school doesn't have the ability to pay for that grant writer, he or she, whoever the grant writer is, will be less expensive if they're creating all of the grants. That's for sure, because it'll be the same grant that they're writing to the feds. So there will be that cost savings. Senator Hershey. Thank you. I'm curious about, what does this bill allow SUs to do that they're not currently able to do? And the reason I ask is, I'm looking at shared programs and services and I'm thinking of CTEs, for example, of a student going to another school that's in a different area to access a program, things like that. And yeah, so what does this do that SUs can't currently do? Great question. So right now, you may have a person that comes into a school and they are 0.25 at TEE, because they are providing art services or they're providing some special education services. And then they really need full-time employment. So that school has to figure out, well, how do I make up the other 0.75? So in this particular instance, if you've got a number of particularly rural schools even, they all need that 0.25 at TEE doing that exact same thing. Right now they each have to have an individual contract for employment, which means they can technically collaborate because they're utilizing that person to do for different jobs to make up full-time work. But the employee doesn't get the benefit of full-time work. The bossies could hire that particular person and say, all right, here, you're gonna go do sort of this contract in all four schools, but we're gonna be your employer. A bossies can be a public employer. They are body politic and corporate, so they can organize. They can provide health insurance and as well as be a part of the teacher pension plan. And for those employees that are not a part of the providing education services, then it's the municipal type of supports. Thank you. You're welcome. Senator Weekes. So where's the main engagement? Is it a state level organization or is it a regional? Is it the SU? Yes, great question. So this is one of the things we struggled with the most and this is what I would certainly encourage you to spend a bit more time on is, where do you draw the lines? So we were, we received in testimony, draw lines and put a cap on it because in states that did not choose to do that, they had a very strong number of bosses and that became untenable and inexpensive, right? Because what we tried to do in Act 46 is to reduce this. So we were brought a very non-official map from the superintendents about how they divided up the state into regions and they collaborated during COVID. And from that, we also talked about, well, Chittenden County, because it has an exceptional amount of the population, might need to have an extra bosses to service regionally. And perhaps we need one more for the, oh boy, we haven't thought of that problem yet. So that's why we put seven in the bill. Now, one thing I want to mention, we put a cap of seven Bozies statewide and we were very flexible about the language. So the secretary of education would have to approve the creation of the Bozies. And, does it satisfy the regionality of our state? Is basically, do we have, if three are trying to get started, Justin Chittenden County, well, then we're not representing statewide. So, but we also didn't know if we wanted to draw really specific geographical boundaries because one of the things that really made me excited about this bill is I'd like to provide an example in my district. We started a program called the Options Program and this is for special needs and extraordinary special needs and they need to be, kids that need to be out of the classroom. And right now, we have very few state placement options going out of the states $200,000 in the state $60,000 per kid, sometimes $30,000 to transport them. Sometimes it's residentially based and the whole family has to move. These are problems that we really need to solve that the Bozies can do. So we, with another district rented space at our local recreation center, transportation, the teacher, and the parent educator for 15 to 20 students annually runs us about 15,000 per child. And they're close enough to get reintegrated back into the classroom. So we have a lot of language in here into the purpose section about, you know, least restrictive environment to make sure that they aren't shipped away to the Options Program and then stay there forever. The goal is to give them the skills to reintegrate. So that would be a great example of why you would want them regionally, but that same Bozies that's doing that regional could be the one that houses the grant writer that everyone in the state needs to access, which is the reason why you want a fee for service that might be membership-based or non-membership-based. So if you created that Options Program and you put money down to rent that space and hire those educators, you're gonna want a member price because you've got skin in the game. But if you hired the grant, if you just want the grant writer service, you didn't put any skin in the game, well, your price might have to be a little bit higher because you didn't contribute up front to be a member. But you can, let's say that you're in the Northeast Kingdom and you're like, I'm good, I don't need a Bozies for anything. We're not close enough to any other schools to collaborate, but I only want that grant writer. Well, I don't need to be a member of any other Bozies except for the grant writer Bozies. So I'm just gonna become a member of that so I can get the lower price. We wanted it to be super flexible. I'm giving you a lot of options. And these are just examples, but we just felt like it really helped people to be nimble like that and to not have all of the options and guard rail. We wanted to put enough guard rails there to be safe and efficient and effective, but not to restrict anyone from getting the services that they really need. Another question. Who are your songs? Yes, sir. Ms. St. James says that this was heavy. Yeah. We've carved out time so we can sort of figure this out because we don't have a lot of time. Right. So one, two questions. So obviously this needs to happen legislatively, otherwise you wouldn't be here. People can't coordinate right now in these areas like Senator Week said, unless legislative action needs to take place. Yes and no. Okay. So while it is possible, there are many benefits to it being legislated. So this bill provides minimum requirements for the Articles of Agreement which becomes the Operating Agreement so it makes sure that all the Bosies are on a level playing field from an agreement standpoint, from a legal creation standpoint. It also makes sure that they have a website. On the same level as each other or with whom? With each other. So it would make sure that everyone has the ability to have their teachers be a part of the retirement plan. So all of those types of things are in this enabling language. I'm not for sure that that would have to happen if one SU just partners with another SU and they create a cooperative that isn't sort of regulated. I'm not for sure how their ability to provide those protections for their employees could exist. So that's part of it. But the ability for there to be websites and for this to be on the Agency of Education's website so that everybody knows the services are available and where to find them is also really important. Right now you would just have to do a bunch of Google searching to find out who does what, where. So who do the Bosies report to? The district or the AOE? That's a great question. So the board members, so if this SU wants and this SU wants to collaborate, they can either do that through providing a member that is appointed by the supervisory union or a school board member. And then they make this collaboration and then there are, there are reports that are sent back that specifically have to address whether or not they are servicing the needs that they joined forces to solve in a cost-effective manner. So it's not correct. It's like self-spawn. Exactly. So it's not top-down. So if I may, in any way, does it discourage merging? Could it discourage merging? I mean, one of the things with Act 46, again we were, we're in this moment as you well know, we're looking at our schools, we're looking at school size, all that kind of thing. Act 46 looked at governance, but with that governance, I would say there was a hope that people would say, all right, we will now, with one school board, more control over looking at our elementary schools and okay, we have five, but only one, one of them has 10 kids in it, and we're going to, and it's not a great building, so now we're gonna have four. Any way does this sort of discourage that kind of thing? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, one way or the other, I'm just wondering your thoughts. Well, these are the thoughts of Tisha Buss, not that we heard from the committee at all. To be honest with you, I think it could go in both directions. You know, you're providing an ease for sometimes our smaller schools to get more services, and at the same time, you are getting connected to, you're connecting more with a system that might be providing services all over the state for you to see what you're missing. Okay. And I think they both are equally important. Senator? You said in the bill, I apologize, I read it completely, yeah, but there was a limit of seven OCs. Yes. Those are kind of generated by topic or subject matter expertise, where did the seven come from? So the seven came from the five regions of the state that the superintendents used during COVID, plus two more to be nimble, and they're not directed at all. So they are very self, they will be self-created and evolving entities. Okay, and then can you characterize Hayley's reaction to this concept? They certainly have been favorable to this concept for sure. They did have a question about the name. Sure. Because of the career and technical education perspective, and the number still puzzles us all. So we decided to put seven out there to create the two nimble ones and just move forward. Because no one's really for sure, but there's no one stopping someone, a superintendent to come to the legislature next session or whenever this gets enacted to say, hey, here's what's happening in the field and let's make an adjustment. Yeah, Senator Blankson, back to Senators. So I'm just thinking about, you know, how is this equitable? I mean, if OCs can merge for the benefit of the law schools, and the other ones can't afford it, how is it going to be fair and equitable across the state? Well, I actually think that it reduces costs for the service that they would probably need to provide anyway. So let's say you're doing professional development in scientific or evidence-based literacy. And you need to do that for your kids. And you know, your teachers are saying, we need coaching, we need coaching, we need coaching. And your school looks at providing that contract all by themselves. They may not be a little afforded. The Boces might be the only way they can afford it. Because if they are, we have one county that has 12 contracts for the exact same service. We're out, interesting, okay. So you know, then you get an economy of scale. Even if it's a 10, 15% reduction, we'll take it. And we've got a couple of questions. So first, this involves the whole concept and we talked about it offline of BRAC and the military, where we took bases and we did exactly the same thing. Whether it was contracting or command structures or firefighting services, whatever, and we'd consult. So I get the concept before we support it. But I'm always leery when a bill is more than three pages long. Because then I know it came from somewhere. So I'm curious, is this really AOE genesis? Is this something, or is this something that? Not that I'm aware of at all. And in fact, they didn't even come in to testify until we were quite far along with this bill. So they found the fact that we were actually surprised when they did show up because where have you been? Where have you been on my life? But I personally studied quite a bit the enabling language because I've created other nonprofits and I wanted to make sure that we had some consistencies and I've run into some conflict of interest issues in the nonprofit world. So I definitely did a deep dive with a lot of research that our wonderful legislative council brought to the table and she was excellent to work with. So no, this is not AOE generated. And then just a question on kind of mechanics. It sounds like a school would need to predetermine the level of engagement in the dosies the year before as they develop their budget. For example, if they're going to, if they recognize or they thought they would need grants, they would say, okay, we need whatever, 0.25 FTD for grant writing for the year 2025. The school with the different. Whatever the individual school or whoever at one level individual school and fleets it up to the district who fleets it up to the boats. I don't know the mechanism. I'm just saying that it sounds like the point is that we have to, it sounds like we're predetermining engagement kind of the year before. So to your point, you were talking about coaches and what have you, but in this case, yeah, I'm just curious if that's kind of what's because a boat you can't just sit around. You know, if that's unhappily waiting for people to call them because they've got manpower on stage. They got manpower, right? They have to know, okay, how many, how many, you know, what staff do they need to go up to to support all of the various requests? Or they got to kind of wing it the first year and find out what the level of engagement is before they adjust them for the second year to increase their staff, to increase their staff. You absolutely have a full handle on the precariousness of getting this started for sure. The answer is, I don't think that they're absolutely gonna know when they come out of the gate. They're gonna be taking some risks. They'll bring somebody on board. I mean, as my business hat sits on my head, this gets me super excited and twitter-pated about the fact that you're gonna have a business person in charge of making sure that as many people as possible has the thing that you offer as your bocies. So if it is evidence-based scientific coaching for our educators so that we can increase literacy scores, you are gonna call every supervisory union in the district and you're gonna call, I mean in the state. And on top of that, you're gonna say, the more that joins, the lower we can make this cost, you don't have to worry about it. We have vetted this program. We're seeing success already in a certain supervisory union. They've already increased their literacy scores. You don't need to work so hard on that curriculum or spend all that money buying it and then you get it and you don't like it. Somebody's already working with it and is loving it and is seeing results from it. So that part, I think, is really exciting and we don't operate that way these days. We operate in a lot of silos and I think that that's just speaking to the merger perspective. But will it? Like maybe we've made it too easy for them not to but we've also made it in a way that they're collaborating where they might actually want more. Yeah. Senator Gullick. Where's Senator Gullick? She always gets her way. What happened? So I'm gonna ask a question. It's a hypothetical because it's not gonna be a popular one but I'm just gonna ask it. Why not just go directly to having fewer districts with fewer maybe fewer overhead fewer school boards? Like why not just like do that? This is also my personal opinion not a representation of the House Education Committee fully but I think that as we move forward there's gonna need to be a lot of political will and until that vision solidifies this provides a great path towards certainly collaboration and cost savings. Thank you. I'm gonna deal with more blood. So you said that these policies are non-profits and I really, right? No, I've created a lot of non-profits. Okay, so who's funding the most AOE? No, so the Bosies, if this supervisor reunion and this supervisor reunion say hey, let's create this Bosies they're taking their money to provide the startup. So they're gonna put the skin in the game and they're gonna hire whoever's needed. That might be an executive director. They may just say well, we're gonna come together. This superintendent's gonna say we have a great treasurer, all right? So we've got the financial part covered and we're just gonna hire this one person or they could say well, we wanna hire an executive director that oversees all of this and they pay the salary. That's the reason why there would be a member and a non-member difference potentially in cost or fees. And maybe at some point, once they get enough going and there is enough that's coming out of that Bosies they may choose to reduce that and maybe make no changes to member and non-member. We didn't restrict them to anything there. But yes, it is very, very self-directed. And one point that you made earlier that I wanted to speak to or question was, a lot of times your supervisory union already has line items in the budget for expenses that they have to, they already know that they're gonna spend some on professional development. They already know they're gonna spend money on curriculum. So that may not be incredibly directed just because the Bosies is created. It might just be a, oh great, we don't have to vet this. We don't have to do this research on our own. We just saved 20 hours of research time. Great answer that I get it. But I think back to my question about equity. You're gonna have some who are gonna do it well and some that aren't. And so you're gonna always have a school district maybe that is paying more because they didn't, they didn't put the right puzzle together. And we, sometimes I think that, I'm more of a top-down sort of person. When you leave it up to the individuals to put together their own organization, then that organization will probably prosper and the rest of them maybe not so much. So I just want to make sure that everything is definitely distributed. It makes sense to have people have, you know, be in charge of their own destiny for sure. It's that budget money drives it, so. But I'm just looking for some kind of a safeguard. Keep them in, give them some guardrails, keep them in the loop to make sure they take advantage of what you're talking about. I think that's an excellent point. I do think it helps a lot of schools that are less resourced get the resources that they need. But I can also see that if they need the resource of the extraordinary special education system, that that might be challenging, but it sort of gives them a mentorship model to see how other supervisor unions have done it in a more transparent and easily accessible way than ever before. But that might be one of the things that they come back and say like, we need to help them. Oh, and you did ask about money, which is that we allocated $70,000, $10,000 per Bosie's to get stood up. That would cover legal fees for drafting the Articles of Agreement, which becomes their organizational document, but then also to create a website that lists their services and whatnot and get it started. Repbus, is that in the budget, did the house pass? Yes, we passed that, but that's in the budget. Did that St. James Office of the Legislative Council the appropriation is in the bill itself? Oh, sure. It's from the Ed Fund. That's right. I remember we had some of them. Can I back up just to make sure I understand. So, Repbus, are you good on time? We're gonna try to keep you as long as we can, even after the walk through time. I'm either sitting here or on the house floor if I was left to be able to get to the point at the end of the day that this is getting close to being baked. Okay. I mean, we'll hear from folks, but I'd love to really make sure the committee is ready to roll. Okay, so