 Hello and welcome. This is April 24th and this is the House Education Committee in the Vermont House of Representatives. And today we are looking at a response for the 19 school districts that do not yet have a past budget. And over the last couple of days, Representative Coopley and, and Conlon and I have been in conversation to take the information that we got in our joint meeting with, with House Ways and Means Thank you so much for the members of that committee that are joining us today. So my ideas that came up in that joint committee meeting. We have been working with Ledge Council and JFO to put that into language, which we have here today. I just just have Jim go through that language. We have Brad James from AOE here to help us with understanding the, the financial situation of the districts as well as JFO Chloe's here as well. And I haven't decided if we're going to actually put them right up on this to explain this or if we're going to just make a question. So thank you so much for both of you for standing by as we engage in this important conversation. So, Jim Demaray, could you walk us through 6.1 that is on our website. So for the record, the Demaray Ledge Council, we're walking through this draft 6.1 on default budgets. Let me just close that window. Okay. So the purpose of the bill says due to the COVID-19 state of emergency is to provide options for establishing a fiscal year, 31 budgets for school districts that did not have voter approved budgets. I would emphasize the word options here. It takes away no rights in law, but gives further options to re scroll down further. Okay, section one. I'll just read through it because it's pretty simple language. I'm pretty sure. So, Subsection A says not restating any provisional blood to the contrary. If the fiscal year 21 budget of a school district district has not been approved by voters on or before the effective date of this act, which is bomb passage. The board of school district may, then may not shall may on or before June 30 2020 select one of these options. One request agency of education to authorize an amount of education spending for the school district equal to the education spending amount authorized by the districts 2020 fiscal year school budget, or to adopt the fiscal year 21 budget provided that. A, if the school board proposed a fiscal year 21 budget to voters that was defeated, then the budget adopted by the school board shall be less than the amount of the budget that was defeated. If before the effective day of this act, the school board has warned a fiscal year 21 budget that's not been voted upon, then the budget adopted by the school board should be equal to or less than the amount of the warm budget. And B, if we scroll down further every B basically says that if one of those options and a is taken that should be the result so it won't be further voting. So it says, I'm not staying in provisions the contrary. If the school board request agency to authorize an amount of education spending for fiscal year 21 under subdivision a one. That should be the amount of education spending for that fiscal year. And to the school board adopts the 21 fiscal year budget under subdivision a to that should be the school districts budget for that fiscal year. B, says, in addition to the options under a a school district in a vote to approve a budget or vote to reconsider or rescind an approved budget in accordance with current law. Provided that if the school board votes to select an option under subsection a, then notwithstanding a provision of laws of the contrary, a vote on the district 21 budget shall not be held after the board vote is taken. That's there before going on, just to say this more in English, which is the school boards have the option until June 30 to adopt a budget, or to ask the agency for the same as spending a class year. Or, and or they can, they can continue to vote their budget in accordance with law, but once they have adopted an option or if they adopt an option before June 30, then there won't be any further voting after that, that date. Going down further to D. D says that the agency of education shall comply with the request made under subdivision a one, and then and that we're staying a piece of law. The amount authorized by the agency shall be the education spending of the school district for fiscal year 21. And that will be the first thing that's actually there. And then he says that if the school board selects an option, any option under a show determine how funds should be expended. So the authority to spend any other funds received from other source sources, including endowment, parental fundraising, federal funds not governmental grants for other state funds as a special education funds under chapter one one. And the effect today is on passage. So just to clarify. The history of where we were. And where we are the Senate is their proposal is basically a one. This is what they're working on, which is to basically set last year's budgets. We heard from the school boards Association and the superintendent's Association, what they wanted was last year's budget plus 4%. And in our meeting with between the two committees we came up with a third option, and that's presented in to a two. So we kept on the list the Senate's proposal. We did not include the superintendent's and school board associations proposal, and we did include the proposal that we discussed last week, which was basically to allow school boards to set their budgets. Because they weren't more than, then, basically did the fee a budget that was defeated couldn't be more than that and if you had not passed a vote bill, it had to be equal or less than the amount warned to be clear. So, Brad, or Sue, are all of these budgets warned in that for the districts that did not have a budget have all of them been warned to the best of my knowledge yes because I believe they all had date set initially. Right. Let me check and see that should be on this information Sue collective. I think that you're understanding as well to suggest you from school boards Association. Yes, but I'm also checking the chart that I have. Nope, I would, Grandville Hancock and Rochester Stockbridge. We're not scheduled soon. Okay, Madam chair. Yes, and those Grandville Hancock as I remember is does not operate a school. That's correct. I think Rochester Stockbridge operates pre K five six I think I think I think pre K eight pre K eight. I believe I think I remember that correct. No, that's pre K six pre K six. Okay. Pre K. I'm on here. Oh, good, good, good. I just first questions from the committee about this bill and then what we're going to do is hear from here from the districts. That are affected by the by the situation we're talking about. So I'm looking and I see, did I see Robin? So Peter, Jim, I know there's been some questions about whether, here's my question, a budget approved a voter approved budget from one of the other school districts. Can a board the support still have the power to rescind that budget and put up a lower budget for a vote. I'm questioning, taking away the ability to have any further votes if they choose one of the options on under this proposal. So, for my clarification, are you referring to school districts that have already adopted budgets or when the ones that have not. Well, I'm just asking under current law. Can a voter approved budget that was passed on town meeting day. Can that be rescinded at any way re voted at any way. Nothing changes under current law. So current law keeps going so yes, a budget that has been approved can be rescinded or reconsidered under current law. But if you, if the options take under a, then no, no, after that date, you can't reconsider or approve. So, so June 30, if the options taken by June 30, then whatever the board dead is binding. Okay, so we fair to say then that a district with a voter approved budget still has the possibility to rescind and re vote. But one of these 19 would not if they were to take, take one of the options available under the proposal. Correct. Okay. Why did why do we have that limitation in there. Well, otherwise the action by the board would not be binding because you'd have further consideration after that date. And the idea here I think is to give some finality to those budgets. If the board decides to take the option under a, then have that be the budget, but have that be open going forward. I'll listen to the testimony about that from the folks in the field. Thank you, Jim. The only, the only one that could bring forth a vote to reconsider or rescind would actually be the school board. Correct. No, it can be petitioned within 30 days of the original vote, I believe it is. There can be a petition for reconsideration or recision. But we're past that 30 days. Um, well, for these budgets here, once it haven't been voted on yet, they can, they can go out and vote their budget haven't approved. Right. And then they could have that we can serve. Chris Mattos representative Mattos. And then Serena. This one's for Jim on a would be a to where if a board had a vote go down on their first budget, or you haven't voted yet. But now you can adopt a revised budget lower than the first one that got voted down or adopt the FY 21. So does that, is that taking the right to vote away from the voters. Yes. Yes. So the option here options under a are actions have to be taken by the board on its own motion without sure without further approval. Okay. Okay. Thanks. And that actually would be fine final for the year. Okay. Thanks, Jim. Serena Austin. Um, I just, I had some, I was confused by section C. And again, it gets back to where it says that I, I assume this was for districts that don't have a budget right now. So I was confused where it said that they can reconsider or rescind an approved budget, if they don't have a budget. I think it might be the legal ease that I'm getting confused about. Yeah, it seems like probably unlikely scenario but let's assume that a school district without that's not voted yet on its budget decides to go forward and take a vote on its budget. Okay. The vote is approved. There's a similar done. Mid-May. Okay. So you have an approved budget in mid-May. They still have the right to ensure a rescind that budget. Right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Nothing has been taken away under current law, except if the option under a has taken that. Just another question. I think they talked to like 87% of their previous budget if they don't pass the budget, but this. But this, this bill would make it so they could get the full amount of their previous budget. Yeah, so, well, yeah, so it's correct. It's the bar limitation. Otherwise in law, this number stands that. So now you can get more. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So this, this bill, everybody still has that option. They still have the option. It's still borrow. Yeah. Until you get a vote. You could just adopt last year's budget. Or you have this other option where the board would approve a budget. I think I see. Okay. Representative Elder. And if you've finished with a question, make sure you put your little blue hand down. Otherwise I'll just want to make sure that if you have a new question that your hand goes up again. So representative. Thank you. Yes. So I am interested in this option where. I'm just wondering if there's any, I'm just wondering if there's any, I'm just wondering if there's any, if there's a lower, a lower budget amount and just, there's not a lot of specificity there. I'm just wondering, are there any. It kind of seems like it could be $1 lower. I don't think that credibly somebody would do that. But. Where the guard rails there. I just wonder, should this lower budget be. Also subject to AOE approval. Or something. If it's, if, if voters do not consider it to be substantially lower. Then that might not go over well. If it indeed is a situation of a previously defeated budget, we might want to. Be a little more specific. The policy policy discussion. Why don't we hear from the communities that are affected? We've got one, two. We've got eight districts here. We've got one. We've got one. We've got one. We've got one. We've got one. To hear from some. Yeah. I just have a quick question. Oh yeah, please. Sorry. I put my hand down and put it back up. Jim. If a board wants to vote on a budget before June 30th. Is there any. I don't know if this is a question for you, but is there any protocol for doing a vote? Like, would there be like drive up voting or a mail. Right. So act 92, I think it was. Allows for, for. More flexibility in the voting process for. Right. Yeah. So it allows for Australian ballots where they're not, not authorized before. Drive by voting mail and voting. But I think the secretary. The government has to trigger some of those things have to enable them. I'm not sure that's happened yet, but those things are in that statute that you passed. