February 9, 2009 - Issue #4
HUHouse Considers Sexual Abuse BillU
HUSenate Education Considers Dropout
ProblemU
HUSENATOR McCormack Introduces Act
82 RepealU
HUSenate Stimulus Negotiations
Decrease Education Funding ProvisionsU
HUHouse MEMBERS Drafting “Fiscal
Note” Bill CO-SPONSORS INVITEDU
HUSpeaker Appoints Ed Finance TeamU
House Considers Child Sexual Abuse
Bill
S.13, the sexual abuse prevention
bill, was approved by the Senate on January 23rd by a near unanimous vote. The bill as it passed the Senate can be found
at this link: HUhttp://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2010/bills/Senate/S-013.pdfUH.
We summarized the major provisions of the bill in our Education
Legislative Report of January 19, 2009.
Upon
arrival at the House, the Judiciary Committee was given jurisdiction over the
bill, and referred the components of the bill related to public education to the
Education Committee for review and comment.
Under the rules of the House, the Judiciary Committee retained primary
jurisdiction over S.13, meaning that the Education Committee may make
recommendations for changes to the bill, and the Judiciary Committee will
either agree to the recommendations or will send the bill to the floor of the
House without them.
The
Education Committee worked on the education parts of the bill for most of last
week, and will meet on Tuesday morning in an effort to reach consensus on a set
of recommendations to present to the Judiciary Committee later on Tuesday. In general, the Education Committee has
expressed considerable concern over the potential of the bill to add burdensome
requirements to school systems without commensurate funding or other support
for their implementation. Our
associations, after expressing support for the intent of this bill, made a
number of suggestions to the Education Committee last week. The committee was receptive to our comments,
and we expect some of them to be incorporated into its recommendations on
Tuesday.
Senate Education Considers Dropout
Problem
The
Senate Education Committee, chaired by Sen. Bobby Starr, spent several days
last week considering how to decrease the number of high school dropouts in
Vermont. Broadly speaking, the Committee
is considering three approaches, or some combination thereof: (1) raising the
age of mandatory attendance to 18; (2) expanding access to alternative
education programs for high school students; and (3) expanding the Act 176 High
School Completion program, possibly to include enrolled students as well as
dropouts. At this point, it is unclear
what approach the committee is likely to pursue. Committee members have requested cost
analyses of their concepts from the Joint Fiscal Office.
On
Friday afternoon, the committee took testimony from Dr. Peter Rodis, a child
psychologist and professor of education at Dartmouth College. Rodis expressed his observation that most
eventual school dropouts experience early problems achieving school success
that leads to humiliation and low opinions of themselves as students at the
elementary level. He suggested to the
committee that the most effective technique for improving dropout prevention is
to build “connective tissue” between schools, parents, and other public
agencies serving children, particularly pediatric and community mental health
services. Rodis believes that when needs
of at-risk children can be identified early and communicated at the local level
among area schools, doctors, social agencies, and parents, the best outcomes
and cost efficiencies can be realized.
Senator
McCormack Introduces Act 82 Repeal Bill in Senate Committee
Senator Richard McCormack
(D-Windsor) introduced S.24, the bill to repeal the two-vote provisions of Act
82, in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday last week. This important initiative is co-sponsored by
Senators John Campbell (D-Windsor), Ann Cummings (D-Washington), Edward
Flanagan (D-Chittenden), Doug Racine, (D-Chittenden), Mark MacDonald (D-Orange)
and Virginia Lyons (D-Chittenden).
Repeal of Act 82 has been a high
legislative priority for our associations since its ill-considered enactment in
the final hours of the 2007 legislative session. The House passed a repeal bill last year,
only to have it stymied without debate in the Senate. The introduction of S.24 signals an
opportunity for Senators to follow through on the verbal promises many of them
have made to support repeal of Act 82’s two-vote requirement.
Judging from the lukewarm
reception received by Senator McCormack in the Senate Education Committee on
Wednesday, more Senators will need to voice support for S.24 if we are to be
assured that the bill will get a prompt review by the Committee. If you have discussed repeal of Act 82 with
your Senators, and they have responded with a promise to support repeal,
contact them and ask them to add their names to the list of sponsors of S.24
and to contact their colleagues on the Senate Education Committee to ask for
hearings on the bill.
Senate Stimulus Negotiations Decrease
Education Funding Provisions
The amount of education funding
to be included in the federal stimulus bill is a hot topic in Washington this
week. An amendment to the stimulus bill,
now in the U.S. Senate, would significantly reduce the total amount of
education appropriations, among other changes.
The amendment and the bill are both expected to be voted on in the Senate
this week.
According to Education Week, the original bill passed by the Senate
Appropriations Committee would have provided between $120 billion and $140
billion for education, while the Nelson-Collins amendment, negotiated by
congressional moderates, would reduce that amount to roughly $80 billion. (In fiscal year 2008, the U.S. Department of
Education’s discretionary budget was about $60 billion.) The Nelson-Collins amendment would eliminate
$16 billion in school construction grants, shrink relief to local school
districts from $79 billion to $39 billion, and cut Head Start’s proposed
funding from $2 billion to $1 billion.
The proposed funding for special education and Title I funds would be
left largely intact.
Education
Week is reporting
that it expects the Nelson-Collins amendment, and the revised bill, to both
pass the Senate, and that President Obama has signed off on the changes. However, the final word on education stimulus
will not be clear until the Senate bill is negotiated in conference committee
with the U.S. House of Representatives.
House Members Drafting a Property Tax
“Fiscal Note” Bill; Co-Sponsors Invited
Editor’s
Note: The following article was
originally published in the Vermont League of Cities and Towns Weekly Legislative
Report #6 and is reprinted with permission.
A bill requiring the preparation
and publication of fiscal notes to fully and openly illuminate the property tax
implications of legislative actions is in the drafting phase.
Several House members are hard at
work drafting the fiscal note bill for introduction. It would require that “any bill voted out of
a standing committee of the general assembly be accompanied by a fiscal note”
that “shall contain an estimate of the effect of the bill upon those who pay
property taxes in the state for the fiscal year in which the bill would become
effective.” Its preparation is “for the
sole purpose of assisting the general assembly and the public in conducting
informed deliberations on legislative proposals.”
The fiscal note would not make
any statement as to whether the bill was good or bad or whether the impact on
the property tax would be justified. It
would simply shine the light on the tax consequences of legislative
initiatives, and allow legislators and the public to weigh the benefits and the
cost impact.
If passed, Vermont would join 42
other states that already analyze the financial impact that actions of the
state legislature have on local taxes and expenditures, according to a U.S.
Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations publication. What would make the Vermont bill unique is
that it looks not at local government, but directly at the property tax, which
is now actually 71 percent a state tax.
Despite the property tax now being over $1.2 billion (after deducting
$120.7 million in property tax adjustments) and the entire state General Fund
taxes and other revenues being less than that at $1.183 million, there has
never been a formal mechanism to measure the impact of individual pieces of legislation
on the amount of property taxes people pay.
This is not the first fiscal note
bill to be considered by the Vermont Legislature. In 1986, the House actually passed H.758,
which would have required a note containing an estimate of the affect on municipal
expenditures or revenues. The bill did
not become law as it died in the Senate.
The House members who have
already signed onto the bill (meaning that they have agreed to sponsor and
introduce it) are: