Vermont Superintendents Association
Vermont Principals’ Association
Education Legislative Update
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January 16, 2012 - Issue #2
Governor
Peter Shumlin dedicated a significant portion of this year’s budget address to
PK-12 education-related issues. The
Governor’s budget address is an annual speech to the General Assembly given on
the same day that the Governor presents his proposal for a state budget for the
upcoming fiscal year (FY2013). The
Governor’s proposals for education included several concepts he has previously
supported as well as a couple that are new to his policy platform. What follows is a breakdown of each of his
education-related proposals, including quotes from the speech and contextual
information for our readers.
These words
from the speech last Thursday summarize Gov. Shumlin’s perspective:
From early education to higher education and technical
school, we have among the most innovative offerings in the country. By creating
a seamless system that allows each student to take advantage of these
offerings, we will achieve excellence. However, we have to have the courage to
do some things differently.
The Governor
reiterated his request for school boards to level-fund school budgets in
FY2013. Statewide, school boards did
level-fund budgets in FY2011 and FY2012.
I commend our local school boards for holding the line on
new spending over the past two years and urge them to do it again. Rising
property taxes continue to be a tremendous burden for Vermonters struggling in
this recovery, and a failure by local
boards to hold the line again will result in unacceptable property tax
increases. As student enrollment continues to decline, we are finally
seeing a downward trend in the number of teachers and staff, which should make
level funding our school budgets even more achievable. [Emphasis added.]
In what might
be considered the most surprising of his education-related proposals, Gov.
Shumlin urged Legislators to consider a bill introduced by Sen. Kevin Mullin,
chair of the Senate Education Committee and a Republican from Rutland
County.
I am a strong supporter of local control. I firmly
believe that we in Montpelier should never live under the illusion that we
should decide which schools stay open and which schools consolidate. However, we can save money and retain local control
by cutting administrative costs and consolidating supervisory unions. Senator Kevin Mullin has proposed
consolidating our 60 supervisory unions, reducing bureaucracy and saving
taxpayers roughly $9 million each year.
This bold proposal deserves your consideration. [Emphasis
added.]
Sen. Mullin’s
bill, S.194,
would direct the State Board of Education to reconfigure and reduce the number
of supervisory unions in Vermont from its current configuration to 16 units
roughly aligning the boundaries of existing technical education center
regions. The reconfiguration would be to
“promote increased efficiency, convenience, and cost-effectiveness, and to
facilitate K–12 curriculum planning.”
The State Board would be directed to publish proposed boundaries by
September 1, 2012, and announce final boundaries on January 1, 2013. The new boundaries would take effect for the
2013-14 school year.
S.194 would
not adjust the boundaries or quantity of school districts in Vermont. Therefore, under S.194, enlarged supervisory
unions would average 17 member school districts each. Each district would be entitled to one, two,
or three representatives on its supervisory union board determined by the
population of the municipality. S.194
would not alter the current statutory duties or authorities of any supervisory
union or school district.
Here is a
link to S.194: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2012/bills/Intro/S-194.pdf
Governor
Shumlin first voiced support for expanded school choice opportunities at the
August 2011 meeting of the State Board of Education. On Thursday, he further defined his platform
as supporting public school choice for all Vermont high school students:
Flexibility is critical for all students, and I strongly
believe that expanding our limited school choice to all of our public high schools
in Vermont will enhance innovation.
The Governor
has consistently supported replacing the position of Commissioner of Education
(supervised by the State Board of Education) with a Secretary of Education
appointed by the Governor. This issue is
the focus of H.440, a bill that received significant attention last year and
remains in the House Education Committee.
The Governor
also recommended that the Department of Education be relocated from its two
current locations in Montpelier and Berlin to a new office building in downtown
Barre.
Allowing high school juniors and seniors to take college
courses for college credit wherever they choose will make higher education more
affordable for low- and middle-income, first-generation students. This
flexibility, with the money following the student, should be available to all
high school juniors and seniors in Vermont.
This policy
statement was not sharply defined by the Governor in his speech, but he appears
to be supporting expanded dual enrollment opportunities for high school
students with expenses paid by the school districts in which the students are
enrolled.