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just wanted to make sure. Cool. Thanks. Thank you so much. So we have eight. Eight districts. So. It's going to have to be. Didn't do the math. I'm afraid. So if it could be. I don't know if you can do it in five minutes. I realize that's, that's not much time, but I do want to make sure that there's opportunity for questions. I just wanted to. And I'm going to start with Amy Rex, superintendent from Milton, you have a budget that failed. And we're here to, you'd like to know what your response is to the work before us? And. Just. Your thoughts. Whether we're getting it right. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me and inviting me. I'll try to make this very quick. My second year in Milton, I'm still a new superintendent. Part of the work that I took on when I first came on board was to work very closely with our Board of Trustees on a visioning process. And I just wanted to state that as part of our theory of action around what we would like to achieve for our students and improved outcomes, we also would like to hold ourselves accountable through strong performance and sound fiscal management. I feel as if our board works extremely hard to scrutinize our budget and to bring forward a budget that's affordable for the community of Milton. I think we all know the challenges that Vermont has faced economically up and even up before the COVID-19 came about. And we saw double digit increases in the healthcare premiums, changes to the health benefits under the statewide healthcare contract. Milton, for the second year in a row, had a decrease in its common level of appraisal. We also had a decline this year in our equalized pupil count. And those had an impact even before the COVID-19. We began our process for our budget this year with a level service budget. And that was going to be a 5.6% increase over the FY20 budget. The board did not feel that that was feasible for our community. And so we went to work and we have a new business manager who's extremely creative and found some cost savings. And we were able to make few reductions at that time to our programming. We reduced just one person in our workforce and we made almost $600,000 in reductions. It was still a 3.7% increase in our expenditures over FY20. And, but that was the budget that we brought forth and failed on March 4th. We immediately went right back to work. We wanted to go out for a revote as soon as possible. And this was a little bit more of a difficult process because we really had to start to gouge into student programming and the opportunities that we provide for students. We reduced our workforce by an additional two and a half full-time positions. We carved into our athletics. We eliminated a boss route. We nickled and dimed our contracted services, our textbook, our technology equipment and shaved off another $600,000 to bring a budget that would be just a 1.8% increase over the FY20. So to a level service budget, we cut almost $1.2 million and we were still at almost a 2% increase. The board of trustees approved that budget on March 30th and then of course it became quite obvious in the next couple of weeks that we were not going to be able to hold our vote which was scheduled for April 14th. And then we also began to learn and understand the other impacts and challenges for not only getting to be able to have a vote but the impact economically COVID-19 would be having on people across the state. And we feel that we're not even sure if we can go to a vote yet in June. We still hope to be able to do that. And the impact though of the Senate proposal for the being able to have our FY20 spending as an option would be really devastating to our district. We would have to cut an additional almost another $2 million from our budget to be able to be on par with our FY20 budget. Some of the options that my business manager put forward or that we came up with to reach that point we could cut our entire athletic program, all grades, all sports, all other kind of co-curricular programming, arts and drama, all our field trips. We could eliminate all our bus routes except that those that are required for special education and our world language program grades six through 12. So that would be one chunk to get us to that 2. million that we could choose. Another option would be that we could cut 21 teachers. Contracts have already been issued but I think just to give some numbers on what we would need to do to reach that FY20 threshold is important to understand. We know that cutting 21 teachers would have a devastating impact on student learning and programming pre-K through grades 12. A third option would be that we could cut 45 of our support staff and I'm not even, couldn't even begin to think of that impact and how I would be able to operate the district without those people. They are the boots on the ground. They are incredibly important and have, many of them have worked in our district for years and years and are extremely committed, they're community members. And so that would have a devastating impact not only to children and the people that care for them and love them every day in our buildings but considerable impact on just the community overall. So that's sort of just to give you a snapshot of what would happen to us if our only option was the FY20 budget. Just a question of time. So the current bill would allow you to actually present the budget, your second round budget. You have another budget developed. It would allow you to present that or less. Yes. And that would work for your, that's an option that would work for your district. Yes, it would. Yeah. So you could continue voting or do that, borrow 87% or take this option. That's correct. It would be your option. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Just checking on, I think we'll try to get through people. If anybody has a clarifying question, we'll ask it. But for each of you, we're gonna be asking how this bill would work for you and your voters, your communities. So the next one is, let's hear from Wyndham. I see that there are three of you. We have the superintendent, school board, chair and the business administrator. So I don't know how you want to jockey this. I'm Wyall Holiday, the superintendent, the business administrator actually is not going to join us today. So there are just two of us. So thank you. So thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for having us speak today. As you said, we're from Wyndham Southeast which is the towns of Brattleboro, Dumberston, Guilford and Putney with approximately 2200 students represented. Our original vote was set to occur on March 17. Out of caution, obviously, we had postponed that annual meeting. Our next day is set for May 12th and we're quite sure that we won't be able to hold it on May 12th either. We're looking at your option of able to have the 2021 budget approved by the board. If we are to look at going with last year's ad spending, much as Amy Rex just said, that's going to mean a reduction of over 2 million for us, a cut of approximately 20 teaching positions at a time when we're going to have students coming back into schools and we're hoping they're coming back into schools in the fall, having been out of school for five and a half months. When we're looking at that and thinking about how our children are going to be coming back into classrooms, we know that we're going to need teachers, we're going to need our academic coaches to be able to work with our teachers. The type of classroom always has a great span of academic learners, but coming back after being away for so long, that's going to only increase and our teachers are going to need the assistance from academic coaches to really be able to program and meet the needs of all of our students. We also know that this time away has been very challenging for families and students' mental health and another area that we would likely have to cut if we were looking at cutting back to last year's ad spending would be social workers and mental health clinicians in our schools. And there's another area where we feel very strongly that coming back after being gone for so long, we are going to need to be working very closely with students and families to ensure that we are helping them reacclimate coming into a school community. Another area, Windham Southeast has been an area that was forced to merge on July 1st, 2019. And this school board and the communities have worked really hard for a full, almost a full year now to come together as one to work to represent all students. And that's been very rewarding as a superintendent to be able to see that work happen after there had been so much controversy and a lot of bad feelings had developed. So coming back together at this time has been really, really important, but it's also the Articles of Agreement bind us in that we're not allowed to, of course, close any schools, we're not allowed to close any single strand classrooms. So despite the fact that we look carefully at our numbers, we are, our hands are tied in some ways due to the Articles of Agreement through Act 46. So I am strongly advocating for this committee to propose a solution that allows the boards to effectively operate the schools consistent with the testimony from the VSBA, from the VSA, our area, we have schools with 65% free and reduced. We are well-known throughout the state as the first stop on 91 when you get out of Massachusetts with many addiction issues. The Browder will retreat there as an area for people that come for addiction issues. We have the children of those people and that adds extra considerations when we're educating our children. So I urge you to work with each other, work with us to try to find a solution so that we don't have to cut back to last year's Ed spending. Would the bill that gives authority to the board to pass the budget, that's just as long as it's not greater than the one that you had planned, would that work for you? That would work for us, yes. Yes, and we have not had a vote yet, you know. So yes, we did have informational meetings where I felt we were closely questioned, but I, and David Scholes, the board chairs here, he, his speaker also, I felt like the electorate that was at the, where at those meetings were very positive about the budgets. And we have a good track record of passing school budgets here. Thank you. David, did you want to add anything? Yes, I'd like to say a little bit about our schools and about our budget process. And the law did a really nice job, so I won't go on for too long, but regarding our budget, our school district includes three elementary schools where nearly 60% of 700, more than 700 students come from less affluent families. Our other three elementary schools also have significant numbers of these students. And as research clearly proves, these children do not have the same opportunities to succeed as their more affluent classmates. And they come to school with greater challenges as learners. For the past several years, any new positions created in our district have reflected those truths. Our professional development is focused on how to support students who live with trauma. We've hired social workers to support our less affluent families, counselors, and behavior intervention specialists to support the increasing number of students with significant trauma in their life. And central office staff to help administer the increasingly complex health insurance system and the ever-expanding data reporting requirements. Our budget increase for FY21, the amount more that we need in addition to last year represents primarily additional health costs. Additional health costs, additional out of district placements for intensive needs students, and modest salary increases for our employees. These are really out of our control. We've already presented our budget, as Lyle said, and responded to questions from the public. Our annual meeting