Well, hello everyone and welcome to a conversation on education funding policy here in the state of Vermont. My name is state representative Emma Mulvaney Stanek and I am a Burlington state rep who represents a portion of the old north end and the new north end. I'm joined here tonight with a several other co host who are both state legislators and advocacy organizations interested in this issue. And I'll be queuing up kind of the purpose of this meeting and then letting our co host introduce themselves briefly, we're really excited folks are here tonight we're recording on CCTV, but you really appreciate so this information can get out further and wider. As this impacts the whole state of Vermont. So, very briefly, I besides streaming and recording I want to invite participants to leave their cameras on if they wish, otherwise you can turn them on when you when you speak later on in the discussion. We really want to make sure this space is a space that's a one for dialogue and not debate and certainly one that's also safe so the facilitator in me is going to share three really basic group roles I'm going to ask everyone to abide by as we engage tonight. Those three simple ones are to think first on who speaks first. This is one where I like to offer folks to think about that we live in a culture where some people in our community have been marginalized and devalue because of their identity. However, if possible, please check in with yourself first and see it, let the response first to a question or prompt be from a person most impacted by oppression and bias in our culture. This includes youth, indigenous people, people of color, LGBTQ plus folks, women and gender non conforming people. One rule I asked folks to think about is that we are living in a zoom life here. So here's a little technical stuff. Please use your raise hand function. If you'd like to speak, especially when you get into the dialogue function and stay on mute so we can minimize distractions in the background noise I mean I think everyone's pretty much memorizes at this point in 2021 but just a quick reminder. And if the space becomes unsafe for any reason if we have folks in here who are intending to disrupt, then we will remove those people from the room but if the space is unsafe for you I encourage you to turn your camera off, mute it, and we will the facilitators of the space make the room safe again and then let folks know with a broadcast message that you can come back in. And third one is please expect differences. This is a policy debate there are strong opinions sometimes on issues and I asked people to listen to understand not to debate or or outmaneuver someone's comment that they share. We are hoping to educate people to learn and to understand the nuance of this issue tonight. Sound good.  Okay, great. So briefly tonight's event so Ed's funding in Vermont education funding. We have one most equitable systems in this in the country and we have one of the more complicated ones. So tonight's mission Liz Curry who is a wonderful constituent of mine here in Chittenden six two and I began discussing, wouldn't it be great if we could try to help folks grapple with this issue and understand it a little bit more deeply so our first goal tonight is to deepen your understanding of the education funding system. Our second one is to specifically focus on the emergency emerging policy conversation around this with changes to the formula formulas that inform the Ed funding system this includes concepts you might have heard. Well, like the per pupil weights, a cataclysm aid and the UVM study these are just a few things floating out there that we'll talk about tonight. And also the task force that's been working this fall on this issue. The third and final piece is we want to make sure there's time for discussion and questions and insights from folks convened tonight not only legislators but all of you as our mentors and how we go forward with this policy discussion, because legislators do better policy decision making when we hear from folks. So that is our purpose. Thanks for coming along. And now I'm going to pass the mic just to introduce have each of our co host tonight introduce themselves so we have a few state reps on tonight, and also writes in democracy and we'll introduce a couple more go guests in just a minute so I'm going to pass the mic to Tonya Tonya come off and you and introduce yourself. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I am representative Tonya Behovsky, I am also a representative in Chittin County, I am in Chittin and eight to know I'm an eight one. And that is Essex town primarily with little bits of rural Essex and little bits of the village of Essex Junction. And I'm really excited to be here to have this conversation as a social worker who actually works in schools and really sees the impact of the inequitable inequitability in our funding streams firsthand. Thanks Tonya Taylor. Hi everyone, I'm representative Taylor small from the great city of when you see Chittin and six seven because I still do have the river silver of Burlington, and also excited to be engaged in this conversation this evening understanding the way that our people weights directly impact when you see school districts and school districts that have English language learners predominantly so looking forward to hearing what everyone on the panel is going to bring forward. Thanks for hosting this Emma. Hi, I'm representative Taylor and representative Brian China will be here in just a couple more minutes has a work obligation will be here soon that's our other official legislator co host, and then Dan do you want to speak just briefly of rights and democracy and who that organization is. I'm Dan fingers rights and democracy Vermont organizing director rights and democracy is a six year old member based organization that works on social justice climate justice and participation justice, and we're really excited to make sure that community members and parents voices are included in these very complicated conversations but very important and I appreciate being able to go with this. I'm Dan, and we will hear very shortly from Stephanie you who's from public assets Institute so her introduction is going to be in just a minute as well as Liz Curry. Not only one of my favorite constituents but actually also former school commissioner from here in Burlington in just a minute. So before that, just so I can officially pass the mic. You provide a little bit of an oversight on act 59, just for a few minutes to help folks understand at home who haven't been in the legislature what that enabling legislation was around this task force, enabling this task force to be in formation and then a little bit of how those all come together. This bill was a bill we passed the 2021 session. It's purpose and you can find this on their website which I'll put into the chat in a few minutes. The purpose of this from the enabling legislation is to help the state legislature format for the sorry for the task force to form an action plan and propose legislation for the legislature to ensure that all public school has equitable access to educational opportunities in the state of Vermont, and they are charged with making a set of recommendations on how any proposed legislation or this action plan by December 15 of this year. So right before the legislature reconvene in January. They were also directed to use elements of the UVM per pupil waiting factor study, which was something that in 2019 the legislature funded and enabled to dive deeper into how we fund education today I'll say a little bit more about the UVM study and just a minute. The task force has eight members on it, there are four senators and four state representatives, and they're the committee membership is based on committee assignments standing committee assignment from finance and tax committees and education committees on the house and Senate side. Sometimes I've been asked who made that decision that appointment was made by the speaker of the house and on the Senate side the Senate committee on committees that's how those those folks were selected. A high note since I am in Burlington and most folks who are co hosting or from Burlington or sorry from Chittinac County, there are no Chittinac County members on this statewide task force and I just make that point as a representative from this county, who we have a handful of districts who really have a very diverse needs compared to others in the state not to say we all have different needs, but it was interesting choice just in terms of committee composition and perspective. The legislature, as I mentioned before in 2019 forms or enabled a study to be drafted created sorry missing the verb there but a study to be. Well I'll just skip over that create they said they enabled and funded a study for the legislature to better understand the current funding formulas that are used to wait economic disadvantage students English language learners secondary level students which are high school students for the purpose of calculating the equalized per pupil figure, and whether or not Vermont really needed new or other factors to better inform that calculation. So that was the charge of this UVM per pupil weighted study was a peer peer reviewed study done by more than just UVM professors and academics. So they released the study in late 2019. And a little thing called COVID hit so the legislature actually wasn't able to do much of this study in the 2020 session. The major findings in the study was that the current per pupil weights are not based in strong evidence of the need of the current needs the modern day needs of what it takes to educate students with these identities. So as I mentioned before, English language learners, economically disadvantaged students and some other categories that that they noted in the study. So they said updates were needed and one in particular was adding a rule a role weighted factor for students who are in very rural districts in the state. A couple more things I just want to say on this before I pass it over to Liz and stuff is the current task force that's been meeting is charged with looking at the weighted calculations looking at excess spending thresholds these are some terms that probably stuff will change again. So it's not just the per pupil weights that they're looking at I want folks to know that. So they're also looking at excess spending thresholds yield calculations and how categorical aid is used to help address differences across districts districts still have local decision making powers on how they they move money. And they also are looking at how to better define these categories and when calculating equalized per pupils spending so that there's a better basis for saying why is there why is the weighted formula such for the folks who are economically disadvantaged the kids from experiencing poverty or English language learners that there's an actual rhyme to a reason on those calculations. Their last piece they're incorporating in 2018 was an act called Act 173 which made changes to the special education funding. And so they're incorporating that into their work as well. Going forward. These are some of the policy considerations and challenges that will start to seed our conversation tonight. So we have districts in the state with very diverse needs like Burlington and Winooski who have a lower tax capacity that they need to fund what actually is needed for these students to be successful. So this is might be a term folks have heard called underweighting. So basically they they there's an increased need they need more services more ability to raise money to order to really meet the needs of their of their student populations. Other districts in other parts of the state have a lower tax base and a lower tax capacity to fund their schools. And that's either because they have higher poverty rates a lower grand list values etc that go into their what they are able to work with and a change in the formula. If we were to make policy changes could increase their tax