 We are live, Madam Chair. Thank you. This is Tuesday, September 15th. This is the Education Committee and the Vermont House of Representatives. And today we are looking at the remaining work before our committee or the remaining work related to education that needs to come to completion by now. I wanted first, I understand that things that I wanted to talk about today had to do with just an update and where we are with budget and CRF actions happening in the Senate. I wanted to get the committee response to the age 663 language that I believe the House human services is poised to strike from the amendment, from the bill. I want to talk about the letter regarding end financing and those are the things, possibly after school. Some of those things are being addressed in the Senate right now. So I thought it would be helpful if we saw what they are doing. This work is just the work that the Senate Education Committee has completed. They've sent that document to appropriations. So appropriations will review it. There's no need for us to respond or react now. But I just think that would be good for us to be aware of those things that are coming forward. So, Jim, if you could go through that recommendation for us, that would be great. Jim, which document do you need at this point, please? It's what I just sent you. Yeah, all right. Is that the right one? It's the right one. Thank you, Phil. OK. So good afternoon. Jim Daimler, the list console. We are going to walk through the changes proposed by the Senate Education to the House as-pass version of the budget regarding educational provisions. So first, the appropriation, you see, the changes are in green. So what is underlined in green are additions made by Senate Education. And what is struck in green are deletions they have made to the House as-pass version. So starting with the first provision here, your studio appropriation has increased from $32,453 million. That's the first change. And then you'll see there on the reference to D being struck out, D was the provision we'll come on to that gave a million dollars with a funding for administration and technical support that has been deleted from this draft. So that million dollars is shifting over into the pre-K through 12 column. We'll come on to that in a minute. Then there's some new intent language. And read is the intent of the joint assembly that carries that funding appropriate to the agency under this section be used to ensure the safe opening of an operation of public schools during the COVID-19 save emergency and that public schools use these funds to the maximum extent permitted by law. And then goes on to say the change from your language here if the agency determines that any allocation to a category is likely not to be fully used by December 20, 2020, it shall reallocate that funding to one or more of the other categories that believes has or will have the highest amount of uncovered eligible CARES Act expenses. So we're talking about categories here just to remind the committee that we're talking about is pre-K through 12 journey COVID costs, HVAC, food, equipment, and spent schools. Those are the categories that we're talking about here. Then the next deletion of your language, your language, if you scroll up for a second for all back to the previous page, right here. Thank you. It's up here if you would. They have struck out your language that deals with, I can't see it here though, your relative priority. So you have language here about the agency could reallocate based upon its view of relative priority. That's been taken out by the Senate Education. And rather, they say the reallocation has to be the other categories that believes would have the highest amount of uncovered expenses. So therefore, conforming change going back down to the next page is just to leave this reference to reprioritization of funding. So that's been taken out as well. And then C just gives a timeframe. So reallocations have to be reported. And now it says within five to six days of the reallocation. Then you'll see for efficiency Vermont, the appropriation has gone up to $13,500. And then for pre-K through 12, it's gone up to $8 million. And then just to show in two, the language that you approved in the first quarter budget on independent schools has not changed. So it's still $1.5 million for independent schools. And then you scroll down to the next page, Phil, you'll see the DMSC divorce crossed out. That's the $1 million of administrative and accounting and technical assistance costs that's been put now into the pre-K through 12 budget. OK, so next section deals with a cross-reference. So we just mentioned that this is Vermont is getting $13.5 million. That's been cross-referenced here. Next section is the supplies for equipment for meals. Again, cross-reference is being fixed. The appropriation for pre-K through 12, as I just mentioned, is now $88 million. And we scroll down further to green right here. Again, this language about re-prioritizing is gone because the Senate doesn't give that much discretion to the agency. And again, the report here has to be done within five business days. Then they have taken out the Australian ballot provision. That's been struck. And keep going. The waiver of online teaching endorsement is the same as yours. The elections to unify a school district is the same as yours. Scroll down and fill out to the next section. ADM adjustment, they have here. So this is determining ADM account not less than the district's 19-20 count. And then they have reimbursement for transportation expenses. So if expenses in spending food and aid to families