The House Education Committee finally advanced their education reform bill after months of discussion. Of course they couldn't resist drawing maps, even if they are "only advisory" in nature. While the bill does not force arranged marriages (school district consolidation), per se, it does require that you attend the dance (merger study committees) and it chooses who your dance partners will be (which other districts you have to discuss mergers with).

In theory you could choose to dance with someone else or not at all, but that will probably be frowned upon. Okay, enough with that analogy... let's talk about what happened this week...

A bottleneck of bills hit the floor in both chambers this week. The House and Senate floors were busy passing major legislation on homelessness, health care, housing, and the FY27 budget. Meanwhile, the Agency of Education delivered pointed critique's of both chambers' approaches to education reform (color me shocked) and Ways and Means began inventorying the enormous technical to-do list that sits between Act 73 and anything resembling a workable foundation formula.

Let's walk through it.

This week in Montpelier, education governance reform took center stage, with Act 73 discussions evolving from high-level overviews last week to concrete proposals on district consolidation, shared services, and regional structures. This signals a shift toward mandatory regionalized service (or consolidation) to address equity and costs, though voluntary options and rural safeguards remain hotly debated. We weighed in early in the week with the letter to the House Education Committee, urging them to challenge assumptions similar to those that derailed Act 46 (the previous consolidation effort). We followed later in the week with testimony in the Senate Finance Committee about our report identifying $300 million in potential savings by consolidating Supervisory Unions (instead of districts) and taking advantage of shared services.

This week lawmakers delved deeply into education funding and reform, reflecting ongoing efforts to build a more equitable and sustainable system amid demographic challenges and a persistent spending crisis.

Here it is... the first legislative update of the year!

Lawmakers dusted off major 2025 reforms, such as last year’s landmark economic and workforce bill, S.122, which continues to steer targeted grants and training dollars to small businesses and high-demand fields, positioning Vermont to compete for workers and employers in a tight regional market. Legislators also began early discussions around how the new, long‑term CHIP infrastructure and housing finance program can be deployed on the ground. The program has the potential to channel up to $200 million per year into local infrastructure that supports new housing and grows the tax base.

This week the Judicial branch jumped on the H.1 bandwagon, saying that if the Legislature is going to exempt anyone from ethics oversight, it should be them!

The long-awaited education reform package moved out of the House Education Committee on Friday; the governance reform component is reminiscent of the Act 46. The study group the House is putting in charge is made up of the same administrators that both designed and run the current system. Do you think they're going to give us a different product this time around?

This week tensions boiled over between Governor Scott and the Legislature over the mid-year budget adjustment for FY2025. The Legislature's version of the bill faced significant opposition from Governor Scott, who criticized it as "irresponsible" spending. At the heart of the dispute is the motel voucher program, which is set to expire in April for the summer (the FY2025 budget only funded the program for families most in need through the winter months). Legislative leaders, lacking the votes to override Governor Scott’s veto, shifted focus earlier this week; they pressed the Governor to extend the motel shelter program for a subset of unhoused persons, reflecting a narrower approach to address the "immediate needs" amid budget disputes.

This week Governor Scott gave his budget address for FY2026 and we learned more details about his plan to overall Vermont's education system.

Governor Scott gave is budget address on January 28th, proposing a $9B budget for FY2026 with heavy investments in housing and other areas while simultaneously cutting taxes for the most financially vulnerable Vermonters.