Okay, welcome everyone. Apologies for late start, we're into the part of the crossover process where things start to back up. But with that said, Emily, want to start us off? So just a reminder for people in the room, what we're doing is our strike call version of H39 and we took a look at this language yesterday, had some brief discussion. So now what I have planned is mostly today and tomorrow, witnesses speaking to not only this language but to their situations in their communities, need for a delay, need not for a delay. I will put it out there not as a universal prohibition but just something to think about. We're really not re-examining whether Act 406 should have been passed. So if people are here to testify, it's not going to be productive if that's how you use all your time. So the question really is how will we move forward from where we are today given not just what the judge ruled a little while ago but also what the House passed prior to that. So with that said, Ailee? Yeah, so Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education, if I could preview how I think you expected the agency to use our time and then you can tell me if I'm wrong. I have some short testimony, substantively, on the idea in your strike call. I've brought along some guidance that the agency put out this past Friday that you referenced yesterday. And then I've brought down there is so savage our specialist on the text of the laws around Act 46 who has some suggestions for your bill that you're looking at. And she can also follow up with your Ledge Counsel at your discretion. All right? Absolutely. I'm here to express the agency's support for proceeding with Act 46 timelines as they are written in current law. This is primarily upon reflection following the court's denial of the preliminary injunction motion in the litigation that you referenced. And also upon examining the needs and abilities to move forward of the relevant systems that are subject to the state board's final report and order under Act 46, which is dated November 28, 2013. And there are essentially four reasons that sort of lead into each other why the agency feels that a delay is inappropriate at this time. So the first one is the clarity that has been afforded to the sort of field of or the state of the law after the court's decision. So that decision denying the preliminary injunction prompted the agency to sort of afresh reach out to the districts that are subject to the state board's order to assist them in complying with existing law as it stands. So I've attached our March 8 guidance, which was our first broad communication to the field following that court decision. It answers some questions that came up as a result of the first round of organizational meetings. It clarifies the role of the transitional board, which is the board under the state board's default articles. It is in place by operation of the default articles and law before the election of the initial board. That terminology can be a little confusing, but it's transitional board. That's the chair and the clerk by default of the performing districts. They ruin the election primarily for the initial board. So I'm not going to go through the guidance that's available on the agency's website, and I've posted it with my testimony today. We can follow up a few questions that come from reviewing that guidance. I'll just point out the last two pages lay out some timelines for the individual districts that are very specific to the events that have happened in each district. That's for informational purposes for the public and the district. They're not binding to the date on the districts. They can use their own judgment about the calendar essentially. So like I said, as a result of that decision from the court, the agency is now in a better place to give good technical assistance to the districts on questions leading up to assuming full operations of the newly forming new school districts on July 1, 2019. We're doing that in concert with the district's individual legal counsel and fielding questions as they come in. It's clear to us after about a week of post-decision that the major source of uncertainty for these districts is whether and to what extent the General Assembly will amend the timelines in Act 46. So just to put that out to you, these conversations are now the big question mark for the district subject to the state board's order. So, second, if the General Assembly does amend the law in Section 566 of Title 16, which is the provision about what a district does if it doesn't have a budget on July 1, if you all were able to amend that and provide clarity, the district subject to the state board's order would be in a far better place knowing that they could become operational July 1, 2019, barring foreseen or unforeseen delays on their path to full operations. Could you just repeat what you just said? Did you reference a section in the bill? Yes. Your draft of the bill does make changes to Section 566. Right now, the agency doesn't have a really firm opinion on what sort of flavor clarity on Section 566 should take. I think you'll come to that and we'll continue to talk to you as you go through your process. Does the House have the 87%? Yeah, there's various approaches. You can take our strong position is that you should do something, whatever you're able to do to make sure that the districts have a budget or an amount to borrow against on July 1, whatever the General Assembly's preference is. We do anticipate that circumstances in what or more districts might prevent them from having a budget on July 1, but if there is time under law to take every step legally required between now and July 1 to assume full operations. So when we are stressing that we need a fix to 566, it's just assuming that something will happen along the way in at least one district. I think it's just prudent to assume that something will slow at least one district down. So if a correction or clarification were made on what you bought to 566, the district subject to the State Board's order I think would feel a great sense of relief. There's fear because there is uncertainty around 566, but that could be addressed, I think it puts everyone in a state of certainty around what's happening with Act 46. So third, the agency believes the state as a whole benefits most from moving forward with the timelines in current law. The potential harm presented by a longer transition period to full operations really outweighs the potential for benefits in a longer transition process. We remain concerned that community members, voters in new union school districts certainly don't have complete information. There's been a lot that's happened since November 30th in this realm and anyone may pursue strategies that delay the lawful transition processes. It's totally understandable. That's a state of being that will definitely exist until July 1, 2019. A delay stretches that state of uncertainty out. The delay can be due to great pressure on local officials who have already taken on a tremendous amount of stress and responsibility to implement Act 46. We feel that it's unfair to ask those public officials to endure the hyper politicized school governance climate for another year, unless clear benefits to students can be identified. The agency has not identified clear benefits to students in delay of one year. Additionally, there is concern that we had about potential for conflict of the roles and responsibilities of the initial board and the forming districts existing individual school boards. So to explain, while a newly formed district is in the process of transitioning to full operations, whether that's for the next four months or for a year in four months, there are two boards that have responsibility for the operation of the schools in those towns. That authority can be overlapping and shared and can certainly create tension in those communities about big decisions. So the initial board, which is the board that would be elected for the first year of operation for the new district, is responsible for planning for that first year of operation in the future of the district. The existing forming districts boards are responsible for the district schools until that date of transition. You can, I'm sure, imagine all sorts of big decisions that are important now and important for the next few years of the school district. I think the classic one is hiring a principal who will have a contract for more than one year, we can assume. We feel that decisions like this are ripe for conflict and confusion, and it is best to limit the time of conflict and confusion as much as possible for these districts. So just to clarify, and I think you just did that, I just want to rephrase a little bit. So you're saying that whether if we had no delays, there would be this period of time until July that is ripe for the kind of confusions you're talking about. I'm just saying we should have that be a short period of time as possible. I think the common phrases rip the Band-Aid off. I'm not sure how much we all agree with that, but that's what I'm alluding to, that there is inherent conflict and confusion. The agency doesn't think that should be stretched out any further than it absolutely needs to be. Then finally, just in terms of operationalizing a delay, if you were in New York considering one, upon looking at the options that have been put on the table, it's clear that neither an objective set of criteria that declares as a matter of fact which districts would get a delay or allowing districts to choose for themselves whether to take or delay, none of those options are really appropriate policy mechanisms due to all the factors that I've just described. So to take an across-the-board delay first for all districts, that clearly would disadvantage districts that do wish to move ahead in 2019 with their unified system. And we know that there are such districts all site. If you could impact disadvantage, it disadvantages them. So if you were to delay all of the mergers in the state board's final order and report, there would not be a choice to go forward in 2019. The agency believes that there's at least one set of districts that would prefer to go ahead in 2019. That option would be taken away in an across-the-board delay for everyone. So you're not referring to our language but to a different way to give where everybody would have that? Yes. So that's an option that's been discussed. I think it has big problems. The second kind of delay, which is what the House passed, a delay based on objective criteria, could either be the criteria that the House described or new criteria earlier on in the conversations you were describing as your chair, sort of what I call the notice criteria, if a set of districts have been recommended for their current governance structures by the secretary and then the state board took a different path toward merger at one point you were talking about delay for those people. I think no matter which set of criteria you were to pick, there would be clear winners and losers. All systems would not be satisfied and I think it would be problematic in its own way, depending on the criteria. And