By Guy Page
The Legislature’s education financing bill would cost property tax payers too much money and would take too long to implement, Gov. Phil Scott said in a Wednesday, May 27 letter.
Last Friday the Senate passed an education reform bill, H.454, which basically agrees with the House version Gov. Phil Scott opposes. Scott and Republicans in both chambers had hoped the full Senate would adopt the amendments recommended by the Senate Education Committee – including $1800 less spending per student.
It was not to be. The Senate Democratic caucus opposed the Senate Ed bill 12-5. Rather than let a minority of Democrats and every Republican pass the Senate Education bill, Senate leaders scrapped it and successfully pushed a more House-friendly version.
Last year, a Scott veto would have been quickly overridden. It’s different this year. In an act of property tax revolt, voters in November elected enough like-minded legislators to uphold his veto.
Lawmakers wondered how Scott would respond to Friday’s vote. They found out May 27 in a letter sent to the Senate-House conference committee, which has been working out their own relatively minor House-Senate differences over H.454.
Jason Maulucci, the governor’s legislative liaison, gave a quick overview of the letter Thursday morning to the conference committee. He basically echoed the contents of the letter, which appear below.
Level spending for education
“I will not support a bill that spends more than we are today in FY25 dollars,” Scott said in his May 27 letter.
While state property tax payers value quality education, “Vermonters have also been clear: our state is simply not affordable, and property taxes are a key contributor to our affordability crisis,” Scott said.
Implementation sooner rather than later:
“I cannot accept an implementation timeline of FY30. I have proposed FY28. [The Legislature and Gov. Scott recently adopted the FY 26 school spending plan.] We’ve seen too many important reforms rolled back before implementation over the years, and I fear that could happen here.”
School district composition:
The governor is willing to wait until January for the Legislature to enact new school district sizes and boundaries.
“I have been clear that I would have preferred the Legislature approving new districts this
session. However, I’m willing to support the summer district task force structure, provided it sets us up to quickly approve the new lines when lawmakers return to Montpelier in January. I would support an up-or-down January vote on a consensus map produced by the Task Force,” Scott said.
The conference committee listened to Maulucci, asked a couple of questions about special education funding, and adjourned for the morning. They’ll be back, and time will tell whether the conference committee adopts any or all of Scott’s recommendations.