by Guy Page
Today on Hot Off The Press, we’re taking up a story that goes right to the heart of Vermont’s education system and the property-tax crisis that’s hitting homeowners and renters alike.
Remember Act 73? The law that required Vermont’s School District Redistricting Task Force to produce proposed maps of new, large “super-school districts”? Well, after months of work, the redistricting Task Force voted on November 10 to not to produce those maps. The seven vote majority at that meeting said forcing massive mergers simply doesn’t solve the problem.
Instead, at that meeting the Task Force majority proposed something different: a regional, shared-service model called the Cooperative Education Service Area, or CESA. It’s a structure that purportedly allows districts to share things like special education, transportation, staffing, purchasing, and technology.
And one thing became clear: the big cost drivers in education—health care, special education, transportation, aging buildings—don’t get cheaper when you create bigger districts.
In other words, the task force claims, consolidation doesn’t fix the big problem – that our schools cost too much, especially for the poor educational outcomes they deliver.
And that brings us to our guest today: Ben Kinsley from the Campaign for Vermont. His organization reached the same conclusion. Building super-districts doesn’t touch the spending pressures that are sending property taxes through the roof. Both the Task Force and the Campaign for Vermont believe the answer may lie in regional collaboration, voluntary mergers, and shared services—not in creating a handful of giant bureaucracies.
So today, we’ll be asking Ben and really any caller:
If consolidation doesn’t save money, what will? How, or even can we, get out from under the crushing tax burden of the rising costs of health care, special education, transportation, aging buildings.
Is there a better way to improve opportunities for students without erasing community identity?
That conversation is coming up next, right here on Hot Off The Press.
Before Ben calls in in a few moments, we thought it might be helpful to know who is on this task force, appointed by rules set forth in Act 73:
The members of the Vermont School District Redistricting Task Force include:
- Senator Scott Beck – GOP senate caucus leader. He is affiliated with St. Johnsbury Academy, a private, tuition receiving school who backed the model discarded on November 10.
- Senator Martine Gulick, Chittenden County Democrat, retired high school teacher.
- Senator Wendy Harrison, Windham County Democrat.
- Dr. Jennifer Botzojorns, a retired superintendent of the Kingdom East School District.
- Dr. Jay Badams, former superintendent of SAU 70.
- Kim Gleason, former school board member, Representative (REP.)
- Reps. Edye Graning (D-Jericho), Rebecca Holcombe (D), and Beth Quimby (R-Concord).
- Chris Locarno, a retired director of finance and facilities for the Central Vermont Supervisory Union.
- David Wolk, former Rutland superintendent, Vermont Commissioner of Education and state senator