then finally, the language that you're considering is delay at the discretion of the initial board of school directors. This is problematic because that set of decisions sets up a contentious election right at the forefront for the initial board members. We could expect to see sort of single issue elections, if you will, where voters are deciding between candidates who want a July 1, 2019 date and a July 1, 2020 date. There are obviously many other issues that the new district will need to consider and I think that it would be a disservice to the district to have a hyper politicized election right off the bat. Those initial board members will have three year terms that their terms will go on beyond this important initial decision. Secondly, year language sets up a very difficult decision for those same boards around sort of the incentives of keeping the small schools grant and perpetuity. That is a very contentious issue to throw into the middle of a board that are just learning how hopefully to work together to govern the schools. Can you explain that? What is the decision there? So, in your language, if the initial board made the decision to choose a July 1, 2019 date, that would come along with a guarantee that any schools that currently receive a small schools grant because of size would continue to receive the small schools grant going forward with the operation of the new district. The sort of cost, if you will, of choosing a July 1, 2020 start date under your language or operation date is that you do not get the guarantee of your small schools grant and perpetuity. So, in other words, there's two decisions that a district that the initial board would have to make. One decision, but two components of it. Do they want to move forward to make July 1, 2019 perhaps in order to get the small schools grant, peace and perpetuity? Or do they want to delay? So, what I hear you saying, Emily, is that we've got an initial board and then they're presented immediately with a complex decision that may be contentious in the community. I get that, but I believe no matter how you do it, let's say that we said the existing boards would determine the same things, I think it would still be contentious. So it seems to me six of one half a dozen of the other, whether it's the existing boards or the initial board in terms of contentiousness. But to me, the value added with the initial boards is that everyone moves to that level where you now have what AOE has been sort of nudging communities to do, which is move down the track, have an organizational meeting, warn that, and then create the boards. On your timeline, what this bill does is about half of your timeline. So, the only difference is that they would have an extension, but they're still pursuing your timeline. They're pursuing the timeline created by the law. They usually didn't make up the timeline to be clear. And then they get to this very contentious decision. There will be very hard feelings on either side no matter what the initial board decides. The agency feels that that is toxic governance atmosphere and is really problematic to give an initial board that has other challenges facing it without this decision. But toxic governance atmosphere, if you take the current situation, you have some districts where they're going to hold commingled votes. And that's creating lots of animosity because communities feel like they're being subsumed in a larger vote. In other words, their vote as a community isn't determinative. It's now a commingled vote. I hear you, but I think we're in a situation where governance is snarled because we're in the last end game of this. We're attempting to replace one system with another. And so what I see this bill doing, the strike all, is moving people through a certain amount of it. Then admittedly there's a delay and there's time for these feelings to linger. There's also time to get it right and move more deliberately. Can you remind me what would happen so that they make the 19, the bill gives them the small school grants in perpetuity? What happens if they do the 20 date with the small school grants? I think Donna is going to be nudging you towards a little more clarity on this point. But we read the intent of your language to retain the current sort of two prong criteria to get your small schools grant as a size eligible school, which is that you demonstrate under the state board's metrics that the school is operationally efficient, academically excellent, or so geographically isolated that it qualifies under this other criteria. You may still get it. You would still apply for it. There's plenty of money in it. Because everyone could get it. It's not a competition. It is a rigorous application, I'd say. And in terms of the excellence piece, your results would be analyzed each year along with your geography. Yes. In terms of your point about toxic government situation, it seems to me that in many communities that are grappling with this, there already seems to be a toxic government situation. And that I think what the bill is attempting to do is to say, you can move beyond that and start making progress toward this probable inevitability, which is that you're probably going to have to march based on the state board's ruling and based on what we know from the preliminary court. But you can have a delay, but you have to sort of move along the path to making progress as defined in Act 46. But if you're able to do that, then you can potentially get your small schools grant and you can get the delay. And you have to sort of cut through the toxicity to do that