was scheduled for March 17th, two days after the schools were closed due to the pandemic. At our annual meeting last year, the public added $100,000 to our budget to enable an expansion of efforts to promote diversity, equity, and social justice. It has been several years since any of our district towns rejected the school budget. We have every reason to believe the voters would have approved our proposed budget. Last week, our board was asked to send a letter to the legislature supporting the VSA and VSBA proposal for FY20 spending with a 4% inflator. Even that would have been, we still would have had to find cuts even with that. And you have seen that letter, so I won't trouble you with what was included in it. This was before anyone mentioned the possibility of the legislature approving our proposed budget for FY21 as it is. And although the board has not had an opportunity to consider this option, I'm confident they would prefer the legislature approve our proposed budget for FY21. The other options that we are aware of would require reductions to the work Lyle has talked about some of that. But those reductions are anywhere from the $2 million she talked about to over $5 million if you are unable to reach an agreement with the Senate and the current state current statute winds up being what we have to comply with. Thank you very much. So next is Mark Tucker from Caledonia Cooperative and you haven't yet to vote superintendent. Chair, can I jump in with just a quick clarifier? This is Emily. Yes, yes, please. I just wanted to clarify and thank the two folks from my area who testified and also say that while the board has not formally evaluated this proposal, I did send an email to all the members of the board to ask their perspective and received supporting emails back. So that wasn't a formal vote, but they are informally in support of it. Okay, thank you. Thank you, thank you, Emily. Mark Tucker, unmute yourself, Mark. Sorry about that, can everybody hear me? Yes. So I'm Mark Tucker, I'm the superintendent for Caledonia Central Supervisory Union. The Caledonia Cooperative School District is one of the five districts in my supervisory union. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you my thoughts on the situation we're facing in Caledonia Cooperative resulting from our inability to hold a May budget vote. At this writing, I don't know when we'll be allowed to hold our annual meeting and budget vote and I'm concerned about what happens to the district if we go into the new fiscal year without an approved budget either because we've not been able to vote or because the vote was held and failed. I just saw the draft of the House legislation this morning. So the rest of this is more commentary, I guess, towards what the Senate, the direction that the Senate is trying to move in. As it currently stands, I understand that Senate Ed wants to authorize, approve authorizing education spending at the FY20 level with no associated inflationary factor applied. Such an authorization were to come to pass from my district would be extremely restrictive on our ability to operate the three schools in Caledonia Cooperative next year. The school districts that have successfully passed budgets have approved an average increase in education spending statewide of 4%. While the needs and complexities of the districts vary widely, it is certainly the case that much of the overall increase in education spending is a result of two factors, increased salary costs resulting from routine collective bargaining agreements and the 12.9% premium increase levied by the V High Healthcare Plan. These two factors hit us in the most expensive and most difficult to control area of our school budget staffing. The old saw that 80% of the school budget stems from staff compensation is very accurate. Most districts in Vermont have commonalities in the collective bargaining agreements with Vermont NEA that call for the issuance of contracts in the month of April. In the case of my districts, we issued contracts for teachers last week, according to April 15th deadline. So now as a practical matter, we baked in the cost of teaching staff for the next school year and there are no provisions for us to revisit that. The postponement of the schedule made budget vote, a lot did allow us to take another look at the budget and the board did decide in a special meeting on April 13th to eliminate the equivalent of three and a half full-time equivalent across the three schools and that's just in teaching staff. This reduction along with their decision to forego the summer schools program for the three schools in July results in a reduction of approximately $250,000 from educational spending that had been approved and worn for the May vote. This will help to lower the proposed FY21 education spending by a little more than 2%, reducing the increase overall to slightly over 4%. So we're in range and if the legislature approves the spending authorization that absent and approved budget caps our education spending at the level of FY20 plus 4%, we can make this work. What we cannot do is operate without that 4% inflationary factor. It forced to do so what will school look like next year? Essentially, we will start the year by freezing all discretionary spending. Basically, everything except salary benefits and maybe some pre-bias of heating fuel. There'll be no afterschool programs in our three schools. There'll be no extracurricular activities, no middle school sports, field trips or enrichment programs. We'll also have to make opportunistic cuts in some of the many contracted services we rely on to address some mental health needs that impact so many of our more impoverished students. This at a time when many of our returning students need these enrichment programs and other supports to restore a sense of normalcy to their lives after having been away from us for more than five months. School will begin to look more like it was when I was in school. We rode a bus, sat in classes, ate lunch and went home, maybe with an end of year field trip but there was money left over. Well, that type of school worked well in the 60s and 70s. It looks nothing like the schools we run today as a function of need informed by our desire to help where other segments of society do not. Our families that rely on all of the extras that we provide during and after the school day will surely miss those extra services. As this legislation moves through the Senate and House committees and aren't their final vote, I respectfully ask you to consider the fairness of allowing districts that were able to pass budgets before COVID-19 to operate with a 4% inflationary factor baked in while effectively penalizing districts like CCFD who did not have a chance to pass a vote or pass a budget through no fault of its own. I'm not ignorant of the dire straits faced by the Ed Fund and I will not be surprised to see more drastic actions taken by the legislature to resolve the deficits. But if we're gonna be asked collectively to give back something, I think it's only fair that we all start from the same place with authorized spending that reflects the true inflation rate for education spending in Vermont. And finally, let me be clear that CCFD intends to advance the budget for approval by its resident voters. I'm concerned, though, that if the legislature deems it wise to freeze the spending authorization at the FY20 education spending level with no inflationary factor, some voters will believe the matter was resolved and not bother to vote and some others will have no incentive to vote for hire, albeit necessary spending will simply vote no. For the fiscally frugal, this may be deemed an okay outcome given the state of the Ed Fund. For my schools and CCFD and our children, it will be a disaster. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mark. Next is Zach McLaughlin from Superintendent from Springfield and you have a failed vote. You have yet to pass the budget due to a failed vote. So welcome. Zach, are you here? I'll try to see you. Zach, is Zach here? I don't see him on the list. Avery, did you hear back from Zach McLaughlin? I do not see him on the list either. I didn't hear confirmation, but I will reach out to him via email and see if we can get him connected. Okay. So then we will move to Caitlin Hollister from Harwood and you also are dealing with a failed budget. So Caitlin, welcome. Caitlin's muted. Caitlin, can you unmute yourself? Yeah, thank you. I apologize. I was so focused on getting the video going. So thank you again for this invitation to join you today. I will echo some of the things that we've heard already and give you some specifics about our district. Our proposed budget of 37.7 million was rejected by our voters on town meeting day. And I come before you today encouraged by your interest in offering districts like ours a path forward that will allow us the necessary stability to serve our students and operate effectively next year. A school you're likely to be the most challenging any of us have ever experienced. I wanna note that our district has been engaged in hard conversations, especially over the past year about how we might consolidate our seven campuses to better serve our students and our community. As a district that voluntarily merged under Act 46, we have shown a willingness to engage in the state's efforts to rethink the way our schools operate. Right now I'm urging you to consider this spending authority and granting us the spending authority for districts like ours to allow us to use to budget for FY21 equal to 100% of our FY2020 education spending plus a reasonable inflator to ensure that we can all provide essential student services in a time when our families will need school support more than ever. And I think the speakers before me really touched upon those points around knowing what our students and families are going to need in the fall and knowing that it will be more than they needed from us prior to closure which was already quite significant. The spending authority will accomplish three key goals. First, it would allow us to potentially avoid a budget re-vote or multiple re-votes, keeping voters and election workers at home rather than adding to our state's public health burden. We were tentatively thinking about a June vote and we all know that that may still not be quite possible. A June vote, even if it is possible, also has many concerns attached to it in terms of our employees. And we are hoping that we could offer them more assurance sooner than June. Most of our staff received RIF notices after our failed budget vote. They're going to continue to be in limbo until we have an approved budget. And we also know that we've lost several teachers already to other districts where they have approved budgets. And a few of those teachers are in disciplines that are very hard to replace. And so we're very concerned about what this uncertainty will do to us even in just the two months ahead. We've asked a tremendous amount from our educators this year and we really can't give them a lot of assurances about what the fall will look like in terms of their day to day. But we really are hoping that we can secure our staff for the fall through this spending authority and help them stay focused right now in the two months ahead of us on the challenging work that's underway. For our voters and our community members, we also wanna provide clarity and ensure that our schools will be adequately funded at a level that's comparable to our neighboring districts. And so that's why I say I support as well the inflator that folks have talked about in terms of offering a level playing field throughout the state, regardless of when a budget vote took place. We know that the state's financial picture is unlikely to improve before fall. And so we know also that the short months ahead can provide us with some vital planning time. I'm certainly committed to working with my board as well as all of our partners to consider all options and make difficult decisions, think creatively, make sacrifices so that we continue to serve our students and their families in the years ahead. But I see much of that work happening for fiscal year 22 and not right now when we can't really offer equity across all of our districts. So I know the decisions before you have no easy answers and I'm grateful for your consideration of my testimony today. Please know that the spending authority we are requesting will allow us to support students, staff and taxpayers when they need us most. Thank you. Thank you. And Caitlin, the towns that are in Harwood, could you just tell us that? Sure, yep. Those are the towns of Duxbury, Fasden, Moretown, Waitsfield, Warren and Waterbury. Thank you. I should have been asking this for everybody. So the next is Danielle Corti, school board chair from Oxbow. I believe she's in here. You can unmute yourself and tell us what towns are represented in Oxbow would be helpful. Sure. I am the school board chair for the Oxbow Unified Union School District. The towns included in that are Newbury and Bradford. The schools that we operate are Newbury Elementary School, Bradford Elementary School and then the Oxbow High School. And so those are the schools that I'm speaking for. And I did provide some written testimony and I will just sort of briefly hit on those things and you can obviously read what I've provided for you which is very similar about what I'm gonna cover. So the big four concerns that we have for our local students is access to food and services, equity of education and supports, employment impacts within the community and then community engagement and our commitment to unification. So real quickly, first, we made the decision when budgeting that we were going to include provision two in our budget. This was a struggle for us as a board to decide to do but we felt like it was a really positive move that we could make for our community that would benefit all students throughout the district to sort of helping them to a level playing field. There is no doubt that we would have to scrap that if we needed to go with a level funding. It's not feasible to propose that to our community. Our hope was that during our vote and informational meetings that we had planned that we would be able to discuss this as an option with our community and build support. Those meetings weren't able to happen so we haven't had those engaged conversations. So we are not even sure that that's something that if we move forward with any of these options that you propose that that's even viable. So it's hard because we feel that that is something that would be hugely beneficial moving forward. We are in a community that has substantial barriers around poverty and access to services and food insecurity and we felt like this was really a great investment and we think even now, more so now it would be essential for a lot of our families. So that's something that we do see that would be in jeopardy. As far as the equity of education and supports, we feel that to operate, we operate under a statewide education fund and it's imperative that all districts are able to operate on a level playing field. If we're not able to work with a budget that's comparable to district budgets around the state then that puts our students at a grave disadvantage. And the issues become that we proposed a budget based on what we saw as current needs in our community. So we added a half-time math support. We added a half-time social worker. We added some additional art instructor. Those positions would have to go away and would leave us not supporting what we see as current needs. And given the option of having to level fund we'd have to make even more drastic cuts which would then provide a very stark reality for our students coming back. As everybody has said, we're gonna have students coming back to buildings that are understaffed with a very low morale of the staff if we have to do a reduction in force. And right now we're looking at a time when those kids are going to need extra supports. Our families are gonna need extra supports and services. And so as our staff they're going to need help trying to more or less triage kids that have been on their own and dealing with many levels of stress over the last five to six weeks. And then the point that I have about cost and employment impacts is that if we do have to do any reduction in staff our community obviously would feel it very quickly as far as the impact on students and services that they're allowed and have. Also the morale, as I said, would be very, very low in the buildings. And then the additional force is that we're a large employer in our community. And if we have to lay off people or reduction in staff that impact on the community and the family members of staff that's been released they no longer have medical coverage. They no longer have benefits. That becomes a snowball effect for our community and really creates a very detrimental environment to try and work in and for the students to try and learn in. And then lastly, I just wanna touch on the fact that we were a forced merge. We did have the last year where we were working together. And as a board, we've worked very, very hard to try and unify. And we feel like this budget was really our first step at bringing everybody together to start focusing on some of these universal positions that we were adding to our budget. And so for us to try and make cuts to that would be really just sort of a real tough pill to swallow for our community as we try to work together. And then the other pieces we've been very responsible as far as budgeting. We've tried very hard to keep our per pupil spending in line. We budget responsibly and in a thoughtful way. And we feel like having to try and make cuts at this time would just be, would really hamper the progress that we're trying to make. And I understand that, you know, we don't know what the voting situation looks like, but for us, there's really IC2 possible paths forward either being able to have the ability to have last year's budget plus the 4% or possibly more of an increase or having the ability to work with our budget that we proposed or warned as a provisional budget and then continue to possibly get a community vote. It would be very hard for our community to not be involved in a voting process of some sort. I think we would try to warn something for late May or June to try and get a vote, but that voting piece is significant for our community and would be for us as a board. We want to hear from them as, you know, are you in support of this? And we'd have to figure out a way to get that input. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Danielle. We're gonna move on to South Burlington and this is a failed budget. We have David Young and Bridget Burkhard. I don't know how you want to begin. David, did you want to begin or did you want to begin? Thank you, thank you, Madam Chair. I think I'm gonna start and then David will wrap up at the end. So thank you all of you for taking the time to hear from all of us districts that are facing this challenge of not having a budget yet at this stage. First, I want to talk about the current situation in South Burlington and then the consequences of level funding. And then David will talk a little bit about what we would support in terms of a proposed solution. So our current situation as Madam Chair alluded to is that we have a failed budget. We proposed a budget on March 3rd that failed by a margin of 57 to 43%. Partially that was tied to a very unpopular bond proposal to rebuild our middle and high schools. Partially it was concerned over the 11.22% tax increase that was tied to that budget. Our budget was 55.9 million for that vote. It represented an increase of 7.96% over FY20 spending and net ad spending for equalized people was to go up 9.6% in that budget. There were a lot of factors driving that. One was staffing needs. We are a district that has increasing enrollment. We're expecting to see as many as 70 more students next year potentially more than that depending on whether housing comes online. That's in progress in South Burlington right now but we saw an influx in the middle of our school year this year due to some new housing opening up. There were other staffing needs for things like security that we had heard about from the community and from our five different buildings that we were proposing to add. The healthcare award was a significant driver in increasing that expense budget. Teacher healthcare costs alone, forget about support staff or administrators are expected to add over 1% to the budget just on their own. And our healthcare costs in the district as a whole are projected to go up about 17% as a result of flipping from last dollar for staff last dollar as a district for out of pocket expenses to first dollar out of pocket expenses on the district side as well as obviously the premium increases and the eligibility requirements that are changing on healthcare. We also had budgeted in contingencies for the settlement of three different collective bargaining agreements which are all in progress. Those negotiations are all in progress at the moment and some necessary stewardship work, some very necessary significant projects on roofs at two of our elementary schools as well as some other things in our long-term stewardship plan that we felt really shouldn't wait any longer. The tax rate was also impacted by the fact that our common level of appraisal in South Burlington went up by almost 4% in one year which was a really significant change. So even with a level funded budget we would have seen a very significant proposed tax increase in South Burlington. So we asked administration in light of that failure to go back and they did a very thorough process of David and his central office team sitting down with the principals at each of our schools as well as other administrators. And they came back to us with a very detailed set of priorities and the board has been working through those over the last few weeks. And then as of April 6th there was sort of a proposed final budget for a second round of voting. That proposed budget is $53.7 million. So takes off $2 million more than $2 million from the failed budget. It would represent increase of 3.8% in total spending and a 4.3% increase in net-ed spending per pupil. So it reduces it by more than 50% the proposed increase. We did this by freezing pay increases for non-union support staff. We reduced some existing positions, primarily support staff positions and things like an HR person, things like that. We eliminated previously proposed increases in FTEs and we reduced some of the stewardship that we had proposed in the initial budget. We also had some retirements that factored in which reduced costs for us. And then we have decided as a district to switch from we were using partially Chromebooks and partially laptops, laptops and the older grades. We decided to switch to Chromebooks and extend some of the use of materials that we've been using in those one-to-one programs. So we meet as a board again on Wednesday to approve a budget. It's likely that that will look very similar to the one I just outlined and potentially to warn an election for May 28th. We've been in discussions about having an election in May for some time. Our board of civil authority met earlier this week and they believe that a May 28th election is possible and they're working to clarify the logistics of that, whether that will be an in-person vote, whether it will be a male only vote. We're still working out some of those logistics. For us, the consequences of level funding would be pretty significant. We would have to cut another $2 million out of the budget. That would require approximately 30 rifts. It would eliminate a very, very long list of extracurricular activities at the high school and middle school. It would mean larger class sizes at the elementary schools, which are already seeing a lot of pressure. A lot of the affordable housing that's come online has put kids specifically into our elementary schools and a couple of those schools are really struggling with some behavior issues in part because the class sizes have gotten bigger than we would like to see. A level funded budget would also mean we would have to reduce AP class offerings because we would have to shift those FTEs to other regular classes. We have a record size freshman class coming into our high school. And so we would have to shift resources to make sure we were addressing that freshman class appropriately. We'd have to reduce some regular class offerings like some of our foreign languages, health classes, some of our drivers said it would mean less coaching for literacy and math and it would mean less enrichment. We would have to reduce the level of social-emotional support that we're providing. In