School Consolidation Emerges As Early Issue In The Gubernatorial Race

An education reform bill passed by lawmakers in May has become an early punching bag in the 2016 race for governor.

Democratic House Speaker Shap Smith was a leading force behind the legislation, and he’s still one of its biggest defenders. But Smith will call for tweaks to the bill when lawmakers return to Montpelier in January, and he says it’s time to revisit a controversial spending cap that would otherwise impose significant financial penalties on some districts.

Smith kicked off the last legislative session by calling for the most significant education reform proposal in recent memory. He ended it with a hard-fought win for a wide-ranging bill that he says will reduce costs and improve educational opportunities for Vermont kids.

“This is something that I’m proud of, that we led on, and was the result of years of discussion within the Legislature and outside of the Legislature,” Smith says.

The legislation, however, has come under fire from Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates. And Smith now says that lawmakers need to reconsider a controversial provision that would impose tax penalties on school districts that approve budget increases of more than 2 percent.

“I want to bring in school superintendents, school board members and citizens of this state to testify this fall in front of the Education Committee so that we’ll be ready as soon as we get back to address the concerns that have been raised,” Smith says.

Education reform is already a major issue in the race for governor. And Act 46, as the reform bill is known, looks to be the field candidates that will wage that particular battle on.

The bill is incredibly complex, as is just about anything having to do with education in Vermont. But it sets out to increase the size of school governance units by providing carrots to districts that get with the program, and sticks for districts that don’t. 

Smith says he’s unsure at this point whether he’ll call for a revision to the cap, or to eliminate it altogether. But the proposed alteration won’t silence the critics, many of whom will share the stage with Smith at candidate debates in the coming months.

Democrat Matt Dunne, a former Windsor County senator, had already criticized the punitive spending cap.

“The cost of health care is likely to go up by almost 8 percent, and in some of those smaller schools, losing just one or two students would send them immediately through that threshold, and lead to much higher property taxes,” Dunne says.

Democratic candidate Sue Minter is also a critic of the cap. She says she appreciates lawmakers’ willingness to revisit the caps. But she says school boards need clarity now on what kind of spending cap, if any, they need to contend with.

“Obviously if they don’t convene until January and school boards need to make their budget decisions now, they’re going to be in a difficult situation,” Minter says.

Dunne and Minter also both say that Act 46 also moves too swiftly, and that it sets deadlines for mergers that might cause harm for the districts that have to comply with them. 

“We need to slow down the pressure of this conversation, because these are very significant decisions, and communities need to have real conversations over time," Minter says. "So I would say the timeline is also a problem for me in terms of the pressure for decision making.” 

No one has had harsher words for Act 46 than Republican candidate Bruce Lisman.

“I think it should be repealed,” Lisman says.

Lisman has called for a more systemic remake of the education system – he wants to replace the statewide financing model with a more regionalized version. Lisman says top-down mandates in Act 46 will take power from local voters without giving them much in return.

“There’s not research that says this is going to save gobs of money. And there’s definitely not research that says this will improve the quality of our classroom results,” Lisman says.

Lisman’s opponent in the GOP primary has a far brighter view of Act 46. Lt. Gov. Phil Scott says lawmakers need to revise portions of the legislation, to ensure that mergers don’t result in loss of school choice for students that have it now.

If a district doesn’t operate an elementary, middle or high school, then students in those communities can attend a school of their choosing, and the fate of that school choice has become a focal point in the debate over Act 46.

The State Board of Education ruled last month that if a district with school choice merges with a district that operates schools for grades that weren’t previously served, then students that formerly had school choice would be required to attend class at institutions run in the newly merged entity.

Scott says districts that have school choice should be able to retain it regardless of the options available in the newly merged entities.

Scott says he doesn’t hold out much hope that Act 46 will reduce costs anytime soon. But he says that if the choice issue is resolved, it provides a solid foundation for the future.

“I think that we’ve started Act 46 and we need to continue down that road, not throw too many things at it all at once,” Scott says.

Dunne has also raised concerns a provision in Act 46 that calls for new school governance units to contain at least 900 students. Dunne says for some communities, 900 might be too big. For other, he says it might not be big enough.

Smith says that the 900-student figure isn’t a mandate, and that merger proposals not meeting that threshold can seek accommodations. But Dunne says he doesn’t think districts should have to seek special dispensation.

Smith says the value of Act 46 is evident in the conversations already going on between neighboring districts contemplating new partnerships. He says the state’s financing system helps ensure funding equity. But he says fiscal constraints in some districts mean that students aren’t getting equal access to education opportunity.

“Act 46 was really about providing opportunities for kids around the state, and making sure that kids were getting the same opportunities even though they were on different sides of imaginary lines on a map,” Smith says.

Smith says the elimination of the spending cap might undo whatever immediate cost-containment measures the legislation was designed to deliver. But he says the law will yield savings, and opportunities, over time.

“My view is that Act 46 is a historic piece of legislation that will in the long run give a lot of opportunities to Vermont’s kids,” Smith says. “And I think that we need to let to work.”