during the pandemic is not covered by CR funds, then it will be subject to reimbursement by the state. And then going down to pre-K teacher waiver. So this says that if a private provider was pre-qualified on reform March 15 of this year and loses the services of a qualified teacher, it will retain its pre-qualified staffs for this school year, despite the fact of having lost the qualified teacher. And then lastly, it's a task force for after-school access. The first section here is just the findings, A, B, and C. And the next section below is the creation of the task force. That's the same language that came over to you from San Education, except given the timing, the dates have not changed. So if you can scroll down to the bottom, go right here, I think, yeah, right here. Nope, it's a little bit further, I think, sorry. One more, the last page here. So the reports down to, obviously, if you would, reports down to on and before April 15, 2021. So there are a couple of date changes there given the timing. And that is it. Thank you, Jim. I'm sure that there are some questions. And remember, this is just now, Senate appropriations, Senate appropriations. We'll take a look at it. And we'll see what ends up coming back over here. Just a couple of things that come out. I think that Senate had updated numbers. So they're working with a different set of numbers than we were working with. Is that correct? Yes. So the number changes are based on we had given up. We have been given an amount. They have been given a different amount based on updated information. Correct? I believe Brad James came in and testified about where it's coming in. So that's a projection of what the need is, I believe. Right. I think we had, I think we had half of the SU's reporting. And I think they had a much larger percentage, if I remember correctly. So that's that. In this section, Peter, did you have a question or comment? Unmute. I just want to, for the record, that's the first time I've ever not unmuted myself. Julie noted. I think you just cleared up my question. I was noticing that there was a $22 million difference in the request. Just to confirm, that's based on updated numbers in terms of what is projected to be needed by the K-12 system. That'd be correct. I believe that's correct. I think the best person to verify that is Brad James or maybe Mark and Chloe. And they are coming late. And Kate, I'm sorry. Did you want to take it section by section? Yeah, I think so. And I want to keep the conversation fairly broad, simply because this has not come to us yet. So let's keep the thoughts in a broader sense while we wait to see what Senate Appropes does and then what House Appropes does. Or when it gets there, we'll have an opportunity. So it's got a little ways to go. So then, Sarita, did you have a question about this? What about these sections here? The money, number of money? No, not about the money. OK. So that's pretty much the first section, correct? The first three sections are the money sections. It's all about the money. OK. Yeah. Are you going to bring the bill up again? I'm sorry. Did it go away? Yeah. And it's also on our website. I actually usually find it easier. I didn't see it on our website. I'm sorry. Phil just got it, so it will be. So if we're going to walk or look through it, maybe we can put it up again. Yep. Thanks. And again, we're doing a broad walk, not a narrow walk. So I think we can get to, I think it's on page two. There's the approved independent schools language that's in green, but that's really unchanged from what we had. Yeah, that's unchanged from the first quarter budget. OK. And did we, so I'm just wondering why it was in green. We added that. It was not showing yours, because it hadn't changed. Oh, OK. It's useful to include just so people know what that figure is. OK. Then we get to the air quality. I'm hoping that we're going to get someone from Efficiency Vermont. They just sent a document to us. I haven't read it. I just got it, basically, as I was signing on. And it's possible Efficiency Vermont will be able to respond to us. They've actually, I think we're giving a report as to what's happening so far, which will be of interest to us. So this is really more money, more about the money. I think that the one that comes to mind is the repeal, taking out the Australian ballot language. Is that showing up somewhere else in another bill? I can't recall. We're actually off of that. OK. I'm not sure. OK. I think there is a belief there is going to be covered elsewhere. They're going to have operations, but I'm not sure. OK. Serena? I just I also was curious about the rationale for that, for taking that language out. Yeah. So that'll be something that will be of interest to us. And I just have one more question about waiving the teaching license. I thought they were talking. That's what we're getting to right now. Yep. OK. So I was just wondering, I thought they were waiving the teaching license for teachers. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry, Serena. I was trying to get the language. That's OK. Yeah. Scroll. Advance it a bit further. This way? Yeah, this way. Thank you. Sorry. Where is teacher? B-1-1-1-5. Yeah, down further. Sorry. Advance it right here. Right there. No. Wait, are you talking about the online? Are you talking about? Yes. Because that would be B-1-1-1-5. But that's still in there then, right? Yes. That's not changed. I was confused with the early childhood and the. Yeah, that's coming. The anything in black is unchanged from what we did. I just didn't see it. Thank you. OK. So then we get to they have put the ADM language into the bill, correct? This is on B-1-1-1-7. So this should be familiar language. You have to buy it there for the president. Pages aren't numbered, unfortunately. Yeah, that's being right there. You're coming to it right there. ADM adjustment. There it is. So they ended up using the language. We had three different languages we were looking at. This was the one that came from AOE that just limited them to the, it was the 1920s school year, not less than. Right. Right. OK. Sarita? Just curious about if you aren't counting that ADM for the children that are law that are not in school due to homeschooling or whatever, how is that revenue made up? Or who's responsible for that revenue? Because I would imagine with operating the school the cost of the same. So but that last revenue, how was that covered? Rita, what's the what loss of revenue? So if you are, if you're getting paid the same amount from 2020? No, that's not what it says. That's not what it says. This just protects those that this protects the schools that had a precipitous drop in enrollment. And it's allowing them to use last year's enrollment as a number that they don't, well, Jim, you explain it. I'm sorry. I'm tripping over myself that it can be not less than the ADM that they had last year. So it's counting. Go ahead, Jim. I'm not doing well explaining this, but you have a perfectly correct. So basically, the count when they take it this year, we know less than the count last year for that. If they're lost in the work students due to homeschooling or whatever, the count will be no less than they have last year. But there'll be less revenue coming in? Some revenue issue is the tax issue because the number of students, in part, determines tax rates. So it's cost per student. So by losing students, your tax rate increases. So this avoids the loss of students, if you will, and avoids the tax rate increase that will cause for one year. For one year, right. But how is that covered? Who covers that loss of money? It's shared by all of the districts. So this is a zero-sum game. So it's basically going to just be resettling the ADM across the state. OK, that's what I was wondering. Thank you. So just to clarify, there's no revenue because the state always funds whatever the voters approve. Right. It's a question of the impact on the tax rate. Right. Yeah. Thank you. What is interesting about this is that Vermont is not climbed out of its decline in student enrollment that has been happening naturally. So for districts like mine that were losing 30 kids anyway, just because graduating a large class, nothing much smaller class come in, sort of protects against that as well, albeit for one year. Then the impact shows up the next time around. Thank you. Right. Yeah. Thank you. This was one of the three things that we looked at. We looked at this one, which came from the agency. We looked at protecting them in terms of being able to count students who were counted last year who are now homeschooled that they could continue to count those. And the third one was a whole harmless. So they've selected this one that was the recommendation of the AOE. The transportation expenses is a new one for me. Can you help us understand that a little bit? Or maybe this is a mark and Chloe question. Sure. I can count. Sure, Reverend. I was distracted by text. No problem. Let's understand. You're a part of the agency, Dan. Looking at the transportation expenses incurred, it just I haven't seen this before. So I wonder if you could just help us understand. Yeah, so normally it's a two-year lag before transportation expenditures are reimbursed. So this is out in the future a bit. But the reimbursement is based on transporting students. Oh, right. Yeah. And of course, with the pandemic, buses were used. Transportation was used to supply food and aid to the community and students, et cetera. So this just says that if those costs are not reimbursed under other state and federal funds like CRF funds, they will be reimbursed by the state under Tal 16. Is the requirement to transport students, is that a state or federal issue? There's no requirement to transport students. It's always voluntary. But if supervisors choose to transport students, then there is some reimbursement available from the state. From the state. From the transportation fund, the general fund? I think it's, I'm not sure, actually. I think it's transportation fund. Oh, there's Mark. Wait, this is an education fund cost. Oh, it's an ed funds cost. Yeah, there's a categorical aid in the education fund. So again, if additional money goes up in districts for this purpose, it's paid for through the education fund. So it's basically shared collectively. So it's off the top, in other words. Yeah. OK. OK. Then this next one is another new one, pre-K teacher waivers. That's a new one. This is for a year. Then they've taken the task force language and they've updated the dates. This was the bill that came over that we had wanted to take up. But we ran into a session shut down and did not take it up. Then we were looking at it. So they've moved it to the budget. And it's all the same language, the same purpose. They've just changed the dates. OK. Thank you. And I think that's it, correct? Is it? Yeah. OK. So that will be we'll be watching that. Sarita? Immuted. I just want to advocate one more time to put a student on that task force, a high school student. That's all. High school student on the after school task force? Yes. I think there are students on the task force. Can you scroll down? I fell a little bit further. Stop here. Is there? Am I wrong? I didn't see one. OK. Different task force. OK. Yeah, OK. OK. So I'm sorry. I'm not going to keep looking. So there's not a student on the task force, is that right? No. Sorry. I'm sorry. OK. OK. So Peter Conlon. Kate, maybe you could talk a little bit about sort of process here, I realize. So it's in appropriations in the Senate. Yes. And assuming they accept the recommendations of the Senate Ed committee, it then goes into the either conference committee or the various ping-ponging back and forth of amendments to the budget. We'll go to the floor. Be debated on the floor. Come over to the House. It will go to House appropriations. And then House appropriations will make a recommendation on what to do. They could just simply concur at which point it's passed. They could concur with further proposal of amendment or they could call for a committee of conference. And your expectation is that they will ask us to weigh in on if these changes make it all the way through to when it goes back to the House appropriates. They'll probably ask for us to weigh in on some of these additions. Yeah. OK. My. It will be moving. Let me say this will be moving very quickly. Right. I just like to get some confirmation that the Australian ballot portion is somehow being covered elsewhere. Yeah. That would be great. Jim, can you find that out for us? Sure. I'll find out. OK. And at some point, Mark, it might be helpful for us to have an understanding of some of the numbers that have changed since we had the bill. We had the bill. We had the bill a lot earlier. And we know the numbers have changed. And I don't know if it's easy for you to show us how those numbers have changed now or where we want to try to bring you back in once the bill passes. Oh, I can sort of describe generally, but the bill hasn't passed yet, so it's pending. But give it some sense. Since the House passed the version of this, AOE has been able to identify additional CRF eligible costs out in the district. And there's a range of those costs. The high end of it is about $21 million more than you appropriated. And I think the low end is about $17 million. The Senate Education Committee recommended going with the high end because there are still some districts out there that have not submitted their applications. And I think the intent would be that that additional money would be sufficient to fully reimburse districts for all of their CRF eligible costs in both FY20 and FY21. We're now talking a little bit about some additional language that might be useful to reassure the districts that if it becomes necessary to prorate their reimbursements because the need for the CRF eligible costs that the districts have identified exceeds the appropriation, some language that describes how that proration would work. I think the districts, the business managers, have been very afraid that if they submit both their new costs and their previously budgeted costs that the proration would disadvantage the districts to the extent they've submitted requests for reimbursements for their previously budgeted costs. So it probably, I can see confused space. And so it might be helpful if you're meeting again if I could come back with you. Chloe has a nice sheet that lays out what the cost estimates are. And what I'm describing right now is sort of a work in progress to reassure districts that the way the proration will work, if it has to be imposed, would not disadvantage them. OK. Do you have a sense of the speed at which this is moving? Fast. Today or tomorrow, yeah. So today or tomorrow, they're planning on moving it? I think so. Yeah, I don't have my finger on the policy of the appropriation, but my sense from talking to people on staff earlier today was that this is moving quickly. OK, Phil, we, as you know, the House calendar has changed for Friday to add a respect for Rosh Hashanah. Legislatures never had to worry about holidays in September before, but now we do. So I don't know if we can find another time that the committee could meet. Would you like me to look for one? Yeah, that would be great. On any particular day? You know, I think folks are planning on Friday anyway. I don't know how early folks could comment. I know there's a before possibility. Yeah, so yeah, I'd say find something. I know there's a possibility that we will meet with human services. I don't know if that's going to happen or not. Related to after school, related to getting an idea from the secretaries as to how they plan to move forward once the CRF fund is gone for the hubs. So there's a conversation about whether we're going to bring in that testimony or not, and I'll know later today. Which would be on Thursday when human services meets. But again, that's still in flux. Kathleen. Just to confirm, at this point, looking at our agenda, we don't have any additional committee meeting scheduled and we're looking for a time, right? Right, we were supposed to have Friday at 10 30, but that was floor now. OK, so yeah, so at the moment, keep an eye on the human services. I'm just never, don't worry. I'll let you know. Just make this easy. I'll let you know if anything's going to happen with that. But anyway, we can see that what one of the things we're going to talk about today is our letter. So if we could pull that up, I think that's probably the next thing on our agenda. Bearing in mind that ADM has been put into the, it is before Senate appropriations. In the meantime, I do want to work on that letter. I don't know where this is going to end up at this point. We had a review the other day and just wanted to make sure that people are comfortable with this. I sent it to appropriate two ways and means. This is the draft letter. This is in lieu of actually doing something specific about ADM waiting to see what happens over the next few months. Most of this will end up being addressed later anyway. It was just, it was one of the ways to signal to districts that we hear them and we are asking the agency to be prepared to report back to us. The areas, again, can you just do the broad, Jim would be great, the broad topics that we're asking them to review. So first topic is use of federal funds. There are three areas there, so use of funds received, projected unreimbursed costs, and any surplus. Could reduce the burden of education fund. Second is ADM, so analysis of ADM by district to understand the impact of disarrollment due to homeschool or disarrollment generally. The third is special education service plans, so the plans themselves and additional estimated cost of serving IEPs due to remote or hybrid learning models. And lastly, the operational status of school districts. And whatever happens, whether the language in the recommendation of Senate education to appropriations passes or not, this is still information that we're going to be wanting regardless of what happens. We want to know going forward what are the answers to these questions and giving the agency the heads up to start getting organized to provide this data. Data, Sarita. The data that we're going to need to make big decisions. I love it. So that is that. So if there's anybody that wanted to add anything or subtract anything, now's your time. Seeing nothing, seeing no hands. So if you're OK with me, this is the information that we would like to see when we return in January. We did get a nod from Brad that looked doable. What we were asking for looked doable. So, Sogalski, just in terms of that information, does that look like something that will help in the process for you as well going forward? Well, as you know, we had advocated for the ADM language. So the letter is I just heard you say that it would be going, whether or not that language ends up making it to the end. So I do, you know, there is some information that you're asking for here that would be helpful. OK. Yes, Jim. Please turn back. You asked about the assurance of provision. You know, evidently, Senator White is moving something similar in her bill. Thank you. Thank you. That's a better place for it anyway. So the next thing is the age 663. Do you have that that draft that that Senate? Yes, Madam Chair, just a second. Thank you, Phil. But Kate, just a quick question back on the letter. Yes. Considering that the ADM issue is also potentially being addressed in the budget. But potentially, I don't know where that's going. Yeah, in terms of timing, you just want to make sure. One isn't duplicating the other one here. I'm happy to have both in kind of a built into Spender's fashion. Do you see so that's a good question. I mean, I see this as information we're going to need going forward regardless. Yeah, sure. Because there's yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I guess actually what I really want to say is I hope that if the language does not end up in the budget for whatever reason, that this letter signals what we wanted to signal and I sort of want to state it publicly that the idea here is we want to know if this truly is a problem so that those of us who might be in a position to help with it in January will get to it expeditiously. Yes, thank you. H663, we heard from, we participated in that meeting. My understanding right now is that the House Human Services Committee is poised to strike this amendment and keep the underlying bill. The underlying bill passed the House and we had decided that we would only look at the amendment and not the underlying bill. We never had that bill in our committee. So the issue here is our people comfortable with striking this language going forward. I'm not saying that this doesn't look like a good idea. It's just a matter of is this something that's better addressed next year or is it in the emergency department that's COVID related and budget related that we should address now? And I'm happy if one of you, if I return as chair and one of you wants to propose a bill with this language in it, I would be very happy to make sure that we take it up. We just didn't have time. And we heard from, we heard a very positive response from the senator who was in both House Senate Education and Health and Welfare. And we heard not support for this at this time from the associations. So I guess I've kind of put my opinion forward. I usually try not to do that. But I think it's fairly clear that I would recommend that it be struck. And I just need a straw poll here. This is not a formal vote. This is we're now huddling out in the hall about the Senate amendment. So let's see, perhaps could I see by a show of hands if you would like, blue hands, if you would like this, if you accept this language being struck. So the question has been sent. And those who would like to keep the language, clear all your hands. Clear all the hands. Jay, can you clear your hands? Voting twice as a felony. Thank you. Not here, obviously. Those who would like to keep this language, I will let the chair know that we're comfortable with this being struck at this time. Good causes like to address it, not while we're bailing out the Titanic here. Ate? Yes. I was having a technical problem and couldn't get my hand up. I'm comfortable letting this lie. In case you're wondering, what was my problem? Why there were 10? All right, screen problem. It's fine with me if we drop this for now. OK, thank you.