and work together. There are communities that probably with this incentive for delay and getting their small schools grant can cut through that toxicity and get it done. Where there's so much toxicity that they can't get it done, it already exists. It's not created by this process. It's already been created by a whole host of factors, many of them at the local level, some of them at the state level. And so I don't see how this necessarily makes it any worse. And the situation in Stowe, which we heard about yesterday, I really was impressed. They had, as part of their legal understanding with the judge and with the state, they had agreed to a two-track process. So they were advancing plans to create their new board, create their new budget, as well as create and warn and pass budgets under their existing system. Now, admittedly, that's a lot of work. But we would be not asking for a formal arrangement with the judge, but rather the bill would just say, if you want the delay, this is how you get it. It doesn't mandate that they take a delay. And if people don't under this bill impanel that initial board and choose the delay, then your memo where you lay out how the agency will respond is still at play. So in other words, if people are refusing to make progress just because they're not going to, then AOE is in the position that it's in now in regard to those distances. The proposition is just that these communities, to the extent that there's toxic governance that's not created by your language that exists already, asks them first to have a very difficult, we can assume, contentious debate and board vote about which course they will take knowing the very high stakes of their decision either way. If the vote on the board, it's not really get through it, it's if they have the vote votes on the initial board to choose the July 1, 2020 date, we can assume another year of stagnant toxic governance if that's what pre-existed the decision or was caused by the hard road to the decision that the groups of districts made. I don't think that's to anyone's benefit. And your point is well taken, that's one we've had on the table since we started this discussion, which is if we decided everybody was going to bite the bullet and we were going to finish this by July 1, then on July 2, we'd all be in a much better place. Theoretically, the question is can it be done by July 1 given the circumstances we've heard and people believe that they need more time to, as Stowe said, to do it right and build support in the community. So I don't think anybody's disputing the idea that in one way it would make everybody's lives easier if this ended on July 1. The question is, is it feasible and can we do it in the right way? Yeah, so for the feasibility question, I refer you to our guidance, which I said I wouldn't hit you over the head with, it's there if you want to read it. And in terms of the benefits the districts will find in the extra year if they take it, I'm sure you're going to hear lots of testimony after the end, you can make your own judgment. Do you want to hear from Donna then? We always want to hear from Donna. Okay. I'll see if the chair is on. Mark, you can take mine. So I have no, where's Andrew? I have a note you need to be out on. Is that correct? I can do that too. Okay, well, we will do our best to make sure that. You know I speak really quickly, so it shouldn't work. Donna Russo Savage, I'm a staff attorney at the Agency of Education and I focus on the governance issues. I looked at draft 3.1, which you had yesterday and then discovered that there was one that I think I saw that it was around noon. That's 4.1. 4.1. 4.1, which adds in something that was one of my concerns. So I looked through this with an eye to if I'm still at the agency and I'm trying to help districts implement this and understand what things would I need to know more about. Some of them may just be talking with your legislative counsel about what was intended, but others I'm not sure if you have discussed because I haven't been here, so I don't know if you've made the distinction or not. So as far as the operational date and the vote on the operational date, I see that 4.1 added in a default date if no vote is taken and that was one of my concerns. I think it still would be helpful perhaps to, it's implied by that by saying that if there's no vote or decision made, then the default is it will be operational on July 1, 2019. I think that that implies that the vote has to occur by July 1, 2019, but I think it might be helpful to make it more specific in the place where it says there should be a vote. Just so that it's very clear to people this needs to be done by this date if you're going to go forward. In the default articles section, there are some dates that need to be changed that were listed. I went through the default articles again this morning and saw that there are other dates that should change. There are other dates that should not change and then there are at least a few that I think you probably will make a policy decision on whether or not you want to change. The one that came to my eyes first is that there are protections in here for small schools. For example, that there are in the default articles it says that for two academic years, 1920 and 2021, certain things can't be done to the building or the movement of children unless it's agreed to. So it's really a policy decision of whether you want to extend that for another two years for the places that vote to go operational later or if you want to keep that the same. So that's just something that you all would