By Guy Page
The School District Redistricting Task Force took a long look at Act 73, the law passed this year to reduce school spending and improve student outcomes, and recommended on November 10 for the creation of new supervisory format – shared services – unforeseen by Act 73 and targeting small, rural schools for voluntary, incentivized mergers. This newly envisioned school reform rollout would take 10 years.
Neither the lengthy time frame nor the details were what either most legislators or Gov. Phil Scott had in mind when they passed the law this spring.
To paraphrase three high-profile reactions to the recommendations:
Reaction #1: No, stay the course on Act 73 as written! The lead proponent of this option is Gov. Phil Scott, who said at a press conference the task force “didn’t fulfill their obligation….They didn’t redraw the lines, and they were supposed to put forward three maps for consideration, and they failed,” Scott said. No one ever said it would be easy – now do the hard work, Scott said. “It would appear that those who didn’t fulfill their obligation are OK with the ever-increasing property taxes, cost of education, and they don’t want to see change, or at least not immediately.”
Reaction #2: The real message of this report is that Act 73 just doesn’t work. It’s a bad idea. Drive a stake through its heart and start again. So urges former Ethan Allen Institute President and Behind The Lines columnist Rob Roper, speaking mostly but not only to Republicans in the Legislature.
“Act 73 was a political time bomb, maybe more like a depth charge, destined to explode at the pressure point when a majority of voters actually started paying attention and figured out what was in it. Why Republicans who won a historic victory in 2024 largely by promising to do something about affordability crushing property taxes would sign on to a law that does nothing to reduce property taxes for years, if ever, was – and still is – baffling to me. But they did!,” Roper writes in his latest column, available on Substack and today on VDC.
But – task force to the rescue!
“But, HALLELUIAH!! for the incompetent, scofflaws beholden to special interests in the Redistricting Task Force!,” Roper writes. “By refusing to put forward a map – effectively killing Act 73 before the legislature has to take it up – in a scene from Hollywood snatching hope from the jaws of hopelessness, in the nick of time they have snipped the map-wires and diffused the bomb.”
Reaction #3: We agree with the task force: large-scale school redistricting is unworkable and financially misguided. Shared services are a better option.
In a joint position paper, North Country, Essex-North, and Orleans Central supervisory unions argue that the state’s proposed restructuring would disrupt local schools without delivering meaningful tax savings, the Caledonian-Record reports today. Instead, they urge the state to adopt a shared-services model similar to one proposed by the redistricting task force. The unions warn that “Act 73 in its current form will create an unreasonable level of disruption… while distracting school-communities from the important work of improving learning outcomes for our students.”