you being here is huge. Okay, great, thank you. Okay, so seven, let's just say theoretically, seven Bosies distributed across the state. Are each of those Bosies essentially duplicating their effort to, like, they all deal with procurement consolidation or they all deal with special education consolidation. Or is one Bosie like the subject matter expert on procurement for the state? Everybody emulates them or uses their services or what have you. Which perspective is it? I think the answer in this very initial stage is both. If somebody is already coming out of the gate saying we do procurement, then another Bosie is if they wanted to create to do procurement would have to really wrestle with why. Or why then? Because they're gonna be in literal business competition now. And so that kind of also brings in a new flavor into the educational realm. Because they're gonna try to get as many people to use their services to make it cost effective as, and so is the other. So unless there is extremely divergent principles behind why there needs to be something different, I would see that folks would very much to do the same thing that somebody else is doing. How are we gonna share creation? So I mean, cause I've seen school districts that say, gee, this supervisory union is doing it this way. Why don't we go find out how they did it? If you've got this biggest problem of the lot, I see your terrain lines of communication. If there was some way that they had a website in the sky that said, this is what we're doing. Cause you're kind of allowing what you do in their own time. Yes. So right now you would have to Google and research each supervisory union. That's over 50, right? Now there'll be seven max websites that you would go to for each folks needs to see what services they offer. So I think it would actually streamline the process of figuring out who's already doing what well. If it works for you, we're gonna take a five minute break. We're gonna have ledger council take us to the bill. We're gonna have probably a bunch more questions if you can stick with us. Sure. Thank you. All right, Morgan, five minutes. Rachel, welcome to that two Senate education. We are now going to walk through age 630, 22 page bill. And this is an act relating the board's walkthrough of educational services. We may lose Miss St. James to go to the floor. If so, we'll recess at that point and then come back to it so we can finish this today. Miss St. James. Thank you. Best St. James office of legislative council. So you have age 630 as passed by the house in front of you. It starts with a finding section. Do you want to go through those findings or do you want to skip to the meat of the bill? Ready. Me. Me. One word. So we're gonna go to page four, section two. And what section two does is it adds a brand new chapter to title 16. Oh, nice. I'm sorry. I can't unsee what I just saw. Showing it. There's a shish out there. It's a month old. Excuse me. So it adds, so section two adds a brand new chapter to title 16 called Board of the Cooperative Education Services. So this is the Vosie's chapter. And then within the chapter, there's a whole bunch of different sections. Starting. Completely new chapter. Completely new chapter. Starting with section 601, which is a policy section. So we're on page four, line three. I am not, I'm gonna try my best to not go line by line, but this is a dense bill. So we may end up doing that. So I do think it's important to read policy. It is the policy of the state to allow and encourage supervisory unions to create. And I'm just gonna say Vosie's. To provide shared programs and services on a regional and statewide level. Formation of a Vosie's shall be designed to build upon the geographically focused cooperative regions used by Vermont superintendents as of July 1, 2024. So that is what Ratboss was talking about, those kind of informal regions. That's the reference. That's the one reference to that. They shall be designed to maximize the impact of available dollars through collaborative funding and reduce duplication of programs, personnel and services and contribute to equalizing educational opportunities for all pupils. So you're gonna see later on that the secretary has to approve the articles of incorporation or the articles for agreement of a Vosie's and the secretary needs to find that formation of a Vosie's is in alignment with this policy. So this policy is important legislative and tap language for the rest of the bill. Committee, questions about that? Just one for Ratboss, if I may. The geogram.map, do you have it? Did you already describe to us? Obviously you have it, I knew you did. Thank you. She rocks. That is awesome. So one, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah, do you mind? Do you mind doing it in a color? Yeah, totally color is keyed up. Okay, so I had that question. And then this is through the council. Is there, there's nothing else actually prior to the creation of this that allows these kinds of things to happen? There's no yes or no answer to that question. So what there is in statute right now and you'll see as we walk through what a Vosie's is, is it's own body politic incorporated. It's own political subdivision. So it's got payroll, it's got employees, it is carrying a budget, it has expenses, it is offering services. There is nothing in state law that currently allows for an SU and an SU to get together or a school district and a school district to get together and become a political subdivision of the state and offer this. They could get together and form a nonprofit that is a nonprofit entity the same way that any other nonprofit entity is, right? And there are, there are some cooperatives, the house education heard from some education cooperatives that are currently functioning in the state, but they're their own nonprofit. Current state law does allow for supervisory units to have joint agreements. So 16 VSA 267 allow for SUs to enter into a joint agreement to provide joint programs services and professional and other staff that are necessary to carry out the desired programs and services. And the best. But that joint cooperation contract or agreement would still mean that one of those SUs is carrying the employment contracts, the line item on a budget for the services that they have agreed to share. They might get paid back from the other supervisory unions, but there's still a line item on that SUs budget. With a BOSIS, the line item on the BOSIS would be the, or a line item for the supervisor union would be membership fee or the money they are paying for the services for their individual supervisory union. They're not carrying the cost of providing the service