capacity and they could choose to lower their taxes for example for folks who are having trouble paying their tax bills or spend more on their local students. And then we have a third kind of general area where districts where districts are more homogenous with their student populations and may have adequate tax capacity it's a fun what their student needs most at this point. And so they they may choose to do more or less but there's really you know very this is where all the differences really start to emerge around different different needs within different school districts in Vermont. So the questions to throw out tonight really to start grappling with is how do we create equitable outcomes statewide with these differences knowing we have such diverse needs across districts. And that truly I hope everyone on the call tonight. We really are here for the equitable education and successful outcomes for all students no matter where they're going to school in Vermont. And how do we address the wide range of spending per the rate as sorry, how do we address the wide range of spending per people across districts because the student population is very so much. And then finally, because the whole system of education is a complex one. How do we find short term solutions and opportunities, while also looking at larger policy questions here about really looking at a more equitable way to raise money for education the state of Vermont. The task force meets again for the public hearing on October 29. And so if any of this is stuff that you want to follow more deeply again I'll put up the task force committee website into the chat, and you can participate in the next public hearing if you so choose. So thanks for coming my Ted talk that I hope I didn't get graded on that because that is a first term legislators attempt to try to talk about education funding and moving parts. And I'm sure staff or Liz or other folks tonight will correct anything I didn't get 100% correct there. But that was my attempt to get you up to speed on where act 59 is at as quitting the task force. And so I'm going to pass it over to Liz Curry, and local neighbor who will take us into the next part of our discussion, our information sharing. Hey everyone thanks a lot for being here and you know I really want to appreciate my representative and the other representatives all the legislators that are on this call because I spent seven years on the Burlington School Board and what became increasingly clear to me is that school boards hands are really tied by legislative action. There have been an incredible number of changes to education funding. Over the past eight years with a lot of different access and acts that a CT, not a fc, but we did have to act as a result of the back 46 so anyway, that the legislative role is so huge more than most other issues the legislative role in, you know, school funding is huge. That being said, there's this dynamic of maintaining local control. So that creates a lot of the tension and having legislators like Emma, who are paying attention means that I think we get ultimately we'll get better outcomes from conversations like this. There are very few people who can articulate the funding system in Vermont, even if you know you could understand it intuitively. There are very few people and staff who is one of those she's the deputy director of public assets Institute, which has focus. The deputy director was part of the architect of the original x 60 and 68 so they are deeply steeped in education funding for Vermont and steps background is in fiscal analysis for the public sector financial analysis for the private sector she's been in the executive branch of the state in another state. So, she just brings a incredible amount of not only analytical knowledge but ability to really break it down for us. So, thank you staff for being here tonight to do this, and we're really looking forward to understanding more. Thanks Liz and thanks for that thanks for that introduction I always appreciate conversations with you and other school board members from that for that perspective because I think it's easy to get sort of stuck at the state policy level and kind of forget what it looks like for the people actually implementing some of the stuff. I'm a parent in the Burlington school district I have a kid at IA and a kid at hunt so you know I'm also looking at it from that perspective. And I'll try to make this not to Burlington centric although I do have a little bit of information that's that's related to Burlington. But, you know this is sort of the quick version there's a lot of details, as both MMS said this is a complicated system and there's a lot, you know there's a lot of detail but I'll try to sort of hit the highlights and I think the thing we can do is if you have questions put them in the chat and we'll try to get to them. And if not we can kind of cover them in the discussion part of this. So I'm going to, I think I have the ability to share my screen let's see. I just have a few slides. I think that hopefully are helpful. So let's see if that we can bring those up. All right. So a little bit about public assets briefly, which is more a nonprofit, nonpartisan fiscal policy think tank and Montpelier. As I said we do a lot of work on on education funding. Partly because it's really important but also because it's sort of the biggest thing that the state does right in terms of dollars dedicated. So, there's three things that I really want to try to do tonight. Here are the goals. I'm going to try this quick overview of the funding system and talk about sort of the basic level of statewide equity that we achieved with that 60 and 68. And that that will include a little bit of a detour about the Burlington reassessment because I think that sort of illustrates how people interact with the system and also sort of how any town when they reassess what sort of the impacts are on folks and then the second thing is to really talk about how these cost adjustment tools work. And then there's the public play piece and the people waiting piece. And then, and, and third just briefly kind of touch on I think Emma did a good job summing it up but you know sort of what the waiting study was was charged with doing. So, when we talk about the school funding system there's really there's four main things that you know that I want you to take away from this. And, and for those of you who are familiar with Brigham we always sort of put up a couple Brigham quotes because I think they really kind of tell you what we're trying to accomplish with with the system. But, but the first thing to know is that Vermont is one of only two states that has a statewide school tax system. And I don't think this this really gets talked about enough because all resources are pulled into one big pot, which is the Education Fund. There's three major revenue sources for the Education Fund residential school taxes, non residential taxes and then consumption taxes mostly the all the sales tax, a chunk of the meals and rooms tax and then a few other odds and ends including, including lottery, all the lottery proceeds. So I think whether or not it's a statewide system might not seem that important, but especially to the taxpayer who doesn't necessarily necessarily care where the bill is coming from or who's billing them. But, but it's important for two reasons the first thing is that all school districts are drawing on the state's non residential property tax, all the states non residential property tax, which wasn't true before 1997.  And the second thing I think to think about is that the second reason why the statewide funding system is important is because we're all collectively raising all the money for all of the kids. The first rates are set based on the total amount we need statewide, and then they're calibrated, and this is where I think a lot of this discussion is focused. They're calibrated, so that each town's tax effort corresponds to its per people spending. So what that means is in Vermont, the student funding is less dependent on the wealth of the community. So no town is funding its own schools through homestead taxes. So we're all getting a mix of all these revenues from education funds, which has allowed us to achieve to achieve this sort of as, as Emma was saying sort of a much more equitable funding system than most states have right it's it's better than what we had 25 years ago and, and other states are sort of still in the phase of being sued by districts are being sued by students because their funding system seems unfair and isn't working so. So what are the basic level of statewide equity that we talk about all students are sharing all the resources and all resident taxpayers have to make the same same effort have the same tax rate to get the same per people spending. So we're taking this sort of statewide view in the interest of equity, recognizing that when we do leave things 100% local that is the town to town disparities do tend to get pretty big. The second thing is that we have local control and this is where I think Liz mentioned sort of this balancing act that we're that we're trying to achieve we're leaving the decisions about how much to spend and how and what to spend it on in the hands of communities. So we still have variations among districts, while we're all paying for all the kids, we trust each community to know best with what it needs for its kids. So Vermont's funding system unlike a lot of other states supports whatever level of funding that voters choose a lot of other states has to have a foundation formula which is essentially trying to get to a floor of spending. So the locals raise some money, then the state adds whatever aid it needs to get you to sort of this floor of spending it's a fixed amount. Vermont system supports whatever level of funding the voters choose, but residents about districts are paying higher taxes for higher per people spending. So, second thing, that's local control. The third thing is that again those rates for the residential slice the of the pot are determined each year they change each year based on your per people spending that you decide on your budget on how many. So towns with more per people spending towns with higher per people spending have higher tax rates, those with lower per people spending have lower rates and those with the same have same rates. It sounds simple. And, but it wasn't true before 1997. Right. So, before xxt, you had, you could have these high tax rates and not a lot of money to spend per pupil, or you could have a low tax rate and a lot of money to spend per people and it just depended on the property wealth in your town. So it was sort of all over the place. But since xxt, we've had this coherent relationship between per people spending and property taxes right so any town that spending $15,000 for people is going to have the same tax rate, and it moves together higher higher your spending higher your tax rate. So, so you're getting the same payment from the Ed fund for the same tax rate regardless of how much you are as a town are contributing to Ed fund, for example, Burlington 4000 plus students, Roxbury 88 students, both have the same tax rate. Clearly the amounts that we're contributing to the Ed fund are different, or we're still getting the same amount in education payments and per people spend. So this is really a big step forward for students and taxpayers. The fourth thing is that resident taxpayers can pay their school taxes in one of two ways, either based on their property value or based on their income. And for most for monitors, paying based on income is a better deal. But for those at the higher end of the income scale, paying based on property values the cheaper option. So regardless of how you pay your taxes are moving up and down with your per people spend your tax rates. So we're really trying to strike this balance between state and local control. We have a statewide pot, it's state taxes but then there's this local control where local voters get to decide.  