By Paul Bean
This morning, Thursday May 2, I planned to attend a joint hearing with House Education and House Ways and Means at the Vermont State House. The original published agenda called for discussion of the school budget re-voting process. I showed up promptly at 8:55 to find an empty room.
Apparently, they canceled the hearing.
One can’t help but to wonder…. Why?
If you have been following this story, you already know that one of the most controversial ideas this year was floated by legislators as a possible “solution” to the structural issues within education funding. The “solution,” mentioned at last Friday’s joint meeting and endorsed by Rep. Curt Taylor (D-Colchester), would solve the thorny problem of this year’s cascading school budget rejections. The committees discussed limiting the number of voted down budgets (potentially three), or a specified date, after which voters would “no longer be involved” and the school budget be imposed by school boards per a legislature formula.
Not surprisingly, many citizens pushed back on social media, saying the measure anti-democratic and perhaps even tyrannical.
As disappointed as I was to find an empty committee room, I was still determined to get a story. I found Rep. Scott Beck (R-St. Johnsbury) in the Cafeteria who sits on House Ways and Means. I asked him, “why did they cancel the discussion this morning? He told me “There might be nefarious reasons, however the legitimate policy reason could be if there were a change in the budget revote process, it might influence the outcome of the budgets currently being voted on in communities.”
I asked Beck, “Is this ‘three strikes and you’re out idea’ something they were really serious about?” Beck told me, “I am not certain this is something they were serious about. It was more of a thought exercise, they were thinking out loud, and perhaps that is not what they should be doing. And for that matter, what does it mean to be ‘out?’”
Beck also told me about an idea he floated that at a certain point (a number of voted down budgets or a specified date) would give the voters an option A and B. Essentially option A would be the new budget the Board has proposed, and option B would be last year’s budget as essentially a default – considering that it was a budget the voters have approved in the past.
Yesterday at Governor Scott’s press conference I asked him if he had heard about this “three strikes and you’re out” concept and if he thought school boards should be allowed to impose school budgets after a certain point. He said “no. I think it should be voted on until it passes or fails, or ultimately it passes. That doesn’t seem like the right direction. That’s the first I’ve heard of this. I would not agree with that.”
Whatever the cause of the canceled hearing, we can be sure about one thing, your legislators are tired, frustrated, and from what I gather, they are desperate for solutions, particularly with this education funding problem.