to everyone who's involved in the BOSIS. It's the BOSIS who's looking to be made whole by the SUs contributing. Does that kind of make sense? So right now under state law, yes, supervisory unions can get together and they can form joint agreements. But one of those SUs, or they have to have some apportionment of who's paying that bill and how are they getting paid back by the other SUs that are sharing those services, right? With the BOSIS, the BOSIS is just, so for example, let's say you have an art teacher, okay? And there were five SUs who only needed an art teacher for .2 time, right? Yeah, that's a lot. Right? Yeah. So under current law, under section 267, those SUs could get together and agree that they were gonna provide art services together. They were gonna make sure that their schedules didn't conflict with that one art teacher so that he or she could go around and do .2 in these five different services. Well, one SU has to be the employer, right? Potentially. You could get lucky and have a teacher be willing to do a .2 contract in all of these. You might have the SUs get together and decide we're gonna take on the one and then everyone pays us back, right? With the BOSIS, the BOSIS would be the employer. And then each supervisory union would be paying for however, .2, .75, whatever amount to pay back however they're using that feature. Interesting. Same for transportation costs. Let's say under section 267, some SUs got together and they decided to do a joint contract for transportation because they, you know, economy of scale, they could get a better deal. One SU is on the hook for that whole bill. And then their agreement would parse out how much each SU is paying back to the contract holder. Under a BOSIS, it would be the BOSIS that holds that contract. And then each SU would be then paying for whatever service they needed or wanted from that contract. Does that make sense? It does, it does. So yeah, under current state law, supervisory unions can get together and form joint agreements. But I understand now the complexity of them doing it that way rather than doing it this way, which, yeah, I mean, I still have some more questions but it seems like a really good step. Okay, so any more questions on policy before we go to definitions? Great, page four, line 12, section 602, very short definition section for this chapter. So you'll see on line 13 is used in this chapter. We're defining, we're gonna use the, instead of saying teacher and administrator, teacher and administrator, we're gonna say that the term educator encompasses teachers and administrators for a licensed under chapter 51. And then on page five, line six, supervisory union. We're just making it clear here that a supervisory union also includes a supervisory district. So we don't have to keep repeating that over. Section 603, line 10, page five. Here now we're starting to get into the real meat of the bill, right? The creation for the cooperative educational service. So subsection A, how are these boards established? So two or more SUs, they have to meet to discuss the inviability of entering into a written agreement to provide shared programs and services. Can the SUs, could it be a lot more? Could it be five, could it be 10? It's two or more. Two or more, yep. Up there just saying. Yep. And then at that meeting, or if it takes five meetings to come to an agreement, they can enter into a proposed agreement to form an association of supervisory unions to deliver shared programs and services to complement the educational programs of member SUs in a cost-effective manner. And then here we go, an association formed, shall be known as a BOCIS. Now we're just gonna see the word BOCIS everywhere. I'm on page six. And it shall be a body politic incorporate with the powers and duties that formed them under this subsection B, articles of agreement. They're organizing and governing documents. So agreements to form a BOCIS pursuant to this chapter take the form of articles of agreement and serve as the operating agreement. Agreements have to include a cost benefit analysis, outlining the projected financial savings or enhanced outcomes or both. That the parties expect to realize through shared services or programs. And this might be a question for Representative Boss, Boss Five. How do they know that? I mean, in order for one of these to form, you need to come to the table and say, hey, it's likely five of our teachers, we could have one our teacher now for these five districts and one German teacher for these five districts. Is it sort of neat that to get started? I'm just trying to understand how they would know that the financial savings, what the projected financial savings would be. Not going to be missed. So I intuit that they, right now they're being forced to have these conversations and when they are forced to have them, they will I'm sure bring their needs to the table and if there are matching needs then that provides the spark for further collaboration and cost saving research. So what about, are we saying you have to or is this just an option? We're saying that you have to consider it but we're not saying that you have to do it. And I think you'll see Senator Gambin as we go through what is required in the Articles of Agreement. You'll see the level of detail that goes into what they need to think through to form. Thank you. So no, so I'm on page six, line seven. No agreement or subsequent amendments shall take effect unless approved by the member SUs, right? That makes sense. If you're going to be a part of the BOCES, you got to prove what you're signing up for. And the Secretary of Education. The secretary shall provide articles shall approve article for agreement if the secretary finds that the formation of the BOCES is in the best interest state, the students and the member SUs and aligns with the policy set for section 601, which is the first piece we walked through today. In the same, James, is it usually the secretary or an agency that would approve articles of the agreement like that? This is an anomaly. So this is the first, yeah. There's usually who would approve part of this agreement. So the union school district. You know, some of these are the parts of government. Yeah. Oh, other parts of government. I don't know off the top of my head. Communication union districts are the first thing that's coming to mind. I can look that up for you. I don't know. Same thing about the core question, okay. But for union school districts, I believe the, let's see. For union school districts, a study committee gets together of all the school districts that want to create a union school district. If they decide they want to create one, they transmit their study committee report and their proposed articles of agreement to the secretary who then submits them with recommendations to the state board. And then the state board has to approve the proposed union school district if it makes certain findings. And those findings are almost exactly what I just read to you. It has the best interest of the state, the students and the school districts and aligns with the policy for union school districts. So very similar, but the state board is not involved in BOCES. It's just the secretary. Sir, if you would. I'm just gonna do a roll call. Be right back. Thank you. I'm sorry to say James. I thought I could sort of, I thought I could just stay forward of any story for a group. For union school districts, not for BOCES. BOCES is the secretary of education. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry. Senator Shin. I think just as a comment for the committee, I feel like raise the best interests of the state. They probably use some more refining, you know, two things. Yeah, it's a little vague. And I mean, there's two SCUs are going to be working together. They're going to be working together in that region's interest. And it may have a neutral effect or a negative effects or a positive effect on the state. I just feel like that's an area that could be some more refining or, yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. Senator Kuhler. Thank you, chair. I completely agree with Senator Heshim on that. And I mean, you could even question the term best interests of the students, like which students? And I think that whole section needs, us to dig into, I think, a little bit more. I agree with both, but it comes down to who's paying for the product. If it's coming out of the state education fund, that's going back to the state. So all the school districts are supervising and it's coming out of that, the property taxes, anyway. But so, who's paying for it? Yeah. We're not there yet. A little bit. We'll get there. Again, I will just say, obviously we can take testimony and refine that, but that language is taken out of the Union School District statute so that language already exists in state law. So if you are going to make changes to what best interest of the state means, we're going to have to be careful that we are not inadvertently impacting unless you want to, what that analysis would look like for the formation of the Emerge School District, the Union School District. Okay, so we're on line 14 on page six. So this is what, at a minimum, the Articles of Agreement have to include the names of the participating Supervisory Unions, the mission, purpose, and focus of the BOCES, the programs or services to be offered by the BOCES, the financial terms and conditions of membership of the BOCES, including any applicable membership fee, the service fees for member SUs and the service fees for non-member SUs as applicable. On page seven, the detailed procedure for the preparation and adoption of an annual budget, carry forward provisions. The method of termination of the BOCES and the withdrawal of member SUs, which shall include the apportionment of assets and liabilities, the procedure for admitting new members and for amending the Articles of Agreement, the powers and duties of the Board of Directors of the BOCES to operate and manage the Association, including board meeting attendance requirements, consequences for failure to attend a board meeting, conflict of interest policy, and a policy regarding board member salaries or stipends, and then any other matter not incompatible with law that the member SUs considered necessary to the formation of the BOCES. So a couple of things I wanna point out. To get at your question about who pays for this, we're leaving it up to each individual BOCES to decide how they are funded. So in the Articles of Agreement, they have to include financial terms and conditions of membership, including any applicable membership fee. So they could decide to have a membership fee or they could not decide to have a membership fee. And then they have to include service fees for member SUs or service fees for non-member SUs as helpful. So in the testimony that the House Education Committee heard from Father State was once these get up and running, they are largely operating as a fee-for-service program. So they're offering a service and people are buying it. So each BOCES has to decide for themselves, do you get a discount if you're a member or do you have to pay more if you're a non-member or does everyone pay the same? And it could be different for each BOCES depending on the needs of each individual region or programs and services that they are offering, right? If you are that, if you have the one grant writer for the entire state, maybe you decide not to offer different fees for members or non-members, right? Cause everyone on the state is using their service. But maybe three BOCES pop up grant writers. And so maybe some offer different fees for members or some members or some don't in order to remain competitive. They have to figure that out themselves, the legislature and this bill is not dictating how they set that up. So if I may, BOCE districts can, you can cross BOCE districts to get certain services. It's not as though you're creating something that might just live between your BOCES district. As you pointed out, the best grant writers, the Southeast corner, if you are a member, doesn't matter where you are, you can benefit from that grant writer. Yeah, so the bill says you can only be a member of one BOCES, but you can purchase services from any of them. I see. Interesting. Let's do it. Following up on what we're talking about right now, that I circled the word because it just struck me as a little bit odd, but maybe it's because I'm not understanding fully. It's on page six, line 16. The mission, purpose and the focus of the BOCES. I understand mission. I understand purpose, focus. I don't understand. Is each BOCES gonna have a different focus? It could, their focus could be just as general as providing shared services for their members, or it could be to provide quality continuing education for all Vermont-led teachers. And if a BOCES ends up accidentally doing work outside of its focus, I mean, it would amend their articles of agreement. Also, this is, okay, it's very fluid and yeah, okay. God, thank you. Great. So if they were, let's say they formed to provide three different services. If a fourth service naturally flowed out of those three, they would have to look at their articles of agreement and decide, is this fourth service really just a part of services school in three, or is this really a brand new need