So we do have to kind of dig into a little bit more the details to sort of go over the Burlington reassessment piece. I don't want to spend too much time on this but I do just because this is what happens when any town reassesses but I think Burlington felt particularly dramatic because there's a lot of people, because it had been 15 years. So I just sort of want to go through a little bit of what's happening there. So, as I said I live in Burlington, I experienced the reappraisal to. I'm just going to establish that most residents are paying their, their school taxes based on income, but some are also paying based on property value and there's some who kind of have a slice of each. So, when the property value changes their, their school tax bill will change, but I just want to be clear that from the state's perspective, it's not 15 years from a school tax perspective right it's not 15 years of changes in one go. The state is recalculating that fair market value of the total property in all Vermont towns. So what you're paying in school taxes is more or less keeping up with market changes, right so it's not on the school tax piece of it. So the state is applying the school tax rate to what the state sees as the total fair market value in the town, whether Burlington or anywhere else. And this determines how much the town has to pay into the ed fund. So the state's been up, been updating Burlington's aggregate property value all along, even though the actual assess values of the properties are not are not changing for the on paper value is not changing. So then there's this technical fix that the town has to do. And again this is true of all towns. The technical fix is that because the town is sending your bill based on your assess value and not a fair market value amount. So the tax rate to get the same amount of money that they would get if, if they were basing it on the fair market value rate so this so this is sort of a shorthand example. So if the state is saying that all of Burlington property is worth $100 million, and the tax rate is $1 50 then they're saying Burlington has to contribute $1.5 million to that fund. The numbers are not the right numbers but you get the idea. So, but if the local assess value is a total of $95 million, we still have to contribute $1.5 million. So we have to set a tax rate that gets us $1.5 million. Right. So that ratio, the ratio of the assess value to the fair market value is what we call the common level of appraisal or the CLI. And it varies from town to town depending on when they lasted and appraisal, and, and how much property values have changed and because Burlington had gone a pretty long time 15 years. You know that CLI had dropped to below 80%. So you see so that's a big jump I think in a lot of the, and the difference between the assess value and the fair market value. But again our school tax bills have mostly been coming up been keeping up with it. And I think that the fact that the state is not changing the value of each individual property is just sort of estimating the overall change in the town. So when a town does a reappraisal, it's really it's a truing up of the state and sort of a reestablishing the base value of each property. And what can happen and what did happen in Burlington is that not all properties increased in value by the same amount. And the seven days credit for this great map I think in an interactive map so you can go sort of look at all the neighborhoods and sort of street by street. And it shows the difference in growth in the different neighborhoods so you can see how much it varied from area to area. So again, while that total amount that Burlington owed in school taxes the Ed fund might not have changed a lot. What what individuals are paying what changed a lot. Again the way the system works is that you pay based on whichever is better for you your income or your property. But there's also a few additional quirks in the system that are likely to increase the number of residents who have jumps in taxes and this I think I think this is a particular problem in Burlington but also and you know and some other towns in the state. So, I hope that this table helps explain what I what I what these other quirks are. So what you're looking at is household income and house site value and then what that means. So both of these pieces sort of come into play your household income in your house site value. So for those with incomes under 90,000 and house values under 400,000 and those with incomes between 90,000 and about 137,000 and house values up to 225. They're only paying an income based tax. So a property reappraisal is not going to change their taxes for for household incomes under 90,000 but house values over 400,000, and those incomes between 90,000 and 137 and house value over 225. They're paying the income portion, and a slight property portion based on the what the amount of the value over that threshold. So whatever is over 400,000, you're paying a property tax piece. So your household incomes over about and this is Burlington specific numbers because the kind of tipping point varies based on the town because the tax rates very town to town. So, but it's but it's roughly around that 136137,000. So over 136,000 give or take, no matter what your house site value is, you're paying all property based on your house site value. So, so you can see how this create how these thresholds kind of create some additional groups that were particularly affected in Burlington. So Burlington's median household income is around 51,000, although that includes renters so it's probably so homeowners probably skew higher than that. But, and the median house price, and these aren't final numbers because there's the appeal process is still happening. The median home price jump from 237,000 to about 380,000. So you can see that there's like it's likely that there's a group under 90,000 who may have crossed that 400,000 threshold, or people with incomes between 90,000 and 137,000 who crossed that 225 threshold. And what that means is both those groups are picking up a property tax portion of a bill that they've never had before that they didn't have to pay previously. So we don't we couldn't get numbers because the Burlington the public Burlington data had some problems. So, we can't get numbers on how many households are in those groups, but I think there's it's likely that there are households in those groups. And it might not be a huge difference right if your value is 401,000 you're only paying it on that 1000. But if your house value jumped from 380 to 500. It's a pretty big jump. And, and I'm not even going to touch the municipal side of that because that's a whole other story and I do recognize that as a taxpayer in Burlington that you what you see on the bill reflects both of those pieces so it can be hard to kind of keep those those pieces separated. But that's how the school piece of it works. And as an aside, all this sort of complicated explanation of how the CLA works and how the property value piece works would be unnecessary if we got rid of the two parallel systems and just had an income entirely income based system but that's a different conversation. So that's sort of the detour into the Burlington. And really any towns reassessment of what happens. So I want to come back to the two cost adjustment tools which I know is a lot of what people are interested in tonight. So we really think of this as the second level of equity. So on top of this sort of statewide level playing field which is you know we all share the resources we have this this one big pod. We have these two cost adjustment tools categorical aid and people weights. And the purpose of those is to recognize these costs that differ from district to district that are out of district control, and so to sort of smooth that cost so that all districts have the resources they need for their kids whatever those needs might be. And these tools really aren't meant to be static they're meant to be responsive to changing needs and to be recalibrated as needed. So some some quick definitions. Categorical aid is money for districts either for categories of specific costs or for categories of need where waiting is used to adjust each district's people count, which impacts your per people spending and therefore your residential tax rates. So currently we use I think somebody mentioned this we use categorical aid for three things, special education transportation and small schools. I'm going to sort of set aside a lot of the policy debate and can and complications around special ed funding and sort of talk about how it's mostly operated over the years, similar to small school the small schools grant which also has been kind of in a, and a couple years of upheaval over the last couple of years. But the idea is that transportation and special ed are reimbursement for specific costs, where small schools are sort of a category of need. Right. So, if your school qualifies you get the money, you can do what you want with money. And then the way that waiting works is that it's applied to these students and these facing these different and these different categories as MS said English language learners economic disadvantage and then the grade levels. There's also pre K are also weighted slightly less than one so that's another piece to. But this isn't I hope this equation is something that we look at. I think that sort of just helps people understand where the two different tools come into the process. So I'll walk you through this. And, and you so so we all vote on our school budgets on town meeting day. We approve a total budget but that's not the total budget is not what's setting our town's tax rates. We take first we take these costs off the top, which include categorical aid and some other adjustments federal federal aid and a few other things. And so that leaves us with this sort of bottom part of the of the pie. And which is the district's education spending. And this is where people which is typically around 85% of the budget, although again, that varies from district to district because of how dependent they are in category or or other things. But so this is where people waiting comes in. So we divide the education spending by the number of equalized pupils, which is the number of pupils. After waiting adjustments are made and then equalized across the state. So that gives us each districts per people spending, which then gives us the, the resident, the residential tax rates both the income and the property rates. So, per people spending is really a way of comparing apples to apples across districts. So how do they just how is the district spending compare after you set aside the size of the district, and the differences. The differences in need across the districts. So again, I think it's helpful to really think of these as two tools that we can use to make tweets the state level statewide level, where we can sort of take this statewide look and and try to smooth differences across across districts, while still leaving most of the decision about what just how much has been and what to spend it on at the local level. So, I think I'm a gave a pretty good overview of what the waiting study called for, I will just add. And again, this is sort of you don't have to read all the language but I think the point is is that the waiting study has been a lot of the focus but there were a couple other questions that were also raised in x 70 x 173. As, as Emma noted the special ed census grants, and then there's sort of this broad number two which is methods, other than per people waiting that that could have an effect on quality and education and equity of educational outcomes. So, so that's really sort of the quick the quick version of that. And I think part of the reason that act 173 was sort of putting these things together is because there is a lot of interaction between among these things. And so really felt, you know, wanted to look at the whole picture of special ed kids facing poverty, English language learners sort of put put it all together and see what that added up to. So again, I think