Gov. Shumlin
has consistently supported prekindergarten education. In his speech, he urged an expansion of
prekindergarten access; he did not propose any new procedures or funding
streams to accomplish this goal.
We must also continue to partner with our local
communities to expand access to pre-K education. Last year, we lifted the cap
that gives every community equal access to quality pre-K education. Continuing
to build universal pre-K in Vermont will assure a strong start for every
student.
Gov. Shumlin
recommended a one-time $8 million investment in public institutions of higher
learning, split between the University of Vermont and the Vermont State College
system. The investment would be paid
from the Higher Education Trust Fund.
The House
Ways and Means Committee is examining a proposal to alter the procedure by
which education taxes for residents would be estimated and finalized during the
school budget development process. The
intent of the change is to simplify the process of setting education tax rates,
but admittedly, with Vermont’s complex funding system, we must delve into
finite details of the proposal to explain its affect on our current procedures.
Current law
requires the Commissioner of Taxes to recommend a statewide base homestead tax
rate on December 1 each year ($0.87 in FY2012).
The following spring, the Legislature must approve a bill that finalizes
the base homestead tax rate. In
addition, statute requires the “base education amount” to be announced annually
($8,544 in FY2012), and this figure is based on an inflationary index. Both figures are components in the formula
that determines residential education tax rates for all school districts.
The Committee
is considering eliminating both the base homestead tax rate and the base
education amount from the education funding formula. Instead, each fall, a per pupil “yield” would
be announced by a state official and the Legislature would be charged with
finalizing this yield figure each spring.
The yield would be the amount per pupil that any district could expend
for an equalized homestead tax rate[1]
of $1.00. Any amount of per pupil
spending above or below the yield would result in a proportional change to the
equalized homestead tax rate. For
example, if the yield was announced at $10,000, and a district approved spending
of $12,000 per pupil, the district’s equalized homestead tax rate would be 20
percent greater, or $1.20. If a district
approved $9,000 in per pupil spending, assuming a $10,000 yield, its equalized
homestead tax rate would be $0.90.
The Committee
has had preliminary discussions regarding complementary changes to the
education finance system to accompany the yield proposal. These changes include:
The proposal
is in the early stages of consideration in the Committee and no bill has been
introduced. Our Associations have not
testified on the proposal but we intend to do so. We are waiting to see the proposal in writing
so that we can fully understand the implications of the proposed change.
A bit of
holdover business from the 2011 session the General Assembly appears to be
headed towards conclusion. S.92
has been approved by the Legislature and is now awaiting the Governor’s
probable signature. S.92 would require
distributors of cleaning products to sell only environmentally preferable
cleaning products to public and approved independent schools where those
products are available. In addition,
distributors would be required to provide training on these products to school
personnel at no cost to the school districts.
Schools would be permitted to exhaust existing supplies of cleaning
products. The implementation date will
be July 1, 2012 for public schools and July 1, 2013 for approved independent
schools.
The Senate Education
Committee took testimony this week on S.245, a
bill that would require all public and independent school students to receive
instruction in CPR and automated external defibrillators (AEDs). S.245 would also make CPR and AED instruction
a prerequisite for graduation for all students.
The instruction would be required to include “practical, skills-based
experiences and assessments.” Testimony
by advocates for the bill indicated that the training could be completed in no
more than one class period. The
Committee will continue consideration of the bill next week.
The House
Committee on Education has continued to take testimony on Act 153. The Committee has heard from a number of
school board members and school administrators with a wide variety of
experiences with the law. The Committee
appears satisfied with the testimony it has received regarding prior
experiences with Act 153 and is ready to move into a phase where it will
consider modifications to the Act. The
modifications are expected to allow for greater flexibility in applying the
principles of Act 153 to a wider variety of potential governance changes. The modifications would not affect the basic
premise of the Act (i.e., any changes to school district boundaries must be
developed and approved locally, and centralization of certain business and
management functions will be required of all supervisory unions by a date
certain.)
A task force
convened by VSA, including representation from the Vermont Council of Special
Education Administrators and the Vermont Association of School Business
Officials, developed a specific set of recommendations to amend Act 153 in the
fall of 2011. The State Board of
Education endorsed the task force recommendations at its December 2011
meeting. The VSBA Board of Directors
endorsed its own recommendations for Act 153, including significant overlap
with the recommendations of the task force.
