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By Guy Page
The big school reform bill will be voted out of House Education by the end of this week, House leaders said at a press conference today. The bill will recommend larger class sizes and a statewide grand list.
It also sets a base of 4000 students per school district but otherwise does not address district sizes, numbers or boundaries. There’s not enough time this session to get that complex task right, the leaders said.
The potential one-year delay is not acceptable to Gov. Phil Scott, he indicated in a press statement today.
“I also want to be upfront with legislators, I will not support adjourning this session without a bill to transition to a new funding system, establish a new governance structure that unlocks transformation, and includes a specific implementation timeline. All these steps are necessary to improve equity, maximize efficiency, achieve educational excellence and be cost effective for taxpayers,” Scott said.
Governors are empowered to call special sessions of the Legislature after adjournment.
Committee member and Republican Casey Toof (St. Albans) said the current bill doesn’t provide enough leeway for independent schools to operate as they always have. The bill mandates teacher licensure even though Vermont’s independent schools (like St. Johnsbury Academy) don’t have firm licensure requirements.
The Burlington charter change banning guns in bars, S.131, got an initial run-through in Senate Government Operations today, Thursday March 27. No in-depth testimony, not vote, just an overview. Like many charter change bills, S.131 could get to the Senate floor this year even though it didn’t make the Crossover deadline earlier this month, Chair Brian Collamore said.
Senate Pro Tem Phil Baruth (D-Chittenden and Burlington resident) is the sole sponsor.
A bill to increase State of Vermont advertising in Vermont media, H.244, was given initial OK in the House Wednesday and was scheduled for final approval today.
During a H.244 press conference Tuesday, Lt. Gov. John Rodgers excoriated the Trump administration for ‘attacking’ and ‘trying to destroy’ the news media. Asked about the comment later, the Republican LG said he was referring to Trump’s defamation suit against a major media company and his administration’s proposed funding cut for the Voice of America, an overseas news outlet funded by the U.S. government.
The House declared March 21 as World Day of Glaciers, pursuant to a United Nations declaration coinciding with a UN Headquarters glacier summit on the same day. The resolution directs the Vermont Secretary of State to send word of the resolution to the United Nations Secretary General. The resolution was offered by Rep. William Greer (D-Bennington).
Speaking of resolutions, retired U.S. Marine and Sen. Larry Hart (R-Orange) today spoke on the Senate floor in support of H.154, designating November as the Vermont Month of the Veteran.
The House this week passed a resolution “reaffirming the friendship between the State of Vermont and Taiwan.” The island nation is the second-largest export destination for Vermont goods, worth about $254 million, the bi-partisan resolution states.
A consortium of social services groups called Vermont Care Partners is asking for a 6.2% Medicaid rate increase to “help keep the lights on” of their organizations, which includes Howard Family Services and Washington County Mental Health and other regional organizations providing services to vulnerable Vermonters.
Land donated – 125 acres of land in Cavendish, worth $184,830, was donated by Pieter Van Schaik to the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation. It will become part of the Lord State Forest.
Happy 50th, Brattleboro Co-op – A House resolution commended the Brattleboro Co-op for turning 50 this year. The cultural and food center of downtown Brattleboro opened in 1975.
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Categories: State House Spotlight
Managing such a huge complicated educational business is a formidable task. …so many stakeholders to balance…such a large management superstructure to satisfied…such a diverse customer base being left unsatisfied. Our commitment to an educated citizenry has lead us to invest in this organization and its becoming ever more clear that this has been a mistake. Perhaps we can start over and invest our tax money directly in learners. Stop funding education organizations. Give the funds to citizens/parents. They’ll contract with teachers for the curriculum and educational services their kids need.
I agree. This plan only grows state of vermont being in charge of our kids education and decreases parents choice. Puts increasing burdens, rules and regulations on independent privet schools. At a time when most Americans want smaller government Scott is pushing big government. A student’s funding needs to Fallow the students.
This will no doubt be known as the biggest and worst solution yet to come from Montpelier, mark my words. More state control of everything, taxes, school, class size, everything.
Notice what they are not even suggesting….
Better educational outcome, and a plan to achieve it.
Lower taxes to citizenry, and a plan to achieve it.
Why? Because they don’t care and are not looking to change these metrics. They are looking to give pay raises; they are looking for ways to get more money from Vermonters by hook or crook.
Once again we are playing the marxist shuffle. We are given three choices, do nothing, do something (they want) and increase of taxes (coming either way) and we are told to choose.
How about this we reject all of it. It’s not working for the children; it’s not working for the parents.
There are so many other better solutions that won’t even be considered, because they don’t want to solve the problem, they want to continue the grift. Because it works exceptionally well for those benefitting from the grift.
Re: “There are so many other better solutions ….”.
Really, Neil? Name just two other better solutions.
Vincent Curtis Hunter got it right. See his comment above.
Jay, here is one.
1) School choice.
2)Here is another no pay raises, 5% pay cuts.
Here is another
3) All money paid and accounted for in the year it was given, so all employees and tax payers, including retirement.
Trying to control and fix a market is extremely difficult, consumers can make choices immediately and quickly if they are allowed the freedom and given full information. Market pressures will bring immediate changes. Yes ther will be some chaos.
No Jay, you had it right. School choice.
Here is another Jay,
ban all Tiff funding, that is literally stealing educational tax money and funding special pet projects in real estate, ther are many more simple ideas that can make big changes….
