Both the House and Senate Education committees are racing this week to pass out bills addressing the spending caps of Act 46 - the state's new school district consolidation law.
The goal is pass a compromise plan next week so that local school boards will have the information they need to finalize their budgets.
Here's the dilemma facing many school boards in Vermont. How can they finalize their budgets by the end of the month without knowing if the spending caps will be in place?
Nicole Mace is the executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association. She says roughly 100 school boards face a terrible choice: either cut their budgets to stay under the cap or exceed the spending threshold and pay a sizable penalty.
She says it's critical for lawmakers to repeal the caps now.
"Our hope is that districts get a clear signal by the end of two weeks that they are not going to be subject to this current provision,” Mace said.
Senate Education chairwoman Ann Cummings wants to get rid of the caps because she thinks they're affecting the quality of education.
“We repeal it,” Cummings says, “and we go forward doing our diligence as to what are the driving factors that are increasing the cost of education."
House Education chairman David Sharpe views the caps very differently. He says they're working as intended and are forcing school boards to closely examine their staffing levels.
"We know that on a statewide basis we've lost 15 percent of our students over the last decade and we've lost virtually no professional or para-professional staff. Right sizing the staff in the state is absolutely a priority." — House Education chairman David Sharpe
But Sharpe is willing to expand the caps by roughly one percent to reflect higher health care costs.
“We know that on a statewide basis we've lost 15 percent of our students over the last decade and we've lost virtually no professional or para-professional staff,” Sharpe says. ”Right sizing the staff in the state is absolutely a priority.”
Unless there's a breakthrough compromise in the next week, many school boards will be in a bind: They might have to ask voters to consider a supplemental budget at a later date.
School Boards executive director Mace says this is a recipe for disaster.
"It's very confusing to voters,” Mace says. “So to think that another vote will be practical in this year, it just puts boards and communities in a very difficult position."
The plan is for the House to pass its proposal in the next few days. The bill would then go to the Senate for its consideration.
The goal is for House and Senate leaders to quickly reach a compromise and then have both chambers take final action on the legislation by the end of next week. The big question is whether lawmakers can agree on a compromise approach.