that we are filling a new service that we are providing and who we need to update our articles of agreement to reflect that? Yeah, please. Go ahead. Any questions? Is the BOCES be under the umbrella of the school boards and also, oh, sorry, I have a question. Um, should be the last one, but are they? They have their own board of directors that they are moved. They have their own board of directors. Several of the school board, I know, are they subject to open meeting laws? Is that good? Senator, do they have a corporate? They are a body politic and corporate, which is a legal term of our program. We're talking about kind of political subdivisions of the state. And I just want to warn you all that they are doing a roll call on a bill before a bill. So, correct. Oh, they got through the bees. They did. I see a potential conflict between region and specialty. I like the whole concept, but it seems like it's a path towards super unions, which frankly, I support, okay? But this maybe isn't quite far enough. That's first flush. You have a region versus a specialty. And if you said you can be a member of one BOCES, or you can purchase from any BOCES. I don't know. It's going to be part of, you know, I know, okay, four weeks, one way until, you know, this has got to go. This is a big deal. And I'm not, you know, part of me says it's not far enough. Part of me says that there's potential conflicts on intended consequences. I'm not quite sure we're, we've got to flesh out. I'm sure that in the House committee, you know, they bumped into a lot of those, you know, if there's additional kind of like sensitivities that we're not yet discovering, it would be helpful to understand so we don't pay the same, pay the same road that you guys did over the past two months, right here. Oh, sorry. I was just thinking maybe we should keep going on the bill. Maybe some of our questions might be answered. If I could just offer, yes, as always. You know, the House Education Committee heard a lot of testimony from education cooperatives in the state and from other states on how they operated. And I found it as I was drafting this, really helpful to understand kind of what services they're offering, what does that look like in each different state to kind of understand what this is, what this is actually meant to do. So it may be that the very boring and unexciting enabling language to allow SUs to form these organizations, to offer these services does not get at the heart of some of your questions of how does this work in the real world? And it's not until you hear from the folks who are actually working in these education cooperatives that you can answer some of those questions or maybe highlight some of your concerns. This language is just the scaffolding. I like to think, I think I used this term in the House. It's the scaffolding that allows SUs to get together and form of OCs. It gives them a roadmap for how to do this, but it doesn't necessarily answer all of this legislation, doesn't necessarily answer all of your questions on how they will actually work, right? So like school districts. School districts, the mechanics and what goes into teaching or running a school district, there's so much more that goes into that than it's just contained in Title 16, right? I'm constantly reminding you all, well, this is what it says in black and white, don't like hear from the field about how they're actually doing this. I think this is a great example of that. And the House had the benefit of looking at this bill after they had heard all of that testimony, right? For months. And you all are having to look at just the boring, struct the boring scaffolding without hearing about any of like, oh, okay. Well, I can see how that testimony about that program that this education collaborative was providing, I can see how the scaffolding would give some SUs, the tools they need to be able to get together to form that kind of a program. If they really go hand in hand, and this is meant to be age 630, it's meant to be very kind of technical and not exciting about the work that the folksies are actually doing. Does that make sense at all? Perfect. Yeah, it does. I'm wondering, Representative Buss, if I may, as we're talking about this and as what Ms. St. James just mentioned, talking, again, purchase power, maybe things that could help train teachers, was there any discussion about just one basis? Yes. In mob failures, or back to where you do have, you know? Oh, it's, well, you know, one of those is where it is, that is the place where you might go. Yeah, I can just see some logic because really it is that it's a government structure. It's not, you could, I don't know, it just seems to me like it gives a big view of everything with purchase power. I don't know, just curious if you could just say something about maybe what that discussion looked like and why you all didn't go in that direction. Mostly we did not go in that direction because of the regionalization of transportation contracts, which could look very different from the south end of the state, the south end of the state, from east to west. Also extraordinary special education services in terms of finding a location and providing what the kids in that region need. That felt to be something more regionally focused. Okay. And that's not to say that any, that all seven will be created, maybe two are created because you might be right and that there only needs to be one, right? Yeah, I don't know. I just keep thinking if, you know, there were the board comprised of people from each of these districts, but I can also see your point that could get a little bit, you know, you do have particular things in each district that are unique to each district and you don't want those to disappear. Yes, our weeks. When you said that actually earlier, I was thinking the concept of why the AOE is not already doing this. Yeah, can you say that one? One policy I'm thinking, yeah, that's a policy, but I understand that, you know, the regional differences of regional folks is unnecessary. But for example, procurement, you know, in a corporate world, we don't have, you know, every program, every unit doesn't have its own procurement arms. We move from the top down. I'm very sorry. Yeah, I'll be there as soon as I am done. Yeah, we're gonna work with one of us and then we can have questions. Thank you. You're here. Yeah, absolutely. No, we understand it. And that's why we had $600 can of proof in a little bit. Oh, see. Oh, it comes out. Well, that was the answer, that's, that was, you know, let's fix that by going to just in time to logistics. Where they, yeah, I'm thinking about what we see as, well, this policy has a corner on the toilet paper market in all the schools. So, you know, they get the best deal where if it was AOE, thank you, bye for everybody. That's the way I'm gonna. They have the best deal. All right, a little bit. All right, Bust, do you wanna join us? Sure. We'll just have some questions and when we run out of questions, we'll take a break. No, the council tends to back. Thank you. So yeah, I, again, I just keep thinking like you said, is there a way to, what others think, does it make sense for there to be one and all of us? But. A little bit of a comment. Yeah. So, I think it was last week before an AOE was into testify and we were talking about coaching and activating in the field because sort of things are hard to grasp from a module that's on a website. And in order for you to figure out how to teach that module if you need some coaching and it came up that that's not actually what they do. The AOE. And so I had zero idea, but that was the case. And that made me appreciate concept of the BOSIS even more. And who actually know what it, I mean, it's a total problem and what they do. That's a great question. Sure. In the afternoon. So related to that you're saying, so if the BOSIS would take on, again, are you saying BOSIS would take on possibly teachers or teacher training, those kinds of things? Professional development. Professional development. Okay. That's right. Because traditionally that is that the school district themselves will provide the professional developer that their staff needs. And also they choose to focus on it. My district wants to be 90% proficient in literacy. And so they trained the specialist to be able to coach everyone in the district. And then that started other supervisor unions to go, oh, well, why can't we just do what you're doing? And the answer is kind of that this makes easier for them to do that. That's a great example where you all focused on that and then now others can adopt what you are doing. And maybe that wouldn't have happened if there had been one BOSIS. Any possibility for that? Other questions for us while we wait for Ledge Council? Otherwise we'll take a break for Ledge Council and then we'll start. Just a quick question. So for example, agency of human services, do they do the advertising and recruiting and onboarding of say, for example, agency of education employee? Or does the agency of education do their own part of it? Everybody just does their own part of it. Or say something to me. Yeah, we're good. Yeah, the one thing that I would love to see more against statewide is the coaching piece. Is there a way, again, we all know we've talked about the agency for a long time in this committee. The needs, is there a way? And I always think, wouldn't it be great if there were 14 people from the agency, one in each county, schools, something going on, called the person from the agency to have that person come in. I think that's the one area where I wonder how the BOSIS would do it. The new education. That's what I was just gonna say, because the AOE, all their salaries are general fund. And then we're using education dollars because we're training teachers that then this level through the SUs. So it's a money flow thing as well. It's like the question you just asked. I asked the question, who's the HRO for the same? Is it the agency administration? Agency of administration. Is it the HRO? The human resources. Oh, no. They don't have it. Everybody just does their own thing. Well, I suspect the governor's office, the administration probably has one. We have one in the legislature, the HR person, you know, somebody that if they've all been setting up a concern, like, not sure, speak, why. Yeah. Since we're having pretty relaxed conversation, I, speaking of, we're thinking about a one, both Cs for the state, which is, I had kind of been from telling an interesting thought given that I've been told the number of students we have in our state is equivalent to or less than like a single district in a place like Texas or wherever. So that's kind of an interesting thought. But I do remember a few years back when we wanted to do like one single literacy program for the whole state. And the argument was we couldn't because it was too expensive. And I think it was like 23 million or something like that. So as much as I am, I'm excited about this and open minded, I just wonder if there's always going to be bumping up to lack of resources to achieve what we really want to achieve. Just statement, not really a question, but no question. We had similar discussions. The number of both Cs was the sticking point for all of us, none of us walked out of this bill thinking that that was the dead right answer to what we should do here. I mean, I definitely hear where you're going. Why not just put it in one? It's one enabling entity. And then we all figure out from there if, and then maybe this could be the flexibility in the language, we really want to start with just one to see if everything can be done through one. And then if it cannot be done through one, then regionalize with a cap of seven. That might be a way to do it, which really focuses it and kind of forces everybody to try to collaborate in that way. If you think of it, if you think about it, you're really, again, this is purchasing power, paper, desks, all that kind of thing. Other things, even transportation could be worked from here, a school construction program could be worked. And it does give you that, again, sort of statewide look around what areas are there real needs for school construction, what areas aren't? Where are the districts that need this? That's what James will do. So I'm wondering, can you just tell us the makeup of the board for the Boat Seas, how that works? It's one member from each contributing supervisory unit that can be either an employee, the supervisor of the superintendent or a school board member. Could be one of the PUC, so we could ourselves into some conflicts, they could open up. I mean, that's what was the manage properly. Could. It's actually a very interesting point. If PUCs were each more local, maybe they wouldn't be as much. We did put in there that the executive director and the treasurer would have an evaluation panel. It's take 10 minutes. We'll wait for Miss St. James to come up, please. I'm finding it, given the environment of the property tax issue, the application funding and such, find a very repression that we're talking about efficiencies and saving money and not just spend a word or go spend new taxes. Thank you. And if nothing else, it's the beginning of a good plan. They could get a further refined where it is efficient for education and development. I agree. Yep.