These two sets of recommendations will form the basis for a first-draft
bill that the House Education Committee will consider next week. The Committee has not yet offered any
assurances that it will accept any particular recommendation put forward by VSA
or VSBA. We will continue to work with
the Committee to develop a bill that could have broad appeal for school
officials and the public at-large.
The following
education-related bills have been introduced by one or more members of the
Legislature from January 6 to January 13, 2012.
To read any bill’s full text or see its status in the Legislative
process, go to http://www.leg.state.vt.us/database/status/status.cfm.
.
H.507 AN ACT RELATING TO AUTHORIZING
THE CITY OF BURLINGTON TO ISSUE IN FISCAL YEAR 2012 THE SCHOOL BOND APPROVED IN
2009
Introduced
by Representatives Donovan of Burlington, Aswad of Burlington, Bissonnette of
Winooski, Lorber of Burlington, O’Sullivan of Burlington, Pearson of
Burlington, Wizowaty of Burlington and Wright of Burlington
Statement
of purpose: This bill proposes to authorize the city of Burlington to issue in
fiscal year 2012 the school bond approved in 2009.
H.508 AN ACT RELATING TO TUITION
PAYMENTS TO OUT-OF-STATE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
Introduced
by Representative Clarkson of Woodstock
Statement
of purpose: This bill proposes to prohibit school districts from paying tuition
for a resident student to attend an out-of-state independent school.
H.509 AN ACT RELATING TO PERMITTING
SUPERVISORY UNION BOUNDARY ADJUSTMENTS WITHOUT STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
INVOLVEMENT
Introduced
by Representatives Masland of Thetford and Cheney of Norwich
Statement
of purpose: This bill proposes to permit supervisory unions and school
districts to adjust supervisory union boundaries without obtaining
authorization from the commissioner of education or the state board of
education to do so. It would also authorize a supervisory union to hire a
superintendent without first seeking approval from the commissioner or state
board.
H.510 AN ACT RELATING TO DUTIES
PERFORMED BY SUPERVISORY UNIONS ON BEHALF OF MEMBER DISTRICTS
Introduced
by Representatives Masland of Thetford and Cheney of Norwich
Statement
of purpose: This bill proposes to reverse the presumption that a supervisory
union and superintendent will perform certain duties on behalf of the member
districts except upon receipt of a waiver from the commissioner of education
and instead would create the presumption that the districts will perform the
duties unless they enter into an agreement with the supervisory union to do
them on the districts’ behalf.
H.511 AN ACT RELATING TO JOINT
CONTRACT SCHOOLS AND CONSOLIDATION GRANTS
Introduced
by Representative Manwaring of Wilmington
Statement
of purpose: This bill proposes to make joint contract schools eligible to
receive (1) construction aid for school building consolidation and (2) a
facilitation grant to aid with transitional costs. It would also correct an
incorrect statutory reference to a joint contract school as a “district” and
require a joint school board to select a treasurer.
H.516 AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC SCHOOL
ATHLETIC TEAMS
Introduced
by Representatives Emmons of Springfield and Martin of Springfield
Statement
of purpose: This bill proposes to require public secondary schools to accept a
resident student attending an independent school as a member of the public
school’s athletic team in any sport for which the independent school does not
sponsor a team.
H.527 AN ACT RELATING TO REQUIRING
IMMUNIZATIONS FOR ATTENDANCE AT SCHOOL AND CHILD CARE FACILITIES
Introduced
by Representatives Till, Atkins, Bohi, Cheney, Christie, Consejo, Evans,
Gilbert, Howrigan, Kitzmiller, Lenes, Masland, Munger, Shand, Townsend and
Waite-Simpson
Statement
of purpose: This bill proposes to eliminate a philosophical exemption from the
requirement that all children attending school and child care facilities
receive immunizations specified by the department of health.
END
[1] An “equalized” homestead tax rate is the tax rate prior to application of the Common Level of Appraisal (CLA). Current practice of applying the CLA to each town’s education tax rate would not be modified by this proposal.