particular, a particularly heartbreaking example is at the middle school, they had developed a pretty innovative social-emotional program to help kids self-regulate when they were struggling. And that FTE and that program would have to go away in a level-funded situation and we would have to eliminate our family consumer sciences program. So those are just some examples. There are several others, but I'll hand it over to David for a minute to talk about what we would support in terms of a bill that would move forward. Thank you, Bridget. And thank you, Madam Chair and all. Some ideas around solutions that we would support. Again, offering some ideas here. We are certainly looking to the state for a solution that's equitable for all schools across the state and which does not unfairly chair opportunities for students in districts that do not yet have approved budgets. And again, you've heard from several before me. We would always prefer to have a budget determined by the voters of South Burlington. We encourage you to extend the deadline for voting on the FY21 budgets in light of the COVID-19 crisis, which would provide districts the greatest opportunity to continue to work with our communities to determine their budgets. In light of the rising costs and the expectations that students will return to school having greater needs for support and additional instruction to close the gaps created by the COVID-19 disruptions. We encourage a solution like the proposed bill drafted. I think that you've talked about just a bit ago. Think it was shared yesterday afternoon that allows districts and schools to adopt budgets that are greater than level funded in the event that they cannot pass a budget prior to, I believe June 30th. In closing from me before I hand it back over to Bridget, I think it's critically important from my perspective that we understand that the programs that we're wanting to be able to continue are going to be critically important upon the return of our students, as said by my colleagues before me. And I'm worried that if we don't provide those, I think it's important for all of you to know that it's likely going to further challenge social service systems that surround us. And I think that's very, very, very important for folks to know. I'm going to turn it back over to Bridget. Yeah, and then we just wanted to add one final thought and we saved it for last because it's kind of separate from this bill, but we wanted to mention that approximately 85% of districts are in negotiations with collective bargaining units at this time. And there have been significant delays in those process or at least in our process. There's been a significant delay in that process and it's been a struggle to kind of keep that moving along and a decent portion of the increase in our budget is related to not knowing the outcome of those negotiations. And so we've had to build in some contingency for that. So we would encourage state leadership to determine what options it might have to encourage those negotiations processes to continue and conclude in a timely manner because without clarity on those staff and teacher salaries, we have to leave those contingencies in and it also complicates our preparations for the upcoming school year. And if we don't know what those contracts are going to look like. So thank you for your time and your attention. We appreciate it. Thank you as well. And last, we have Bruce, correct? It's Bruce Labs from White River Valley Supervisory Union Superintendent. Thank you, Representative Webb. I represent White River Valley Supervisory Union which includes the towns of Granville, Hancock, Rochester, Stockbridge, Bethel, Royalton, Chelsea, Tunbridge, Stratford and Sharon. I represent four of the districts too that haven't voted yet. And that would be Granville and Hancock and Rochester and Stockbridge. They were due to vote in May. And also Stratford and the district of First Branch School District that had failed budgets and First Branch is Tunbridge and Chelsea together. The likelihood of us voting being delayed beyond June 30th is looking more and more possible because of the COVID-19 emergency and how it affects things at this time. All four of our boards involved have been waiting to figure out how to proceed since Governor Scott issued to stay at home, stay safe, water on March 24th and extended it to May 15th, 2020. We were then told by Secretary of State's office that we were planning to hold a vote in April or May in which we were to cancel those votes. And as times passed, there seems to be no end in sight to this emergency. Become clear that we need extraordinary help in order to hold a vote and pass a budget by June 30th, 2020. Although we are happy for the Senate Education Committee's actions to lend support to our district during this emergency, the level funding at 2020 levels, that approach does not go far enough to help us without hardships to each of our districts. I would like to offer the following description of the hardships that districts face without additional actions by the House Education Committee and the legislature. Stratford and First Branch districts, both that lost their budgets in March, are now prepared to go forward with a lower budget number to present to the town. However, they want very much to be able to stand in front of their taxpayers and have a conversation about what is needed to run the schools for next year in each district. It's traditional for these districts to vote from the floor. It's not preferable to have them vote Australian ballot or by voting by mail, which would limit the voters being able to ask questions and get answers about the budget. School board members in each of these districts are confident the budgets will pass in each town if they had had a better understanding and articulated presentation. The first time the vote was taken and failed. The boards are very confident that given the opportunity to speak to their taxpayers, the budgets will pass, especially with a lower, they have lowered the budget numbers this time around. With the ever worsening economy brought on by the rapid onset of COVID-19 crisis, we find ourselves in a changing financial situation, especially these school districts as well as the state of Vermont in general. With the reports of the deficit and the educational fund growing, there's a sense of urgency in overcoming the worsening economy. To have a level fund, to have to level fund these districts is to cut staff and services to our children more than we already have. This would be a dire outcome for our children. Boards believe that the deficit in education fund cannot be made up solely at the bargaining table and it's been implied as it's been implied. This will take a systematic and coordinated statewide approach and we will need leadership to do this and the district should not be expected to shoulder the burden on its own. Both of the districts of Stratford and First Branch are towns that offer choice beyond eighth grade. Rochester and Stockbridge School District offers choice beyond sixth grade and Granville and Hancock have full choice. Unfortunately, they have little control over tuition costs. There are many costs that are passed along like health insurance costs and salary increases that the districts can't control year to year. Level funding is not a satisfactory solution for these districts. An approach for your consideration our school boards are asking for the Senate to consider a level, our school boards are asking for the Senate to consider a level funded budget for 2020 within inflator of a 4%, 3 or 4%. The inflator is critical because it addresses at least partially the increased costs school districts have to face because of things that are beyond their control and rising tuition costs. Allow us to have the spending authority for physical year 21 beyond June 30th so that we can hold four votes and present our budgets to voters which is in a traditional matter when it is safe to do so. There is a sense of urgency now because the longer we wait without more clarity we'll jeopardize the chance of passing new lower budgets that we are putting forward to our voters. I need to remind you that the schools in each of our communities are the life but of the society and have to be supported. The COVID-19 emergency could not be anticipated. The communities in the districts of White River Valley have a large percentage of families living in poverty and equity and educational opportunity are vital in our state. We must protect the vulnerable economy and disadvantaged families, especially at this time. On behalf of the children in the district of Stratford and First Branch and also Granville and Hancock and Stockbridge and Rochester, we the school boards asked for the consideration in helping us to overcome the financial burdens brought on by COVID-19 crisis. Please work with us to move forward in this challenging time. Thank you. And I take any questions you might have. I know that we have some questions. I know I do, I'm just trying to figure out how we get answers from all of you. So I guess I've not seen any questions from the committee. Oh, I just think I saw one. Representative James. Thanks. This is a very basic question. If if a district needs to, you know, make deep cuts in its budget and contracts with teachers are already signed, does that become then a done deal an area that you cannot touch or are rifts then still a possibility? Mark, do you want to answer that? Try that. Um, I think fun. You know, that that's probably a conversation that somebody needs to have with VT NEA. But I can tell you that there is no provision in my collective bargaining agreement. And I bet my next paycheck that there's none in anybody's collective bargaining agreement that allows us to go back and and reduce staff that have already been offered contracts. I think that, you know, I think that we would we would immediately get agreements from the association on that unless there was a collective decision by Vermont NEA to say we under the circumstances, we're going to allow that. I don't think that that frankly, that that's a question that any one of us as a superintendent is in a position to advance through, you know, through our links into VT NEA, and that's something that has to come from a much higher level to the leadership of VT NEA to see if they have any appetite for allowing such a, you know, such a consideration. Vermont, Vermont NEA is in the room, but I think we won't use this as a form for that negotiation. I didn't mean I didn't mean that to happen here. Sorry, I didn't either. I just I was trying to answer some constituent questions I've gotten. So absolutely. Absolutely. It's a good question. Serena Austin. You know, again, I just have a couple of like kind of broad questions about the federal funding. I just listened this afternoon to Congressmen. Well, it's talking about a possibility of a fourth, not only a third, but a fourth funding project with money for education and giving more flexibility to state governors to decide, you know, what to do with that money. So that's, you know, that's out there. And I know we can't make any decisions, you know, using that data. But I do wonder about, you know, this that if if schools, because my understanding is that the funding is going to go through the AOE to the schools directly. And, you know, this doesn't need to be answered by anybody. And I'm sure, Brad, that you're thinking about is, how would we be able to the fund be able to recoup some of this money? And I know it's very complicated. So that, you know, that's one thing I'm wondering. So if we did, let's just say, did increase, you know, did an inflator or whatever, how could we recoup some of that funding? And I'm just also wondering about I think all of you were talking, superintendents and school board members, were talking about taxpayers prior to COVID-19 in terms of their willingness to vote in a budget or they've always voted in a budget. But I think the reality is that from on taxpayers starting in July 1st, they're going to stop receiving unemployment benefits and the federal benefits. And I'm wondering in that context, you know, I'm just wondering if they're going to be concerned about being able to pay their property taxes, if the business or the economy doesn't improve. And that maybe they would be more willing to vote a less budget, you know, because of the circumstances that they're facing. So I