Vermont has this very solid education funding system with sort of this baseline level of equity for students and taxpayers balance with this local control has these two tools to make these tweaks as needed. So it is a complicated system. And I think for, for my perspective the critical finding of the waiting study is I think something that everybody agrees on, which is that they're a kid that we know they're kids that are not getting the resources that they need. Right. And so that's something we need to fix. So I'm, you know, I'm happy to listen and participate as needed or take questions and listen to the rest of the discussion but I'd also just point you we do have a number of sort of. Kind of one pagers or graphics or different things about the education funding system on our website. And we also are working on this Vermont education equity project with voices for Vermont's children. So there's a website there as well that has resources if people are interested. And I, I will haven't looked at the chat so I'm happy to have questions came up or anything else. And stuff, no questions came up, at least for now. So I think we can pass it over to Liz. Thank you so much. I always really appreciate how graphic, your presentations are to help explain all the moving parts and I appreciate that last one in particular around the moving pie. I don't know you probably have a cooler name for that graphic. So Liz, I'm going to pass it over to you. Great. Thanks. And I just wanted to throw this up on the screen so people could actually see in Burlington, the calculation that step was referring to when looking at the 20, physically or 2020 budget or 21, I'm not sure, sorry. Essentially, for Burlington, we had the education spending, which is, as Steph said, less than our budget, because we start with the total cost of delivering education and we deduct special ed grants, federal grants, EL federal grants, and other things that I am not remembering. And so this is our education spending, which is what we get from the state ed fund. Our equalized per people count has been around 4000 give or take less than 100 students for a long time for like four or five years equalize people count meaning that's not how many students are in the district. That's the number of students that fall into these buckets that get weighted. So you end up with a higher count than actual bodies because some students have higher needs than others. And then you get the homestead dollar yield which is a calculation that basically says this is what we need. I'm not even like that's one of those things I can't accurately define, but that's what we'll get from the state and determine our tax rate. So that's the whole appraisal that Steph was talking about. We all communities are assumed to be at 100% of appraised value based on the state tax assessment is if you took all the property in the state and said it's all should be at 100% of market value or appraised value. But states fall below, I mean cities, municipalities fall below that when they don't reassess and so the state formula makes up for that gap. And that's how you arrive at a tax rate that compensates for that. So that's kind of what it looks like in Burlington recently. So the only other things that I was going to kind of just bring up are just those policy questions around what we're talking about in terms of people waiting versus categorical grants. And there's, you know, from my perspective, I plugged into this issue in 2018 when the original Act 173 was written that then directed the legislature to study the waiting formula. And the formula has been embedded in in the education funding system since Act 1668. And so that is something we've grappled with for a long time, and as well as categorical grants. So, you know, the policy question I have is which approach is in keeping with the intent of equity. And why does the answer change depending on whether you're in an urban or rural district. And this gives you an idea of like in terms of framing. Many districts across the state have a different student student body. And so equity looks differently when you when you are looking at a statewide picture. In Burlington, it's our commissioner's job to represent our needs. So that is the local control piece. Each school board has to represent its district needs. And there's an element of parochialism in that. And then there's statewide actors who will look out at the state and look at equity differently and that might be organizations like rights and democracy or PAI that might say, you know, we are concerned about equity for everyone and approaching it in a different way. So that's kind of where some of the tension comes into this conversation. So those are awesome locally really want to advocate for what's going to work for our kids. And statewide you're going to have districts that don't have our experience or our challenges, and they may have other experiences and challenges they have to solve. But the question is, which approach is in keeping with the intent of equity in the original funding system. I have one question in the chat and I also before we move into the dialogue I want to also just invite. I see one Burlington school commissioner current school commissioner on so in just a moment I'm going to see if there's anything they would like to add locally but Steph I wonder if I can give this question to you. So we've asked I'm curious about the non residential tax rate current use and other similar exemptions. Not sure those are the right terms and around education tax reform and so Ruth I don't know if you want to come off mute and ask more specifically about that or if you're just wondering what those are and how those are in play. Yeah, just wondering briefly about those things. One of the questions how do we decide what the tax base is and who pays what. So, I think. So there's a couple of additional provisions in the education funding system that I think are relevant so so first let me start with just the reason that only the residential tax rates move with this per people spending is because those are the, those are the residential budget. There might be somebody who owns non residential property in Burlington who's also a resident in Burlington, but they're, they're voting because they're resident Burlington and that that's why it affects them. So the way the non residential piece works is that it's one flat statewide rate. So, so all non residential property is subject to the same statewide and that doesn't vary because they're not voting on the school budgets they don't get to decide those those property owners don't get to decide if they want to spend more or less on on school so so we just set a fixed rate. But the other piece of the funding system that affects this is that all of those pieces have to move proportionally together. So, the income tax rate for residents the property tax rate for residents and the non residential property tax rates has to move together because the idea is that we can't just say, well we want to spend some more money and we're going to put it all in the non residential tax rate. The idea is that you know those pieces are sort of moving in conjunction. So if overall spending goes up, both those pieces have to go up proportionally. So I think so it is so there is a sort of tie in on the non residential piece. And the the current use piece and you know I think it's sort of the bigger question of sort of how do we value property, who, who do we include in the, in the, in the tax base. And you know there has been some debate over, you know, so, so when we say non residential the definition of the residential property.   So if you have additional land beyond that you're paying something else again I don't want to get too, too deep into the details but I think these are good questions and I think the task force is, as, as Emma said initially doing a good job thinking through, not just sort of what, how, how you change the weights or if you change the weights but also what are the definitions and the terms that we're throwing around here. And until Liz's point, I would even go back further. But these weights were in place before Act 60, and nobody quite, you know, nobody quite knows where they came from. And I will say, you know, one of the things that's interesting about sort of, and please cut me off as I'm talking too much. But the, but the one of the things that's unique about Vermont system is because there's variable spending across districts. The weights apply to different numbers, unlike in a foundation formula system which is what we have in a lot of states. The weight is being applied to a fixed amount. So if you have a point to five weight for poverty which many, which others, many other states do a similar range, it's being applied to a fixed amount, as opposed to in Vermont where it's being applied to a variable amount. So, there's a lot of questions in there but I hope that's helpful. And I just want to say that as a new legislator I've probably been through four to five different education funding sessions and I'm still picking up pieces as I hear them. So I think one of the most important things as we grapple on a statewide level about what changes do we do is to really make sure that for monitors have all the, all the information they need to follow along and really feel informed about what, again, what, how do we fund today's for students based on who's in the schools today and what the needs are today based on what we know. Mike I wasn't able to chat you because you're calling in on a phone Mike Fisher is one of the current school board members here in Burlington and I just wanted to briefly just acknowledge you. Mike and I do want to move us into a dialogue with folks on the phone because I'm sorry in the meeting shortly because they've been so patient and I want to make sure we hear from folks but Mike is there anything pressing from the Burlington side of things you just want to throw out there that Liz or others haven't mentioned yet. I just want to thank you for and the other representatives for for bringing this together. As anybody who's just diving into this can hear it is education funding is extremely complex and and I appreciate what Liz says about we're all bringing our own perspectives to this. And I think me personally the complexity is part of the problem and and I appreciate the task force trying to look at this holistically, but every time we, we look at an aspect or someone looks at an aspect, it just adds more complexity to the conversation and so that's part of the challenge is to make sense and look at it holistically as a whole as to we I think we agree everyone who's been looking at it this is that something needs to be fixed. There is there's a fault in the system that the system is inequitable. And so looking at how to solve it in a way that makes sense for the entire state I think is what we're all trying to do. So thanks for being here. Really appreciate everyone's attendance so we're going to pass it the facilitation mic over to Brian China representative Brian China who represents another part of the old north end who agreed to facilitate the dialogue portion of this. So Brian I'm going to pass it over to you if you're ready. And Brian's going to help just remind us that we want to have this be a dialogue that debate and really just on earth people's thoughts on this so Brian going to pass it over to you just to help us guide us through our last bit of time together. Um, so I wanted to quickly look at the just review the ground rules again. Emma did you text them to me or email them to me. You know that I can read. Yep okay I can read them over. I do I got you don't worry. I'll put two questions out there for people to consider and then I'll explain how I'm going to kind of manage the order so go ahead. Excellent great and reminder folks can come off camera if they like when they speak or for the whole discussion and be great to see people's faces but it is challenged by choice so the three very brief reminders about the group rules would consider who speaks first