April 9, 2010
On
Friday morning, the House Education Committee voted 8-3-0 to direct the
Department of Education to develop voluntary education spending reduction
targets for each school district for fiscal year 2012. Statewide, the targets
would total $23.2 million in education spending reductions from voter-approved
fiscal year 2011 budgets. The targets
would be developed this summer, and school officials would be directed to
dialogue with the Department of Education about what steps the districts would
need to take to achieve the savings. The
voluntary spending targets grew out of the Challenges
for Change law (Act 68 of 2010)
which required a number of areas of state government to “redesign” their
operational practices to achieve better outcomes with a reduced budget.
The Challenges law
required the Department of Education to develop an implementation plan to meet
budget reduction targets. Commissioner of Education Armando Vilaseca
presented his plan on March 30th, which included three options. The
options were (1) authorize the Commissioner to implement mandatory school
district consolidation to approximately 50 districts, (2) examine schools with
fewer than 75 enrolled pupils for possible closure, and (3) allocate spending
reduction targets to local districts using a undetermined formula, and allow
districts to manage their own budget reductions.
The
Commissioner’s recommendations were not well received in the Legislature, and
only option 3 received serious discussion.
The House Education Committee took the lead in responding to Vilaseca’s recommendations, and they spent several days
considering what criteria would be appropriate for a spending-reduction
formula, and how to induce districts to meet their targets. Earlier in the week, it appeared that the
Committee was seriously considering legislation that would assign each district
a reduction target, and double-tax any local spending above the target that
might be approved by voters. The
double-tax would have worked similarly to the excess spending threshold, which
double taxes district spending above 125% of the prior year’s statewide average
spending per pupil. However, the
Committee eventually rejected this approach, partially in response to testimony
from Robert Gensburg of St. Johnsbury,
lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Amanda
Brigham et. al. v. State of Vermont equity lawsuit, who questioned whether the approach
would meet the Brigham standard of
substantially equal access to resources.
On
Thursday morning, House Committee members expressed frustration with the Challenges process and their role in
coordinating implementation of the law, and it appeared that a majority of the
Committee was willing to vote to support a resolution that would have asked for
public education to be exempted from Challenges
for both fiscal years (2011-12). One
media account described the Committee members’ stance at the time as “a mutiny”
against Challenges. In response, Speaker of the House Shap Smith then took the unusual step of addressing the
entire Committee as well as assembled media members and interested
parties. Smith sympathized with the
complex nature of the limited state control Vermont has over its local school
districts, but urged Committee members to develop a workable solution.
By
Thursday afternoon, the Committee had adopted the approach described in the
first paragraph of this Bulletin, and
as of Friday afternoon the voluntary spending reduction targets appeared to
have won key preliminary endorsements from Speaker Smith, the House
Appropriations Committee, and Commissioner Vilaseca. Its
implementation into law is far from a “done deal.” At this time, the voluntary targets plan has
not received formal approval from either legislative chamber or the Governor’s
administration.