don't know, you know, I mean, I think those are probably questions to ponder as we're moving forward. I don't know if there's somebody that wants to try to respond to that or if we just want to put that on their list of list of things that we're pondering. No, I'm not sure. People are a lot of right, David. David Young is willing to speak. Thank you, David. Yeah. So I think that although I can't get into all the intricate responses, but I do think that, as you know, the education funding model, as it exists today has a high amount of fluctuations and lack of stabilization. And as you heard from Bridget and others, you know, when you have a common level of appraisal that significantly changes, you know, for us, four percentage points, that significantly automatically affects your tax rate. And then other factors like equalized pupils, most of you may not know, but it's a rolling average. So it doesn't have the same net effect for us. We're going up about 100 students, but you won't capture all of that. But yet you do on the on the on the CLA. I do think that some conversations around how we can come up with a tax stabilization process on a year over year basis is going to be an important one. Albeit right now, we're in the in the throes of the COVID-19 situation, but we've always had and currently the way we are can expect pretty significant fluctuations on a year over year basis, even if you're holding your expenditure line pretty stable. So again, not exactly what you're looking for, but a little feedback. Yes, and we're today right now trying to solve a more immediate problem than going forward. It's definitely this is certainly raising some questions going forward about our funding in general. Representative Matos. Yeah, if you choose to have a vote on your revised budget or your new twenty twenty one budget and it fails, can you then choose one of the other options to revert back to twenty twenty or revise the budget again and accept it without voter approval? Jim Demerick, can you help with that one? Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. OK. Yeah. So yes, the answer to that question is yes. So you can proceed to have your your voting process to vote a budget. And let's say you you try to get your vote. You haven't told us, say, June twenty ninth because by June 30, you have to make that decision. We haven't told them to actually try to get the vote. If you can't get the vote on June 30, your board can take action to adopt one of those options. So even if it say you have a vote on June 10 and it fails. Yeah, you can then revert back to twenty twenty or revise the budget again and just accept it at the board level. Yeah. So if you have a failed vote on June 10, you can try again. You haven't told June 30 to make that decision. So you can try again to get the vote or you can the board can adopt one of those one of those options. OK, thanks, Jim. No. Peter Conlon. Thank you. This may get to a little bit of Sarita's second question. And maybe Bruce Labs, you commented on the importance of holding a vote and a couple of the other superintendents or board chairs did as well. One thing we were going for in this proposal is the idea that if people people voting today are going to be voting in a much different reality than folks who voted before or at town meeting. And so the question, you know, so the question is is. Well, it's more just like your thoughts on that. I think it's one of the reasons why this is set to empower boards to adopt budgets and not have to hold a vote. Do you think those votes would still go forward just because of, I guess, tradition and the importance of having them? Well, I think in reaction to what you're asking, Peter, I I think there's a sense of urgency here because the economies in each of these towns are starting to go big, become very difficult. And we've got a lot of people that are unemployed right now. I've got a lot of people in the community that are asking, you know, why are we still employing our teachers or our support staff members? And, you know, so I know that people are starting to hurt. And I think as this goes on, it's going to get even worse. So that's why I think there's a sense of urgency. We'd like to vote because we'd like to have to be able to go back and forth with our public and explain the budget. That's the way it's always done. And we feel that's fair and just and kind of what they want. But I think your idea about giving us spending authority is is really important as kind of a stopgap measure. I think we'd like to see if we could get a vote and I'm in my towns really believe that they can get a budget's passed. They always, we always pass budgets. This time, you know, we've got a couple of new joint boards. And there's, there's so a lot of details that they're still arguing over having to do with mergers. So it wasn't everything just wonderful. I think things will get better. But, and I think with the cuts that we've made, the voters are more likely to be in favor of these budgets. So I really think that thing, there's a, there's a sense of urgency here. We'd like to be able. My boards really want to have votes. They want to get in front of their public and do this. But we also know that, you know, there just doesn't seem to be any end in sight. Right now. So one of the reasons that we're bringing this forward is the challenge. One is the challenge to get to a vote to give you an option. If you're not able to get to a vote. And another is the challenge that you all have in terms of. Equity for FY 21. With voters going with a very different perspective than the other, other districts. We all know that FY 22 is going to be where things get reconciled, not in FY 21. So facing what's going to happen in FY 21, it's going to be affecting all of the districts. Everybody going forward has it has. I'm sure that I'm telling you all something new here. So how many of you. It's hard to do this. Believe that you could actually get to a vote. That's kind of hard. I guess we do hand raising. How many think you could get. I'm not seeing any hands. Let me see. Do I see. Oh, I see. One hand. You think you're actually going to be able to vote. So you still have that option to be able to vote. There's no one taking away that option. In South Burlington anyway, we've been told that it's likely that we think we can get a vote. Yeah. And your voter sentiment. That's harder to judge. That's much harder to judge. So we was trying to ask that one too. And we're, but we can't obviously speak to that. And Mark Tucker, did you have something for clarification? When you said, can we get to a vote? I, I, if the question is, will my, will our communities voted for allowed to, I think the answer is yes. I think we would rewarn. You know, we. We had warned for May 5th. For a vote. And then the board voted to the. To delay that. If we are allowed to vote, we will rewarn and start voting. I don't think there's any. I'm talking about school board chair about this, but I don't think there's any sentiment in the communities or amongst the board that's not. Let the people vote on the budget. Madam chair. Yes. Please. Yeah. I don't think we're going to be able to have a vote. If we called for a mail our town clerks are very concerned about having a mail in ballot. And. Because the board of civil authority will have to handle those ballots and they could easily be contaminated. I, and I'm not also, I'm fairly confident that we're not going to buy the end of June. Be gathering in large rooms. I actually, I wasn't. Completely joking, but somebody suggested we. Receive our, our playing fields and then have a. Paint the lines on six feet apart and have our meeting out there. But that might be possible, but I don't see us. I don't see us being able to gather like that. And I think that there are dangers with the mail in ballot that. You're going to have trouble getting the town clerk. Yes, I have the same concerns and you know, we had been told at least from the secretary of state's office to push our vote out as long as possible. And that again, delays the uncertainty for our staff. And so I'm very concerned about waiting to till June to hold a public vote. Obviously that is the preference. We would love to have that. Vote of confidence from our voters that we're going the right direction. That said, I think people understand that this is pretty unprecedented times. And if we're following the guidance. From your committee and from the other legislative bodies. To do the best. By all of our students. I think. I think our constituents are going to understand that. So the superintendent and school board association had actually pushed for a last year's budget. Budget plus 4%. We in, in our committee. Somewhat rejected that based on the fact that you have such a range of range from actually a 0.3 budget reduction. To an 11.7% increase in budget. And I think we're going to understand that. So the superintendent and school board association had actually pushed for a last year's budget, but we were reluctant to, to, to try to be school board members. We didn't want to be school board members. Your, to your job to be the school board member. You know your district. So we were trying to give that. Authority to you. And currently the way it stands. The Senate bill gives you that gives you the. Last year's budget. Or, or just keep voting. And if it doesn't work, then you, then you go to the 87%. This would, would add another option for you. I don't remember where I was going. This is where I call Peter Peter. Where am I going with this one? Well, I think it does. It does come back to. You know, a certain, I guess, philosophy of deferring to the wisdom of local schools. And I think it does come back to, you know, I guess philosophy of deferring to the wisdom of local school boards, rather than us as a legislature saying. Deciding what your budget is going to be. And I, and I, you know, I guess. I would like to hear some more comments about the whole idea of, you know, we set June 30th, you got to have a budget by then really based on the. Fiscal year so that the education fund would have some clarity as to level of budgets, but. Again, you know, I guess the other poll question that would be interesting to ask, and I just want to think about, I guess, at this point is given the ability to simply adopt a budget. How many of you would go that route rather than. Holding a vote for, or I'll call it risk holding a vote. Even within the health problems. So I think it's important to understand or concerned about voting in today's economic reality, as opposed to the economic reality before the town meeting daytime. So I'll throw that out there. You can, you can manage a Kate. Anybody want to jump in. Okay. Mark, I see. Yeah. You know, about getting into the weeds of the language and in, you know, if you're not aware of the challenges that have been faced, there's a couple of, there's a couple of paths for success for us in there. They would let us get to where we need to get to. Our biggest concern frankly is being somehow locked into no more than to get to a reasonable level, then we're fine with this. Yeah, I don't think that the Senate bill is locking you into that. It's just saying that can be your default if you're not able to get to a vote. Okay, all right. Representative Webb, I agree with Mark. This bill that you're considering would allow us a path forward that's better than we currently have, much better. And it would allow us to operate without having to make a lot more cuts. I think the status or the 2020 levels would force us to make even more cuts than we are already made. And probably pretty significant reductions in staff that are pretty vital to, we don't, I mean, these are small schools. They don't have a lot of staff. And we've cut a lot of the supplies and materials, equipment that they would ordinarily need to function because of wanting to reduce our budgets to get one passed. So I think what you're proposing is much better than we've heard so far from anybody. And I hope that it's successful. And I'm eager to get this in front of my board members to see, so. Lyle, holiday. Thank you. Also, we all know that this is going to be a long-term issue that we're not going to come back from this financially in a year or even two, but this does give all boards and administrators a chance to really work hard at next year's budget, making more cuts and doing it in a more thoughtful way without having