need to decide. Good point. I think, I don't want to speak for the committee, but certainly my intention would not be to curtail that period. So if we're saying to them, you can get a delay legally this way and it seems to be those should push up. Can you share those dates? Sure. Changes with Jim? Sure. A third thing were in the small school grants and this was just, it was a little bit unclear to me overall. One of it was it was unclear to me because I hadn't heard you discussing it to which category you intended it would apply. And whether it would, it seems quite clear to me that it would apply to the existing districts that were enlarged by putting in an additional district. Because I saw a reference to merging district in here, which is only for an existing district. I think that it could be read potentially to imply to the muds if they're enlarged by the conditional vote that comes in with the merger. I didn't see the way that it was currently written that, but I wasn't sure that an entirely newly formed district would be able to have this small, this perennial small school grant. So just whatever it is you decide, I just think it needs to be really, really crystal clear which it is. And my intention is drafting, I suppose, that they would all be covered so long as they come under that deadline. Okay. Well the muds automatically come under the deadline because you said they couldn't extend it. Yes. If they have that vote by then. Right, if they don't hold a vote then they don't. Okay. The other thing is that it was a, and I think I'm trying to read this with the eyes of people in the community trying to see what would confuse me and what wouldn't confuse me. I found the eligibility to be a little confusing. I wasn't sure which criteria applied, whether it's the criteria that currently exists and under which they've received or the ones that start on July 1. So I think that just that area to the extent that that can be clarified, that would be really helpful to me certainly trying to implement this. The final thing is on the budget and there is, and I don't know what page it's on and what line it's on in draft 4.1. But it was talking about the current fiscal year relating something to the current fiscal year. And as I read it, I wasn't sure whether that meant this current fiscal year or the current fiscal year when they're trying to deal with it. I think it's just something to talk about with your legislative council. I think it's just a clarity thing again. And then actually I went to Brad James to ask him, could he read this or was I unclear just because of me? And he told me how he thought it would be read. But then he also said that if you talk about something that exists in a current year you need to say on a particular date because it occurs at various times during the year. So I think that maybe if you could talk, I know that you've talked to him and I think if you could talk to Brad who's the only person who understands how all this works. I think about the particulars I think that that would help too. So it was kind of just those broad areas of bringing more clarity to what you intended just so that we're not trying to figure out what it was you intended. No, I appreciate it. But otherwise I thought it was very clear, very straightforward. It addresses everything that I think you intended to address. Perfect. Our question is for Donna. Thank you very much, Donna. You're welcome. Donna, and then we'll appreciate your help. I can come forward with some thoughts. I would say that probably no community, this entire process, go back, send me probably no community that can mention more often. We're bored now in Mount Mansfield. Is that good or bad? I think it's good. I'm a little partisan, but Mount Mansfield was one of the pioneers in what we were doing and showed the way, showed that there were savings to be had, opportunities to be had. With that said, Huntington has been outspoken from the beginning about their desire to remain their own governance unit. So we'll have testimony from Andrew now, chair of the modified union school district. And then tomorrow we have testimony from someone from Huntington. So theoretically we'll get both sides. You didn't need to separate Paul and I, but that's fine. So my name is Andrew Pond, and thank you for that introduction. I currently chair the Mount Mansfield School Board, as well as the Chittany Supervisor Union School Board. I submitted four pages of written testimony. I'd rather supply too much information than not enough, but I've prepared some remarks, kind of a summary of all that information. I do want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on a question of extending the deadline. As you probably know, the portion of the statewide plan relative to our region concludes that the Secretary believes that the best means of meeting the exit, 46 schools for both the district individually and for the region, is for the State Board of Education to merge Huntington and the Mount Mansfield School District into a singles district by requesting that Mount Mansfield accept Huntington as a full pre-K through 12 member. It's important to point out that a lot of folks have described the State Board request that we accept our non-member elementary district as MMU voting to force Huntington to merge. MMU voting to force Huntington to merge has been said a number of times. So the first page of my testimony includes a lot of governance history. In short, we had seven districts and we combined in 2015. The discussions actually began in early 2000s. We had, Jericho and Underhill had