Noah Ampe (Legislative Intern, University of Vermont) presented some findings for the House Education Committee of his research about education statistics from other states.

Representative Brady had sponsored the work here, interjected these numbers can “never be perfect” because of how you choose to slice and aggregate the sources.  She points to some social welfare funding that may find their way into a per pupil formula in some states like Vermont.

Brady added that Town Meeting Day dictates the school budget cycle and is well out of sync with anything to do with the education system. She called the first Tuesday in March a “historical construct” that “creates challenges in our system that are self-inflicted.”

There was some discussion about the reductions in force (RIF) process and rules by Chairman Conlon for newer members. He added that the defeat of the budget generally triggers RIFs notices being sent regardless of the outcomes in later votes. However, this depends upon the local contracts. He adds the older system had school districts with numerous boards that “were each little employers” so they had small pools and the effect of larger districts and schools was that attrition would often protect against RIFs affecting all the new hires.

NOTE: This doesn’t really make sense because larger district sizes didn’t increase the attrition rate. It might have made attrition and hiring more stable because you were more likely to have retirements from a bitter pool.