had teacher contracts already distributed. So we all, I think, are very aware that we're going to need to make cuts. But at least I think for us, we would prefer to be able to do that not within the next two weeks, but give us a couple of months to be able to think about that moving ahead. So there still is the option of spending less by choice and moving any savings to 2022, which we anticipate being a very difficult year. Correct. Other questions? Danielle, Corti. Yeah, I don't, I'm not necessarily having a question just to sort of express in my opinion. I think that the proposals that you guys have come up with are at least a path forward, which I think everybody's pretty much said. I think the ideal would be for us to be given that time and take the pressure off. So we know that we have a parameter to work with. We can try to reach out to our constituents, try to get possibly put a vote out there, see if there's a process that's going to allow that to happen. We are lucky that we have a smaller community and I think we have a little bit more creative spirit to try and get that vote to happen. But then knowing that we have that stop gap that if it's not looking good, we know that June 30th, we as a board can make a decision that's going to protect our students and our communities and provide the most stable and equal playing field going forward. And that in itself, I think will allow everybody to take a deep breath and try to look forward and how to plan better going forward as a team versus trying to just put out a fire or for something through that's just not gonna work. I mean, level funding for us would be just disastrous as everybody has said, so. So if the choice were level funding or just current law, who would choose current funding? It's current law being that you continue to borrow till you get to your vote. Is there someone that would choose the, choose the, here in this group, would you choose to take last year's budget? Who's that? I'm not hearing anybody is it because nobody, nobody would choose that you would just choose to stick with regular current law to continue to try to vote. I think we would try to continue to vote is what we would do rather than settling on level funding. But I would have to talk to the rest of the board about that obviously I can't say what the board as a whole would do, but my opinion would be to keep trying to vote rather than accept level funding just because of the enormous detriment that would be to our students next year. I guess I would speak for my board and think that the current law would be better than the level funding. But I am really nervous about the summer and trying to get a vote in the summer because I don't think this is going to go away very quickly. And I'm worried about next fall with our kids as well. So that's, so I'm cautious about that. Yeah, I would, Kate, I would concur with Bridget. And I think, you know, we would want to continue level funding as she said would be, and I think most of the colleagues around the state in our conditions would say the same. You know, we're looking again just at a fair shot of how we can make sure that we can provide what we need to provide. We're not looking to take, you know, an unfair advantage in any way. I think that's pretty comprehensive around all of whom you're listening to this afternoon. We're looking at what is going to be the fair and equitable way to provide services to our students given this unprecedented time. And the runway is getting a little shorter, as you know, as we approach the end of June. And, you know, we've got to figure, we've got to figure some things out. We've got a lot of people's lives in the hands of school board members to try to figure this out. So again, I do appreciate you taking the time this afternoon to hear us. So Zachary Gloufman from Springfield is here. So Zach, we've been giving folks about five minutes to kind of present their response to the draft bill 6.1 before us in terms of the impact on your community. So you're here somewhere. I know they're here because I just let you in. So if you are here and you can unmute yourself and welcome to the House Ed Committee, we also have members of the Ways and Means Committee in the room with us joining us. Excellent, thank you. Thank you so much. I will endeavor to, I've seen some folks written testimony and I'll try my best not to be repetitive in what I'm sure folks have already told you. The quick version, you know, in Springfield's case was that we lost a close budget vote and we anticipated the ability to go back to voters on this Tuesday, the 28th of April. Similar to many of my colleagues, we're in a position where we have gone past our ability to riff employees and under the Senate proposal, we would be in a position where we'd be expected to make a $1.8 million reduction in our spending for the upcoming year. And we honestly don't know where that would come from at this point. Probably similar to what my colleagues had told you before, what you know, 80% of what we do is employees and personnel. We don't have a lot of control over that spending at this point in the game. So your proposal would do a lot for us. It would put us in a position where a lot of organizational energy right now that is going to try to understand what next year would look like for us in terms of staffing that is sucking time away from other things that we need to be doing right now. And we need to have some clarity about what the picture looks like for us going into the upcoming year because that puts us in a position where as we get into the FY22 budget development, we're ready to do the hard work and we know that what we'll be facing is pretty dire in FY22. But in FY22, we'll have, as we get into that process right away really, we'll roll right into the 22 budget development process. We will have access to all the levers that are available to us to make strategic decisions about having to downsize. I know, I mean, I've seen the JFO stuff. I know that we're gonna look very different and much smaller as we move into FY22. But I wanna be able to make those types of choices in conjunction with my community, my board and my administration in a strategic way that balances the new fiscal reality with the needs of my students, the needs of my community. I can't do that right now. I'm not in a position to do that. What we would effectively be doing is looking for things that are not committed to contractually that we could more or less throw overboard to get us to last year's spending, if that's the position that we're in. So I think the beauty of what you're talking about as a concept is it puts me in a situation to be an empowered player in helping come to solutions. Simultaneously, it puts state government in a position where you have more clarity about what is going on with the Ed Fund overall. And you're not in a situation where you're waiting for votes into the summer to try to come to a conclusion, to try to understand the full scope of what you're gonna be facing in 21. So I primarily would just say I'm fully behind the concept that you're discussing at the moment. And we would struggle mightily to be able to to be able to meet our financial obligations if we were stuck with the Senate proposal. Thank you. David Scholes, I realized that you had a hand raised. Did you have something? Yeah, but I'm glad to have had Zach do his presentation first. Yeah, I wanted to go back to your question, which is whether we'd prefer the current law 87% or the FY20 spending. And it's a really, it's a dangerous question because the most important information to inform that decision isn't available. We don't know what the tax rate is gonna be. I think it's fair to say without sounding too pessimistic that we're gonna see revenue continue to degrade over the course of this coming fiscal year. And that's gonna have a very significant impact on our voters and on their willingness to support anything. I think I would prefer if that was our choice, either don't change anything or make us cut 2 million. I would prefer that we have the 2 million option and then try to get a budget, get our regular budget passed. And if it's possible to vote again, if we could even try to vote in the summer or in the fall of the next year, but to not be stuck with 87%. It's not just the 87%. It also requires us to take all of our reserves and put them into the budget before we even think about to determine how much we need to get to 87%. And that's a really huge loss. And the reductions would be twice, more than twice as much at 87% than they would be at the fiscal FY20 budget level. Thank you. Peter Cullen. And then I'm gonna vote after Peter, I'm gonna go to Jeff and Sue to see if they have something they wanna say. Thanks, I just wanted to highlight one of the comments from Mark Tucker, the superintendent up in Caledonia, just before we wrap up. And I think it's just important for everybody to bear in mind. And that is that the FY21 Ed fund is looking very damaged by what's going on and that there may very well be adjustments that are gonna have to be made by the legislature to it. So even adopting whatever proposal is currently on the table for your voters, doesn't mean that it's gonna be all pixie dust for the next school year. And I just think it's important to bear that in mind, but I also appreciate the comment that at least starting with what's on the table puts all school districts on a level playing field before any potential legislative action. When it comes to the Ed fund, we get it. We know that it's gonna be very, very challenging, not just finishing out 2020, but an FY21 and then of course beyond. Anyway, I just wanted to highlight that comment as we go forward. Thank you very much. Thank you, Peter. Sue Szyglowski, would you like to add something for the School Boards Association? Hi. Thank you. I just would like to thank your committee for taking the time to hear from the School Board chairs today and the superintendents. The School Board chairs like to express to them that we're very grateful for their service and the school board chairs of these 19 districts have been working extra, extra hard dealing with this particular situation, understanding their options, understanding the different legislative bills that are coming forth to try to deal with the situation. So I think that they have all done a very exemplary job of painting a clear picture for all of you about their situations. So I don't have anything specific to add at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Jeff Francis, did you have something to add? All I would like to add is this. I am also very appreciative of the work that has gone into consideration of this issue by the legislators on these two committees, House Ways and Means and House Education. My job is to do my absolute best to bring to legislators the sentiments and the concerns and the voice of the superintendents in Vermont. I think that it's always better that you hear from them themselves because they can tell you the story of each and every district and that's what they've done here this afternoon. I think that David Young's statement that no one is looking for an advantage. They're looking to get stable footing to prepare for the road ahead, which we know will be challenging. So I am really appreciative on behalf of the association that the House Education and Ways and Means committees are looking at this as closely as they are. Thank you. Just a quick question to Zach McLaughlin. Do you have a revised budget? We do. We have already gone through the process. We had agreed to a proposed new warrant, which made a $250,000 reduction from our first budget and then at that point then we got stuck. Okay, great. Yeah, actually I do see that you did. Jeff Fanon for the Teachers Association, an EA rather, Education Association. Hello, thank you. Thank you for sticking around on a Friday afternoon. So I'm gonna stick to the bill, the draft that was Jim discussed earlier and just comment on that. As compared to the Senate, which just went to last year's budget basically, as the school board members here and the superintendents also, or excuse me, the superintendents talked about, I think that does present some problems. So I think this is a better version that gives schools a bit more flexibility to respond to this pandemic and the economic consequences of the pandemic that nobody brought on themselves. So this is not a problem that anybody