so this is just a reminder of folks who have marginalized identities it's great to make space for their participation first zoom life here so raise your hand if you'd like to jump in and stay muted otherwise. You can also use the chat and then finally please expect differences in the policy debates and try to listen to understand versus debate the issue. Thank you. So, if you would like to say something you can raise your hand. You could raise your zoom hand, you could raise your living flesh and blood hand. If you have a phone hand from an athletic game you can wave it you could wave a flag. Right in the chat that you want to speak if we don't see you, and if worse comes to worse and you're being totally ignored. You could say, I'm trying to raise my hand and no one's acknowledging me. So we'll do our best to keep track of that. The best thing might be zoom hands and I did I see a hand no all right. So there's two questions that I was asked to pose you don't have to answer these is just sort of to, to sort of stimulate the discussion. So the first one is that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman, nor an empire discuss. No, I'm kidding. That's an old Saturday Night Live joke. What are ways to advance policy that do not divide Vermont communities for those underweighted and those overweighted. What are ways to speak to the value of advancing policy that benefits equitable education outcomes for all students, knowing that that doesn't always mean the same dollar amount for each kid. So, would anyone like to start set barb Wilson I see yes okay barb Wilson, please, please go right ahead. Hi there. Thank you so much for putting this on now. And Stephanie your presentation was awesome. I'm learning more and more about the whole educational funding. One of the concerns that I have as I follow the waiting study is that I think it could have if implemented based on the report and the study and I know the task force is looking at this and I have provided them comments as well. It could have unintended consequences, because it does so much at the district level so I happen to be part of a town showroom Vermont, who's part of Addison Central, where you have a more affluent town Middlebury. And we yet have towns such as showroom, who basically have high poverty rates, and also have actually we've grown, you know, we've worked hard at getting people to come to our town so we've actually grown 40% over the next several years. But we would actually lose a lot. If the waiting study was implemented as I understand that and we would actually lose our small school grant because we're in a more, you know, wealthy district. And, and I really get that we need to be more equitable how we spend the money, but I also think we also have to look at the social economic impacts of what might happen to some of our small schools. And I think it will be a driver, you know, to close those schools because they're going to have less money available and our middle school kids are on the bus an hour and a half. Already, and I can't imagine having our elementary kids having that same situation. And I, you know, so that's just a real concern I have I would much rather see a more income tax based kind of tax as well. So anyway, just my two cents here. Thank you Barb. Thank you. So that representative, Tonya Vyhovsky's hand is raised. If you'd like to go next. Thank you representative China. One of the things that the question raises for me and Barb actually your comment raises as well as the importance of talking about these things together, you know how we from the system and how we spend the money as as one issue I am in Essex, which is what would be labeled an elementary district, although we also the Essex Westford school district also has the Westford elementary and middle school, which is a K eight school to one school, which is not as economically affluent as as a lot of Essex is so it's a similar struggle and I remember talking to our school board chair who was feeling really stressed out about this and I this waiting study and what was it going to take away from our Essex students and I think when we are able to talk about raising money in a more equitable way we're able to talk about how do we give every Vermont student the access to the things that the students in Essex have and so I think we have to really have this conversation as a holistic thing and we do and Stephanie pointed to it to that as well we do have bills in conversation around you know how do we move to a more funding source. The reality is that our education system has been sort of systematically defunded and hasn't gotten adequate funding as a whole and so we really need to talk about how we raise more to put more into the whole system as well so I appreciate that what you brought up Barb with some of our small schools and the way districts have been pulled together in a way that may include more wealthy towns and less wealthy towns and more rural towns and really just thinking carefully about this. Yes, thank you. So next we have Allison not followed by Mark, is it shower. Hey, go ahead Allison. Sure, thanks for hosting. So yeah I am Allison not I'm a Rutland City resident, a member of our Rutland City School Board and also a member of the mock Vermont coalition for student equity. We've been working hard. I think we probably came together almost over a year ago now in examining the results of the waiting study and the impacts it has and one of the things that has amazed me is that this can benefit we're not just talking about urban schools we're not just talking about rural schools poverty the English language learners schools from all around the state of Vermont can benefit from this. And I think where it's getting muddled up a bit is we're not discussing where the money is coming from. It's the waiting what it does it's how we divide the pie. If there's extra money they can get thrown at education. Great, but we need to make sure that that money is going to meet the students needs. And if you look at the waiting study and many other literature. Across the education field there are students with much more significant needs and costs to educate. And those need to be addressed no matter where the money is coming from. And it's simply the weights provide an empiric formula for dividing the money. If we have the same money that we have now, it's still earmarking more based on need versus just flat numbers of students and places that have larger taxing capacities getting the same amount of money as places with less taxing capacities and larger needs. And so, you know I have great concerns with categorical aid. If you know we have all this money this year great you know throw it out there but it's not a sustainable issue and it is not something that is going to change as populations change and shift. You know certainly with the coalition one of the amazing things that I've had is I've obviously I've been on the Rutland City School Board for eight years and I've I've seen our population changes as the kids, you know born into the opioid academic epidemic hit the schools, and the challenges we have but then being in the coalition I was just amazed I hear these other schools struggles and I'm like, geez, maybe we don't have it that bad or at least we're not dealing with this. And there's just a really broad spectrum that if you know there are weights for small schools and there are many small schools in the coalition that look to benefit from waiting implementation as well. So I think it's really, you know the idea is we wanted to be equitable but also sustainable, and something that is going to change with time and not just at the whims of grants. So those are, those are my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you Allison next we have Mark Schauber. First of all, thank you for hosting and facilitating this really important conversation. My name is Mark Schauber. I'm the executive director for the Coalition for Vermont student equity. I'm also a school board member from Dover in the river valleys Unified School Districts. I have two comments. One to kind of answer what Barb brought up in regards to this small schools grant. The recommended weights that the that were published by UVM and Rutgers in the report don't actually address the need at the district level they address it at the school level. The application is at the district level, which is where funding system works these days, but the need is addressed at the school level. So a school in a larger district that school that would lose its small schools grant. If the application was at the at the district level won't actually lose it because the district as a whole is going to receive weights for that school. So, I think the fear of the loss of the small schools grant, while it's out there and it's real. If the recommended weights aren't applied. If the recommendations are taken, then everybody's good to go. The other thing I want to dress in Allison pretty much address this was that our coalition is made up of districts from the north to the south from the east to the west. Urban rural. I think we are all in this to bring equity to every student and every taxpayer in the state. And I don't think that the divide between urban and rural is as great as it once was. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. I see Barb's hand is raised again, Barbara if you could just hold on a second and see if anyone who hasn't spoken yet would like to go. I said a second I'll give him five. I don't know how to raise my hand on zoom, but I have a quick question. You did exactly what I said, which was feel free to yell out when there's a pause. And so that's why I did that so thank you for modeling. What I asked so go ahead and then I see Sarah Woodard, and then we'll come back to Barb if that's okay bar. Go ahead, Sinead. Yeah, I am rebel Vinnie Sinex intern. I'm learning a lot about kind of the education funding in Vermont. I'm originally from New York from Long Island. And from where I grew up, we had a system where if you wanted your child to attend a different school district, you had to pay into that if you weren't in the tax zone. I'm wondering if anybody knows if Vermont has that and if they do if a child from a different district can attend a different school, does that go into the per pupil waiting. If it's because they're paying into it, it doesn't count because those kids aren't in that district. If that makes sense. If it doesn't, I'm happy to clarify on what I mean. I see Allison's hand raised as a school board member. Do you have an answer. Yeah, absolutely. In Vermont, it is there's school choice. So if you can apply from your district to go to another district. And there's limits set on the number of students that can leave a district to keep them whole so there's not enough of fluctuation change, but money does not follow the student. And nor does the people count so you don't get any money for the student and you don't get the people count. Thank you. Do you have any follow up to that or. I think that is very interesting. I think it's great that kids don't have to pay to go to a different school district, however, I think it's interesting that that does not factor into their spending. Thanks for answering my question Allison I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, thank you so Sarah Woodard. Hi, I'm sorry I'm kind of sitting in the dark. I have a headache. And it's partly because of the school funding. No. I'm just kidding. I think my big question about this issue is that, you know, Burlington cut so drastically several years ago, when we couldn't pass our local budget and then in the years following that. We've heard our kids. And, and so I'm like really relieved to see that the waiting study came out saying that it's inaccurate, but I think what I don't quite understand is why it's taking so long to implement it I understand that COVID came up but from my perspective if it seems illegal, because we're not. We're not actually we don't have an equitable system if the waiting set of the weights are off. And so, why, I