H.873 reached the House floor on Tuesday, with Representative Conlon of Cornwall speaking on behalf of the Committee on Education. The bill addresses funding challenges for the state’s program for the remediation of the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in schools. This has been a major cost-driver for many districts.

H.630 reached the House floor on Tuesday. Representative Beck of St. Johnsbury offered an amendment on behalf of the Committee on Ways and Means. They recommended passing the bill along with an amendment that appropriated $70k for the Agency of Education to administer a grant program to support the formation of Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES).

Chair Conlon and members of the House Education Committee,

The education finance crisis before you today is the gravest in decades and eerily similar to the crisis we faced a decade ago. You have difficult choices ahead of you around overhauling the entire education finance system or making targeted reforms to inject more transparency and accountability into the incentive structure.

H.10 was presented in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Representative Toleno spoke for the Committee on Appropriations, reporting in favor of its passage.

Representatives Walker and Harrison joined the House Energy and Environment Committee on Thursday to propose an amendment to H.289. The amendment would attempt to target new generation facilities in areas that already have additional distribution capacity. In areas where additional distribution capacity is necessary, the amendment would protect ratepayers from bearing the cost of these upgrades.

The House Education Committee attempted to get a “big picture” of the education financing challenges on Thursday morning. Julia Richter (Senior Fiscal Analyst, Joint Fiscal Office) noted that the material she was presenting would seem familiar because it is meant to be. Chairman Conlon wanted a refresher as they began to review the current situation. Richter stated these are the same slides she presented about a month ago with some updates based on recent data and budgets. Her presentation showed the various commitments of Education Fund dollars and the ways in which school districts receive them.

The annual housekeeping bill for the Ways and Means Committee, H.546, reached the House floor on Friday. Chairwoman Kornheiser presented the bill to the House. She described the bill as “revenue neutral.”

Ben Edgerly Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG) testified on S.259 in the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday afternoon.

He shared in his presentation that VPIRG supports this bill because the cost of the climate crisis is “staggering”, and Vermonters should not be responsible for “shouldering the burden.” They see this legislation as a medium to long-term strategy. The legal process will take years, as will the rule-making process.

Senator Bray provided an overview of S.305 to the Senate floor on Wednesday afternoon. He described the bill as creating a number of fixes. He reminded Senators that they had passed the Energy Efficiency Modernization Act in 2020, which was a three-year pilot program allowing electrical efficiency utilities to use $2M of efficiency charge money for pilot projects focused on energy reduction. However, the climate crisis is being driven by the thermal sector and transportation so they asked them to see if they could find solutions in these areas.

Representative Boyden presented H.702 on the House floor on Friday. She told members of the House that, as policy makers, they need to routinely evaluate how well our system is working and ensure that Vermonters are receiving the results they expect and deserve. H.702 is the first step in strengthening this type of government accountability.

Chairman Marcotte presented Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council) to the House Commerce Committee on Tuesday morning. She focused her presentation on the Vermont Employment Growth Incentive (VEGI) and a proposed forgivable loan incentive. She shared that the Council supports S.247 as it sends a message to the business community that “Vermont is encouraging businesses to come… stay… and create better workforce opportunities for Vermonters.”

S.246, which amends the Vermont basic needs budget, appeared on the Senate Floor on Wednesday afternoon. Senator Clarkson outlined the members that assisted in a Technical Advisory Committee. They reviewed the Basic Needs Budget and Livable Wage metrics which are assessed by the Joint Fiscal Office (JFO) biennially and presented to the Senate Committees.

The House Ways and Means Committee reviewed H.874 on Wednesday.

The bill proposes several amendments to education law in Vermont. The amendments include repealing the High School Completion Program and making changes to the State's adult education and literacy program. The bill also aims to continue funding for the community schools program, require school districts to include military-related options in career development and postsecondary planning resources, and require the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (VSAC) to include information on military-related options in planning resources.

Legislative Counsel began the House Ways & Means Committee meeting on Wednesday with a discussion regarding the inclusion of Career and Technical Education centers (CTEs) in the Boards of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) model that in H.630. 

Brooke Olsen-Farrell (Superintendent, Slate Valley Supervisory Union) shared that their budget failed by a 464-vote margin. Voters in her district seem to “pride themselves on keeping education spending low.” Despite being among the lowest spending in the state and being “advantaged” by Act 127.

On Tuesday afternoon Nichole Lee (Director of Education Finance, Agency of Education) joined the House Ways & Means Committee to review updates from the Town Meeting Day votes on school budgets. Out of 119 budgets, 30 failed, 19 were delayed, and 8 have been re-warned.

On Tuesday, the Senate Natural Resources Committee began taking testimony from the Public Utilities Commission, department of Public Service, and Vermont Energy Investment Corporation beating (very carefully) around the bush regarding their worries about the June 1 statutory date to hire a Default Delivery Agent for Act 18 (the Clean Heat Standard). At first it was comments like “we’re just sharing others’ concerns” or “we’re neutral on the date, but….” However, by the end of the conversation the language had become “It’s unrealistic” and “it’s not going to work.”

Nicole Lee (Director of Education Finance, Agency of Education) began the House Ways & Means hearing on Thursday with a presentation of recent Education Fund projections following school budget defeats. They have received preliminary redrafted budgets from 18 districts (out of 30 that were defeated) that represent a weighted average increase of 12.17%. These 18 budgets represent just over a quarter of all students in the state, but notably don’t include Milton or Washington Central.

When the House Ways & Means Committee met on Wednesday Morning, Chairwoman Kornheiser revealed that they moved some items that were “hanging around” into their miscellaneous tax bill. Notably, this included a meals and rooms tax surcharge on short-term rentals.

The House Education Committee hosted school officials on Thursday to hear their feedback from budget votes last week. The House Ways & Means Committee listened in for added context in their own discussions.