I’d like to toss out, once again, the option of a constitutional amendment to remove the legislature from the regulation of schools under Ch 2 Section 68 of the Vermont Constitution. Government has done a lousy job of educating students. I would imagine teachers with seniority would balk at pay equity – what a stupid idea. In what other industry do people receive raises other than perhaps cost of living, without a performance review and employee loyalty/seniority? Ah, but there is no law for teachers to achieve a certain level of academic proficiency with their students, only compulsory attendance laws. You can bus a child to school, but you can’t force them to learn. Privatizing education would change that. Equal spending per pupil does not create equal education outcomes. Sometimes school districts are more creative with less. Look at the education taxes on your property tax bill, and consider that as tuition toward your children’s education. Public funds always come with strings, in this case, public education funding strings have been woven into a noose.
Give the funds to citizens and parents. What funds????? Will that make the property taxes go away????? Read the Declaration Of Rights in the Vermont Constitution. There has never been a Vermont Constitutional Amendment to make education or health care a right funded by property taxes or any other taxes. This has all been done by laws passed by the Vermont legation. The continue attack on property rights can not continue or you all will end up homeless. This is why the clueless in the Vermont house and senate can not fix this problem.
Does it come as a shock they claim education funding can’t be solved this year or the previous 20+ years? What problems have they solved in 20+ years? While they commenced lawfare warfare for climate change, reparations, and turning girls into boys and vise-versa, they manage to stall and table any progress over more important, pressing matters – schools, infrastructure, and those good paying jobs Phil always promised out on numerous campaign trails.
No mention of all the lost tax revenue from shutter business, down-sized business, mass exodus of people who left and never coming back, and those blackholes inside every yearly budget that sucks funds into parts or pockets unknown. Compare and contrast the number of 501-3c filings and ghostly LLC’s that don’t pay taxes to what is our actual tax base in this State – it is property owners, private businesses, and workers = indebted servants.
Their solution is to tax and fee the populace into poverty. It is how their NGOs and non-profiteers have job security and they can launder a sum off the top, as well as secure a compensated, obliging voter base. No honor among thieves and reprobates.
Hey Jay here is another simple idea, no property tax money on towns or state government can fund ngos or non profits! How can you take away my house for not paying planned parenthood there money?
Jay they are not eve trying to make changes, just the opposite, they are trying to protect the bureaucracy at all costs, Vermont will be the most protective and the last state in defending the grift.
They aren’t even being serious, don’t fall for the nonsense. Vt gov is the largest employer, bar none, grow the government is the Marxist plan, at some point you run out of taxpayers!
Didn’t say easy, but there are many simple things to be done, some of them are hard, real world choices.
Let me get on a device where I can actually type.
Jay one of the biggest tricks is to hide pay, and expenses is to put somebodies’ paycheck/expenses in different buckets, that way they can’t see or account for everything, it all just seems reasonable. Let me explain further.
PAYROLL TAX, this is hidden from all people who are not self-employed, they call it all sorts of things, business tax, etc. Except it’s really a personal employee tax, it’s based upon their income and if there is no employee there is no tax paid. This a minimum 7.5% tax hidden from the general public. You are paying the tax. The general public doesn’t even know it exists.
RETIREMENT FUNDING. So the big thing here, to avoid any accountability is to say, it’s a benefit that can’t be monetized, because we don’t know how long you are going to live and it’s also a retirement plan not offered to anyone in Vermont except government employees. It is a MASSIVE perk. I’m not even suggesting it be modified but accounted for. Here is a simple way of doing it. Assume everyone is going to live until they reach 85 years. Pay that benefit every year that it’s earned in hard cash. It allows for accounting; it doesn’t put us into unfunded liabilities. It shows EVERYONE how massive this benefit is and being include within the paycheck will be sobering. The state can then offer to make continued payments for those making it past 85 years.
HEALTH CARE AND OTHER INSURANCES. This too should be disclosed with the paycheck and for all to see. When people see how much they are being fleeced for family healthcare, they will see the epic waste and high expense. They will want to find a less expensive solution, to which they will quickly discover they are dealing with a protected and connected monopoly, they have one choice, send all your money and get crappy service.
These simple, transparent and daylighting procedures would not only enlighten they would bring about changes, changes from outside of government and from within. See, even government employees don’t want the government wasting THEIR paycheck. These simple changes would transform our state, almost immediately, within 2 years no doubt.
How could a first-year teacher complain about pay, when their pay stub shows a complete package totally $95,000? See its back to the book Animal Farm, they are all about “equity” but for some reason some pigs are more equal than others, that would be the fly in the marxist ointment, the DEI fix, when people see on a regular basis that state employees are getting pay and benefits totally $200k per year in a very poor state. Well, you might have a collapse of the lies and fairness.
They will fight and do everything at all costs to cover up what is going on, to protect the bureaucracy. That is for sure.
There are a boatload of Joint Fiscal studies, Consultant reports, AOE filings and data reports that the Legislature should rely on. There is no need for more time or more studies. They need to read what they have in hand.
I wonder how the Democrats feel now that the governor can push back and there is little they can do about it? They have to play ball with him as they know that they cannot override a veto and now he could well call them back into session until he gets what he wants on education reform, something we taxpayers need. I hope that he does push this because in this state, he could well find himself back behind a veto proof supermajority in the future or a Democrat could win the governor’s seat.
Don’t be fooled, in an article that just came out, his pick is saying we need to give teacher raises across the state….all in the name of equity……we are being fleeced and conned, once again, it will be worse than all the other changes combined.
Neil Johnson, we can equal that pay by taking from say, the big districts like Burlington and South Burlington and spread the wealth. Since we practice tax sharing from rich towns to poor towns, why not do that in the same way with teacher salary? Folks in those districts seem to enjoy voting themselves higher taxes each year for this so why not?
Well if the gov says no adjournment until…I say no pay (overtime) either. In other words get off your @$$, do something tangible, quantifiable and ON TIME or tough luck for you…you can just work for free until it’s done!