guess why is this even something to be discussed and legislated, like why, why isn't it just fixed as my question. Does anybody want to answer that question, or was it was a more of a rhetorical question did you want answers from people or was it more of a rhetorical question. I want to answer because I, I know like in past years are the senators and representatives for Burlington have basically said this, this idea that the weights are inaccurate is dead in the water because we're a city and it doesn't apply to most of the state and we won't be able to bring the other legislators. And so I'm. And now I think it has more legs because the waiting study found that the rural communities also are inaccurately weighted but I guess, I guess I feel a little impatient and I'm wondering if we can't bring the other legislators along and get the weights adjusted. So is there any legislator who would like to speak to why they think why, you know, to answer that question. No one's like jumping up. Great try coming from a district that is overweighted where the school board is really concerned about what their district would lose if we adjust these I think that that can influence people, you know, representing those districts to stand, you know there to support their constituents and their constituents are saying this would hurt me. And so I think that that's part of the reason that there's been controversy around it you know I stand with you in that it is the right thing to do and we do have to ensure that that all of our students get access to an equitable education and there are so many pieces along the way here that that make that not what's happening and while we may be the most equitable you know that doesn't mean we are doing everything we need to be doing for our students. And that's why I think that you know having this conversation I will say when I when I talked to you know my school board chair who was hackle, you know really worried about what the weighting study would mean for her district when we talked about well what if you know if we look at this as a bigger picture and we bring more money into that system we can raise everyone up and implement the weights I'm not suggesting we don't implement the weight. There's a way of doing that, particularly if we change the larger funding model and bring more money into the system where nobody has to lose. I think too often we pick people against each other and that's why these things don't move we say well if they get that you're going to lose and so fight against it. But there is a way in which we can actually bring everyone along but I think it takes some outside the box thinking and really looking at things in a in a broader picture way, because we can implement the weights and ensure that everyone gets lifted up and no one has to lose but we have to think differently. So I think that that's why it gets it gets really stuck to. And it looks like Liz has more of an answer as well. So we'll have we'll have Liz curry speak to this question. And then this representative of any static want to speak to this question. Only briefly because Sarah is one of my friends like I got to shine. That's fine so let's do that and then we'll see if Bob has to say at that point. And then we're going to be near the end so go ahead. Sure. So first I want to say that the school board didn't actually cut years ago we we've lost about 8% of our budget. As a result of federal funds disappearing. The legislature passed act 46 which prohibited communities from raising the taxes. And then there was a deficit so it wasn't a cut it was there was the money that was there $7 million used to be there wasn't there. In relation to the other question I want to just pose this to everyone because what's interesting about all of this legislation is that the legislature doesn't actually come and check whether you as a school district have spent your money based on these formulas. So, in other words, all of this stuff says we're going to we're going to send you this amount of money because you told us you need it. But there's no one actually coming along and saying, did you spend $20,000 per EL kid and 15,000 per white middle class kid who doesn't have a disparity so that's so the accountability piece is interesting because it doesn't Sorry. Someone was talking. So the accountability piece is at the local level, and these formulas try to equalize students across the state they equalize them. The equity pieces is a little bit of a different conversation. So those are just some conceptually, you know, it's very like, if you look at the testimony in the legislature right now the Milton. I don't know if she's the superintendent or the, or an EL teacher head of EL but if you look at the legislature and the task force website and look at the testimony the Milton people are advocating for categorical grants, because they've experienced an increase in EL students from like nine to, I don't know they're projecting 30. And, and for whatever reason categorical grants seem to make sense to them. And that and it's interesting to me when you look at the task force what they're hearing who they're hearing from. And then we ask why, and it's, and you would have to know a lot about their school district to know the way they take their total budget and allocate it. The other thing you should know is that in Burlington the school board has decided, as it has in past years to allocate the budget based on an internal equity formula so it's almost like you could take all this proposed waiting and any school board is welcome to allocate their money that way now that the legislation just requires that everybody use those formulas as a way to say yes we've equalized things across the state. Thanks Liz. So I see, we have representative Moveni Stanek and then I see someone who hasn't spoken yet Douglas Corp so go ahead Emma. Thanks very briefly just to throw a couple more concepts because I think what this opportunity also presents us is to think more broadly about how we how we think about education and Vermont and an opportunity to think about systems and concepts that are no longer serving modern day Vermont and and I'm one for example that when we talk about real equity. Around the concept of really thinking around local control and to Liz's point like we how do we make sure that money is spent to really impacts the kids that need that need you know all the services of the programming that really would lead to their success be it in a tiny little school or be a nine English learners in the Northeast Kingdom or 500 in Burlington and so I think it's time to start having bigger policy conversations not to say there isn't some short term stuff we can be doing around an income based system but also this this concept of local control so that the end of the day we're educating all kids and we see our job as the taxpayers of Vermont as taxpayers in one big system and not these individual communities I know it's a big task but I think we'll never have true equity if we have these individual. Yeah just these individual decision making points that create more and more differences I want us to find like commonality just some bigger policy thoughts. Thank you. Douglas Corp. Hi. Thanks for hosting this tonight. This is really great I love talking about education funding. We're a district that's in the really far south of of all of you probably, but we are a small schools grant recipient and I felt like I just wanted to comment on that that area. It seems like a lot of people had some questions but I think it's overall relative to that discussion of categorical aid, because we were heavily involved as a district in act 46 and maintaining that local control representative Mulvaney that you just spoke of. But small schools grants at that time, it was sort of dangled a categorical aid piece was dangled sort of like a carrot in order for for districts to merge and lose that local control and lose that governance that Vermonters I think holds so dear. So I just wanted to be, you know, cautious about categorical aid and now we hear districts that are afraid of quote losing their small schools grant. So even though if we were to implement the weights that that would not be true as as they were directed through the report. But I also want to point a finger to the answer funds that came through for coven. And if you stick with me here, as her funds were basically a one shot influx of money to support schools through coven. In those funds. It was also to pay people to oversee the distribution of us or funds. So the same thing will probably happen through small schools or sorry through a categorical aid to fix this problem is that you're going to be paying people to tick boxes which is exactly the opposite of what act 173 was doing was to build a census block grant to have more easy distribution of the funds. So if you're going to put categorical aid back into play, basically doing the opposite of 173 in my opinion and I guess I'll just say that populations change population shift and numbers and senses is do the measuring to adjust with those numbers so Marlboro is not going to be the same town it was 25 years from now I think. And I'm sure Burlington won't be either. So in order to do the proper I think adjustments it should be an equation that does it for us and not I guess groups of legislators sort of, you know, issuing up definitions for us, but that's just my thoughts. So, it's just about time to wrap things up, but I would like to give Barb Wilson a chance you've been very patient and let others who haven't spoke on more than once that goes so we'll let you have the last word and then I'm going to hand it back to representative Thank you so much and I, you know, really appreciate mark and Allison and you know the comments you had on the small school grants but and Douglas as well but I actually went through the math and created some spreadsheets. And when I went through it for our particular school in our small schools in our district, we would lose the small schools grant. Whereas if the Middlebury was a little smaller, we wouldn't lose it. So I must be missing something that I actually did all the math, you know, I kind of a spreadsheet spreadsheet kind of person and dove down into it. So, you know, I'll look at it again but it was totally my understanding when I went through the steps that we would lose it. Thank you Barb. So thanks everyone for for joining us in the discussion and to wrap things up. We're going to hear from representative Emma Mulvaney standard which implies that I have some great wise words of wisdom to the still upon all of you to lead you into the evening but really just gratitude for you all being here and for really being in a space around dialogue and trying to really unearth all the different moving parts in the discussion. Just a reminder the task force has another public hearing on October 29. It's something you can tune into thanks to the hybrid system in person if you're near Montpelier and want to be there or via via zoom. They'll probably have a similar testimony system set up where there'll be information on that website I linked earlier, if you want to testify you do have about two minutes it is a very short amount of time, but you can also submit written comment to that task force as well. And I will speak at least for the legislators on this call tonight, please do reach out if you would like to have further dialogue do also reach out to your local reps if you haven't already. Just to make sure we can make we're hearing from for monitors from across the state and really appreciate everyone's different, you know, opinions and where they're coming from. Thanks so much to stuff you for presenting all this great information on the education funding system from public assets and rights and democracy for being a co conspirator if you will have getting the word out about this event and all of you for tuning in from around the state really appreciate it and I'll hang on for a minute as we wrap up and close out the room and close out the recording but thanks so much.