created here, obviously it's a public health crisis. And I think this draft does a good job of walking the fine line of giving voters a chance to weigh in and schools, as Jeff Francis just talked about, having some stability and in this uncertain time. So I think it walks the fine line and does provide voters the ability to weigh in if they'd like to, but also gives school boards and superintendents, the administrators, the ability to manage as they need to, to prepare for next year when kids come back. And hopefully that is in September, although I don't know, I question that. So, you know, as it stands, we support, Ramonier supports the draft at 6.1, I think it is, and I'm happy to answer any questions. I'll keep it short and simple on a Friday afternoon. Well, certainly given that we know that 2022 is going to be a challenge, it's really hard to even think we're gonna be asking the teachers, I can't think we're gonna be asking them given what their frontline workers at this point in time. Yeah, my other comment, you know, I've said this before and I know others have said it here, but I'll just reiterate it. We are beginning to pivot to next year in some fashion or another, however schools may reopen we're working with the North Eastern Family Institute, NFI, to develop some professional development programs for folks and three distinct areas that would prepare them to welcome students back in the school as they suffer a lot of trauma, a lot of uncertainty in kids' lives and they will respond accordingly when they do come back. They'll be thrilled to come back to school. I know my kids are ready to go back to school much as they would moan about school, they're ready to go back and I imagine every kid in the state is the same way and so a lot of kids are in really unsafe environments at home, sadly, and school is the safest environment for many of them and so we'll welcome them back with open arms but they will come back in a far different changed in some ways socially, emotionally more in need than ever before and we schools will address that and work with those kids but we're gonna try to train educators this May to do that and I think that's really important to do and also I'll say that the federal monies we're working the NEA's largest union in the country working diligently down in DC to try to figure out more and get you all the states more flexibility in how the federal money comes so there's fewer strings attached to it so that you can replace lost revenues really which is the problem right now, it's not, it's a loss of tax revenues that's really causing the problems that you're facing on the fiscal side and so we're working down in DC to make sure that you get, that all states get the flexibility they need to replace those lost revenues so that's an effort we're trying to make nationally but so far not having great success but we're still at it. Thank you very much for that, Larry Coopley. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Brad, what are we thinking is gonna happen to the Ed fund here in the next three months per se? I mean, further declines? You talking to me, Representative Coopley? No, I'm talking to Brad. Oh, okay. He could talk to you Jeff, that's okay. I didn't know where you were, Brad. It's Hollywood Squares here. I was hiding. I mean, and Chloe, if you're still on, feel free to weigh in any time on this. I think in the next three months that we're not gonna see a much different picture. If anything, it'll probably get a little bit worse. You did see that there was that change that Mark had talked about in Senate Finance yesterday which was not, it was not based on economics. It was based more on the modeling and a technical correction, as I recall them saying. So it's really not that $20 million improvement to the Ed fund, the consumption taxes coming in was not based on economics. So I don't think that picture has changed. If this continues for a longer period of time, I think we're gonna see that really continue into FY21. I think it's gonna severely affect that. We're gonna be rolling in any deficit from the Ed fund this year that's gonna roll into the Ed fund for FY21. It's not looking good. The way that the law currently reads right now is you're supposed to make up any deficit and bring the reserves back to 5% in the following year which will be next year. That, speaking from my own opinion now, that doesn't seem at all realistic. And Bill Talbot mentioned something yesterday. He was on, because he's working with JFO a bit. Yes, that's the Bill Talbot, you all know. He mentioned spreading out the debt, for lack of a better term in FY21, spread out over a period of two, three, four years. Something I mentioned too a while ago, I can't trust you guys or somebody else. But that might be a way to kind of, as Bill put it, flatten the curve in terms of the Ed fund and the hard hit that will have taxpayers. Because if you put that all on taxpayers next year, I think that's gonna break the back of a lot of homestead taxpayers and a lot of homestead taxpayers. Yeah, that's basically my concern. The Treasurer is talking about interfund borrowing. Is there monies available to the Ed fund from? I honestly, to tell you the truth, I don't know what interfund borrowing is enough to speak on it. I've heard the term, I've not looked into it. I don't know if Chloe knows more about than I do, but I really don't know. I do know that Secretary Pierce has said that in the past, said about three weeks ago, that the state finances were pretty solid for the next three, four, five months. Chloe, do you have anything to add? Well, I sort of had a little bit of a cutout moment, but I think, so I'm not 100% sure what Brad said. But I will say that part of that interfund borrowing piece was to allow us to make the payments that we, the remaining payments that we need to make in the education fund before the end of the fiscal year. And that is something that already exists. It's just extending the timeline a little. So we have a little bit more time to do that. Madam chair may respond a little bit too. Yes, please. So there is also became aware yesterday that there's a Federal Reserve program that allows states to borrow money and it allows them to repay it back over a longer period of time. I believe Hawaii is using that for education purposes already or starting to apply to it. So there is an existing long-time Federal Reserve program that we could avail ourselves of. So there are more details obviously to be learned, but there are options out there if need be. If the federal money's under the CARE Act don't fully materialize in a flexible way that you need. We're coming to an end. I wanna do throughout one question to Brad and Chloe primarily because this is the thing that I keep hearing as to why this is not a good move. And people are saying that they're concerned if we provide this option to school districts it's gonna have a big impact on the ed fund and tax rates. Can you respond to that? Brad, do you wanna go first or do you want me to? No, I think I don't like to get a shot first. Chloe, you're speaking about your draft bill. Yes. I think if people are going to push off their votes there's gonna be some uncertainty in terms of what the ed fund is gonna be paying out which is really what drives the setting of the yields and then the tax rates for this coming year. Those, the numbers that would have to be done by all of you in the Senate would then be based on estimates without having to, you know you'd have an approximate idea because working with JFO we come up with a range of what we thought was gonna be realistic in terms of how budgets are gonna end up. And again, it's really education spending within the budget that we're really concerned with. I do have, let me just grab an Excel file here that you're not gonna see. But if I was to look at what I see right now for an increase in what was proposed and what I've heard is revised education spending from FY20 and FY21, this is taking into account the nine districts that failed budgets and what I've heard from revised budgets and then the 10 districts have yet to vote. Education spending over FY20 will go up an additional $15 million based on those 19 districts. That's about a 4.9% increase for those 19 all together. What has been being talked about in terms of inflators basically more closer to 4%. And it sounds like most folks can work with that. If something like that was put into effect and people took that FY20 education spending and that additional 4% and then they could spend the other money that comes in federal money, state money, et cetera, in terms of grants. Then I think that'll give the education fund some stability, some understanding where it's gonna be going. And then you can start really concentrating on the following year, Chloe. Yeah, I was just gonna say in terms of just adding onto that in terms of that 14 to $15 million that Brad is talking about. We've already included that in our FY21 projections. It's not that we make estimates, we get information from districts and that number that you see on the education payment line of the education fund obviously includes those 19 districts. So it's not like this is an additional cost. If anything, if they were level funded at FY20, it would be a reduction in what we're currently carrying. Right. So this isn't gonna change, this isn't gonna change the overall yields really significantly. Right, as Chloe said, it's pretty much baked in with what you're seeing. Okay. And we talk about 4%, we talk about one district that was 16%, but it only had a budget of half a million. Right, the percentage just can be deceiving. Really? Let's also put it with the increase. Which is why we were struggling with using a flat number when it just, this is a group of districts that are together for one reason, they don't relate to each other in many other ways. No, they don't. Okay. David Young. Yeah, again, I am just listening to this. I mean, one of the, as you know, there's drivers within the Ed funding formula obviously. Some are internal and expenditures as you've heard from a lot of us. You know, that yield dollar is one that, you know, we have to all collectively watch because it has such an impact on our tax rate. And so I do think with having a known certain, whether that's June 30th, which I would imagine then would allow you to establish and set what that yield is, is an important number for us as we look to communicate to our taxpayers what that effect has on. That's always been a little bit, it's problematic right now because of the major uncertainty. I don't know. It sounds like you're starting to hone in on what that's gonna look like. Albeit there's some worried numbers there, but whether then it can be figured out with some stabilization and federal dollars, et cetera, will be important to get back voter confidence on a going forward basis. I thank you all so much. Is there anything else? Larry, do you want to say any final words? No, I'm good. I'm good. Thank you. I want to thank everyone for your time Friday afternoon. It was very, very helpful. We are very concerned about stability and we were actually, we started out, it was just trying to help folks stabilize after 46. Now we have a new thing to stabilize. Sarita Austin, you had something? Can you unmute, Sarita? Yeah, I also just want to say thank you so much to all of you. I feel like you're really on the front lines and the advocates and the superintendents and school board members and chairs. I just really appreciate how you advocate your communities and the children and really working hard to get them fed and keep them safe and provide them an equitable education. And I just as a citizen of Vermont, I'm extremely proud of the work you're doing. So thank you. Jim Maslin. Yeah. Let me see. Unmute here. No, I'm not. Okay. You're good. It's nice to hear the superintendents' perspective really very much. Robin and I will, anybody else for raising their hands? Anyway, we'll carry it back to our grand committee room and we'll have your perspective, which is important. And Bruce, nice to see you, you know, even if we're on screen. So y'all carry on, have a good weekend. The rest of us, I guess. Well, Emily, hi. You're there too. We are going to continue on then with the current bill as drafted. We're in time. Yeah. And we will see what we can do to, we'll just see what we can do. Hold it up. And I think on that note, we can go offline.