Oh, we've got the stage A's on hey, and what what are you hoping to cop today? I get some foam runners. Oh foam runners No, what about yourself? Oh easy. He's got the years and what are you hoping to cop some Travis Scott's Do you reckon Boston's got it in them to win the finals hundred percent now? Are you a Lakers or a Boston supporter make up your mind Boston? I'm usually Brooklyn, but Boston series. Oh, he's got some 11s on the space Jam 11. Yes, but you have in a cop Some dunks. What's in the shoes box with red ones? We've done fortunately no box. I'll fight you and see how much you're hoping to sell them for oh Hopefully get a grand bit over. What are you gonna do with the money put on my car? Correct. Correct.  Yeah, and what do you have been to buy today? Nothing. Just having a look. Yeah, so bro Yep, what about yourself? Nothing. Yeah, I'm saving and what's your ultimate dream pair of shoes. I don't know what they're called But the hot pink dunks in the high you had me a hot pink. I love that. I love that


Barbecue, fireworks and amusement parks. Americans throughout the world are celebrating our independence this holiday weekend. Take a moment to think about the sailors who are standing to watch, helping to keep Americans free. All hands update, hit the streets to find people with a special message for sailors who are serving away from home this 4th of July. Happy 4th of July and thank you so much for your services. Happy 4th of July, thank you for your service. Happy 4th of July, thank you for your service. Happy 4th of July and thank you so much for your service. I'd like to thank you gentlemen and ladies for all your service. Thank you very much. Happy 4th of July. Happy 4th of July troops, we miss and love you. Happy 4th of July, thank you for your service. Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for serving our country and happy 4th of July. Happy 4th, thank you for your service, we love you guys, keep working hard, bye. Be safe, make smart decisions and have a happy 4th of July weekend.


Got him. Oh my god. There's a freaking gate on this. Oh My god Got the ball boys Hey, yo, what's going on guys welcome to another video? I'm so excited to bring this one to you guys today because a lot of people have asked for it And they've actually asked for this video for like the past couple of years and I have yet to do I have no idea why I was like, I'm gonna go do it today Because people will take a lot of value out of this video and it's cool because no one does it like I have a boat guys I fish on a boat a majority of the time But I try to bring you guys pond fishing videos on tip videos And now I'm gonna start trying to do bank fishing videos off the lake because I think that'd be really cool If you guys want to see some more of these be sure to pep the like button up and also stay tuned to the end of the Video so you get a lot of value out of this and hopefully we'll catch a big bass today But let me explain what we're doing if you guys look out here. We are at a marina today We're at a beautiful marina And we're gonna be doing some bass fishing so I have about three poles rigged up On the baits that I think are gonna work today As into the conditions as you guys can tell very cloudy outside. I mean very cloudy It's complete opposite of bluebirds guys today. Let me check the temperature out here so I could tell you it is not It's not really cold at all. It actually feels pretty good 53. So 53. We don't have too much wind Let's see what it says eight mile an hour wind and it's very cloudy. So Pretty decent conditions. We're gonna see what we can do Lake Lanier is a whole different animal people Lake Lanier is a lake where all the fish especially this time of year. It's a spotted bass fishery But there are some large mouth here as well So the fish pretty much this time of year get in ditches and they go really deep So when you're on a boat, it is a lot easier to catch them So with me analyzing that and being like, you know what the spots are gonna be out deep I was like, where can I go where I can catch large mouth and I came to this marina today I know there's a big population of large mouth of caudalai here.   They can stay shallow year round That's just how large mouth are spotted bass are a lot more sensitive to the weather and on the time of year and conditions as in Water temperature and that whole deal. So come over here and I'll show you guys what we're working with So as you guys can tell we got all these, you know, boat docks right here. This is a whole marina There's just gonna be a ton of fish under those docks fish live under the docks I mean year round you can catch fish on docks When I usually fish docks is usually when the sun's high and the fish can obviously hide under there And get up under those docks, but fish are under there year round even every single day Even when it's cloudy like today and as you guys can tell there's a lot of rocks right here And there's gonna be fish on these rocks already know 100% If you guys didn't know comparing spotted bass to largemouth largemouth love, you know, wood They love cover that laydowns in the water Trees and that whole deal spots. They love rock. That's pretty much how you can That's how you can, you know, spread them apart spots really really love rock largemouth really really love wood Does that mean a largemouth's not going to be on that doesn't not does not mean that but spots love rock largemouth love wood All right spots on Lakeland near love brush piles They hang out on brush piles out deep and you can catch a lot of good fish very productive way As long as you're fishing at the right time of year that means said there's a lot of largemouth back here So I know there's going to be some tucked in these rocks still there is some laydowns and some trees over on this other side I cannot fish that from the bank. So I'm going to be fishing, you know All one of these docks my dad actually has my parents have a pontoon Um, I wanted these docks so I can actually get on one of these and fish so that is going to be great We're going to try to fish on these rocks. I just noticed there's a keep off rock sign And yeah, this does not look like the best area to attempt to climb these rocks because I'm falling break my butt And I really don't want to fall and break my butt today. I want to make a cool video for you guys So I don't know it's going to be hard. We're probably going to have to fish off the docks like this and cast Parallel with the rocks, which is very important. We're going to talk to you later in this video and try to catch fish But let's go ahead and go over to my rods. I'm going to show you guys what I have rigged up So I was trying to think, you know, it was winter time. What baits are going to work good? What am I going to be fishing here? And that's the most the biggest the most important thing So, you know, I got some docks. I tied me on a jig just in case I got me some rocks.  That's going to be great on those rocks as well So we got two moving baits that we can work past here We got the crank bait, which we're going to be consistently reeling looking for that active fish And then that jerk bait is something that we could actually pause and pull around with If we want to slow our profile and then I have this old jig just to slow down if I have to And I can throw on the rocks. I can skip this under the docks and do a little bit of everything with this thing So that's that's going to be a major key today if the fish aren't wanting to eat those moving baits But I got one more bait now. Let me grab it real quick. So this is my last bait I do not have it on a pole because I didn't have enough rods of me today to put it on But we are going to fish it today I'm going to break down the water and show you guys how I'm fishing today And then we're going to move over to this and I'll explain that later in the video Why I'm not starting off with it and why I'm going to start off with you know The crankbaits and that whole deal but that's going to be a killer today too This thing catches so many fish my favorite bait out here and we're going to set it on my tire Let's just pray that I don't forget that and I actually use this today. That'd be okay So let's go ahead grab a pole start fishing and I'm going to show you guys why I'm starting with what I'm starting with And that whole jazz and deal and that whole deal and stuff pepper the like button up You guys want to see some more videos like this. So I was actually wanting to fish from here But I just realized that I just don't even know if I could get a hook in a fish from here I mean look how freaking high I am from that rock I don't know. This is uh It's pretty risky. I'm sure we'll do it a few times today But I think we're going to start down here at the base of it and just cast towards it Because when it's important when fishing riprap walls like this to cover a lot of water and be really effective It's to throw parallel And if I'm throwing parallel, I'm going to be so high. I just don't know if I can get hooks in the fish So I'm probably going to start down here and throw to it and see how that works So this is what we're going to start off with this little jerk bait. This is a megabass 110 plus one So it's going to go slightly deeper as you guys can tell by the little lip on that thing It's a little natural color. It's got a little bit of translucent as well Just seems to be great on there. I'm going to start fishing these rocks right here. I'm kind of very I'm very excited for this. I usually fish from the boat Or I'm pond fishing. This is a whole different story and I'm kind of excited I want to see if we can hook a big large enough today. That would just be amazing Ooh, that would be good But I'm going to start fan casting this bank with this jerk bait We're going to start off with this and see if we can get a big bass Thing is they roam so hard and these clouds get out So it's good to fish these rocks, but the fish are probably going up and down. I'm looking for bait So everybody I just switched over to This little jig right here. I was throwing a jerk bait And I covered all this water up here on these rocks And now I'm switching over to, you know, a slower bait that I can really work on them Really break down these rocks on the side and see if these fish just aren't that active And that'll pick up something that's a little bit slow moving and a jig on rock is a great bait, especially this time of year I don't know if you guys know, but when the sun gets up, which today is not when it beams on this rock Boat ramps anything with like concrete or rock It actually heats up a lot quicker So that time this time of year fishing rock can be really productive if you hit it the right day Today is really cloudy, which especially on the near and any other lake is going to make this fish more scattered And they're going to be roaming a lot more So my goal is to, you know, work down these rocks and these fish are just going to be roaming the bank looking for bait fish Looking for stuff to chew on and I'm hoping that, you know, we can run into a few that are actively feeding Oh my god He was freaking behind it Oh man, he's about two and a half pounds See if we can get him to bite Oh man, he swirled right behind it. He never hit it My main purpose of this video is to teach you guys how to catch fish off the bank and find productive areas So my biggest my my biggest tip overall I have a few that I really want to give you but the biggest tip is Wherever you're fishing, whatever lake I don't know if you guys know, Licklanders are very hard, very tough fishery But if you can find marinas Because the biggest thing is, you know, when you're fishing from the bank, you can't just go To any bank on the lake and catch fish just like if you're on a boat Like it takes a lot of trial and error to really find those fish But there's one place on the lake that has one a lot of cover A lot of structure and this is a marina, you know, marina is known to have fish every lake I've been to I catch fish in marinas. I mean, they just fish live in marinas. Um, and sometimes a lot of big fish But as you guys can tell you know, there's rock right there You got a ton of docks. I mean you have all this cover that these fish can hide around Most of the time this marina right here is actually fairly deep, which is perfect for what I'm doing If you're looking for a location to fish on a lake, be sure to go look on your map Find a good marina that has a lot of water that you can cover that maybe has some rip wrap or some lay downs Whatever it is and go fish that that's where you guys need to target to fish Obviously you can go find some other areas on the lake to catch fish But marinas would be where I would start and be your best bet defining fish or even by bridges You know bridges are good as well. We'll film another video on that fishing about bridges Those are all good areas that you can really find some fish. So I was throwing this crankbait. I just said screw it I was like screw this we're gonna start paralleling this and I actually did have a bite He came up and he tried to eat it and he just swirled on it He was like two and a half pounds He's actually a fat spot and this is kind of what I wanted to talk about So you guys can see right here I can't walk down these rocks because obviously I'd fall then die and break my butt So that's just that's out of the equation So if you're fishing from the bank like if you're actually on the bank not standing on a dock Say you're just standing on the end of those rocks throwing it around all around here I highly suggest starting with a bait that you can cover, you know parallel to those rocks So say I started off with this crankbait You're going to want to throw parallel with those rocks And try to catch as many fish as you can on the bank after you throw this and cover the water Pick up your jig throw it on those rocks a little bit And then after you fished all those rocks that are closest to you Work your way out some more and by that I mean after you fish, you know parallel close to the bank Start throwing out from the bank and start fishing that way The reason I say that is because if you walk on the end of these rocks and you start casting out and you hook a fish out here What's going to happen is you're going to catch this fish and you're going to spook all the fish on the bank So it's very important to right when you get on those rocks to not start throwing out But to actually cover you know on the bank first because those fish Are going to get spooked if you hook a fish out here and drag it by them So that's very very important. That is that is a very Key step to catching more fish, you know when you're on the bank because if you just threw out and caught a fish And then got them in and you spooked all the fish on the bank You could have caught five fish, you know what I'm saying instead of just catching that one You could have caught five So when you get down there make sure you fish closest to you and then start working your way out in the column So right here fish the rocks Then fish like halfway out maybe with the jig or something Then maybe you pick up this fish head You want to cast it all the way out all the way out over here And then you're really covering the water you're laying it down and you're not spooking the fish That is probably the biggest tip that I can give you for bank fishing, especially the lakes Very very important very very important to catching a lot of fish So what I want to do here. I've been covering water with this bait So I've been standing on the docks. I've been throwing parallel with that bank taking that rock I've actually been sticking my pole through these little things right here So I can actually bring my bait loads to where I'm hitting those rocks and as you guys can tell on the bill right there It's it's pretty knocked up for me. You know keeping contact. That's very important with the crankbait by the way And uh once I parallel those rocks what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this fish head And I'm going to start fan casting out So pretty much I'm going to be covering more of the deeper water with this bait So we have two moving baits that we can cover a lot of water with now Let's go do it see if we can catch a fish. It is a very tough day today That's why I just want to at least catch one for you guys But I wanted to make this because this is my first one ever and it's going to be a lot of fun So we're going to continue to work down this bank work down these rocks and see if we can catch fish on either this crankbait Or the old fish headspin. We're going to take this little dt6 cover a little bit more water parallel on this rock And then we're going to move to that fish. Let's see if we can catch this fish that I actually had bite me a second ago I'm keeping off this bank just slightly On these deeper rocks note that this crankbait only goes about six foot And I'm bringing more raw low because of how high I am. I want to make sure I'm keeping contact Knocking those rocks is so important with a crankbait I've seen a lot of people just throw a crankbait and just reel it in and they're not You know keeping contact with any rocks and hitting the cover that they're fishing And that's that's probably the biggest step to a crankbait. It's keeping contact with that rock or bottom Whatever you're fishing Stuck behind that rock that's one thing that might suck about what I'm doing Just have to break it. This is just not working out for me today guys. It's really not if I I broke off my jig broke off my crankbait Totally layering down to you know the baits I can use and I guess we're moving over to this $25 jerkbait Let's pray that we don't lose this guy another bait I can work right next to these rocks and hopefully catch one. I really want to catch one for you guys All right, so this is what I was talking about just covered these rocks parallel Up shallow bumping the rocks with the jerkbait and the rest in piece of the crankbait Now we're going to move to the fish head and we're going to start working our way out So I'm not going to throw this on the rock. So I'm going to throw this bait Way off the rocks out deeper and I'm going to slowly work this thing on the bottom Fish head is an amazing bait this time of year And I'm excited to throw it if I could catch anything today I would love it to be on the fish head. Look how slow I'm reeling this bait on the bottom This is our last chance people. This is my favorite one to fish off of I was saving it for last. I guess we're going to see if it's going to happen Are you kidding me? I was just saying this is our last chance It's this angle right here is is booty. I was afraid of that right there That was the one thing I was afraid of and I finally got a bite And it haunted me I had them. I couldn't get the hooks of them with this tall angle that I'm hanging over this This is the best part. Like I just said, this is my favorite part. Oh man, that hurts really bad We're going to continue man. We got to catch one right here. Oh my god, there's fish chasing bait on that other dock I see it from over here and I'm breaking the rules. I shouldn't have made this cast because I don't know I'm going to get them back up. There's fish chasing bait down here Fish chasing bait Got him.   We did it We freaking did it right there. It's a largemouth just like what I was talking about.  So but uh, that's awesome. There we go guys. We've got us a fish I'm super pumped. He's a little bit I don't know. I don't really care. That's all awesome. I almost you see that little gate right there I can't go past that that's where I was gonna run to land him and when I hooked him. I realized like I can't run through that. It's locked. So I had to lift him up. Thank god. He's not big but Man, so happy about this fish. I guess I have I don't have a choice but to softly Drop him. All right This is all I can do We swimmed off. All right. Let's go. All right, everybody That is the end of the day and holy freaking smokes. What a time that we weren't out here long at all About an hour. That's all I really had and the sun's still not down and I could be fishing when the fish are actually biting Like right now I talked to one of my a couple of my buddies like I said during the video and it's been a morning bite and obviously Late, you know, right when the sun's about to go down this fish are really chomping Which is right about now. This is when it's starting and this one I could really catch them That wasn't the main purpose of this video. The main purpose wasn't for oh, no, I'm gonna go out there go capture That's not what it's about. It was about me teaching you guys or at least me explaining, you know, how I bank fish from lakes And you know, how I did Way when I was younger like even before I had a boat because my parents had a bigger boat out here at this exact marina I used to always fish off, you know These docks and I fish the rocks and this this and that and there's a lot of fish that live around here and I even come every once in a while and fish this place out of my boat And there's just a lot of fish in this area It just wasn't the right time when we hit it But if you take some of the value that I told you guys in this video Go apply it to your home lake or wherever you're at wherever you want to bank fish and go out there You know fish some of the cover around marinas And about how I was saying you know layer the water column like fish close to the shore and then fish out Just so you don't spook this fish that'll help you catch a lot more fish in general Go look for some bridges that especially bridges that have rock on it There's some other amazing areas that you can bank fish from if you guys want to see a video on me coming out here And doing a legit fishing video rather than just me you know spraying my thoughts on Bank fishing and what I do when I come out here then let me know and cover that like button up and also if you enjoyed it I'm sorry. I didn't get to catch many fish, but that wasn't the purpose. I'm just glad we got that one That was a close one. I almost lost them No Where's he at? Oh, it was just the angle the dock and how it's angled and when you're throwing down like that It's hard to get a hook back in some of the og videos. I had this place to use the fish that it was like on a hill And I would lose so many fish just because of the angle and that's kind of like what happened today Especially on the jerk bait and like a crank bait when you're trying to let it get down It just wasn't happening. Thank you guys so much for watching this video if you guys want to see another one Um a bank fishing let me know in the comment section below So my first one released on youtube to let me know if you guys are new to the kick in their bass tv Family be sure to click that subscribe button. That means so much new clothing line is dropping This upcoming week's of days for that. Thank you guys so much. I love you guys so much and I'll catch you guys in the next