three schools in those two towns and they were trying to figure out how to deal with that. Out of that, they recognized that unifying governance would make a lot of sense. So by 2014, our mud was formed 73% of residents in the other four towns favored unification while obviously one did not. It is noteworthy that the Huntington School Board has never taken a position on merger or viable governance. And they say that their actions are taken simply based on the votes of their electorate. That's frustrating for the Mount Mansfield Board. They've never had a vote. They have never taken a position on merger or governance as a board. Right. They have held votes in their community. They've held a number of votes in their community without the board taking any position. And in fact, they've been quite adamant at some meetings that they were voting to allow the town to hold a vote. But that does not mean that we have an opinion on merger. It's been frustrating. Now the third and fourth pages of my written testimony consist of two motions. One from each of our school boards. And I included those because I think they illustrate not only the positions of our respective boards, but the enormous effort that has been involved just in managing the request in the state board order. Of course, this, the wording of that order brought Mount Mansfield into the suit that Huntington has filed against the state board of the agency. So I know I'm out of order, but jumping back to kind of summarize the second page of my memo, which is I think kind of the meat of what I'm here to talk about. We have 3% of the student population in Vermont is in Chittenden East. We are the only supervisory union remaining in Chittenden County. Mount Mansfield 2,400 students are unduly disadvantaged by a governance structure that requires the superintendent to divide their efforts in attention for a separate district of 100 students. Large majority of citizens, the MMU board, the agency of education, the state board of education and the legislature have all concluded that a unified union is the best means to achieve education goals. Now the phases and pathways to preferred governance in Act 46 of 2015 conclude with the state board of education issuing a statewide plan. Now in 2018 it came to light that Act 46 did not delegate the authority to the state board to merge mods like Mount Mansfield. I believe there are 4 others. As of course the law did for other governance structures. So in the best interest of education, of students, of efficiency and transparency, the state board could only request these mergers. The legislature cannot have intended that citizens would vote to enforce the mergers that were ordered by the legislature and delegated to the state board. The legislature must correct this oversight. Now I do want to say that the Mount Mansfield board proactively embraces challenges. With the merger we embraced policy governance. Shortly after that we started a partial foreign language immersion program, which was the first of its kind in the state. This year we've decided to repurpose a school building. None of those were easy decisions. But the state board order and the lawsuit brought by our non-member elementary district have consumed enormous amounts of time and energy that in no way benefit students. So the MMU board has not made a decision about the merger request from the state board of education. The only benefit that I could see from a delay, if we were to wait until all legal challenges have been resolved, as this has been a big part of the discussion that I hear is coming from Huntington. Which could be quite wild in that, let's say the decision was made in June or July, you could have it appealed to the Supreme Court. I think that's the expectation. So with that sort of evolving situation for Mount Mansfield to even make a decision to hold a vote that would pit one part of our community against another, it might not be in the best interest of our community even make that decision. So I hear you in terms of, it's a strange situation that the non-consenting district in the area was not, that board wasn't given the authority to forcefully merge them at the end of the process. But those particular situations like Huntington, that's why we created the modified, as you know, the modified union district law. The mod possibility came about to address Huntington's situation and partially because we were changing the law to advantage the districts that disagreed with Huntington, I think there was some lingering sense somehow that we should allow them a little more determination or that it was a different situation than in a non-modified situation. Not defending it, I'm just pointing out that might have been how it came about. So we are where we are. So we have been told by our, let's say, council that if you don't warn and win a vote by July 1st that that conditional request from the state board goes away. And at that point going forward the only way Huntington would be merged with you is voluntary. Is that your understanding? That is our understanding, yep. Okay, and that being your understanding, what do you think the likelihood is that you would warn a vote before July 1st? It's an interesting question. I've been asking myself ever since the board order came out how would we react. So there's a couple of different questions that the board is going to have to wrestle with. The first is whether or not we hold the vote. Even though there is wide agreement that a unified union is the best way to run a school district and we've long held that position, obviously the other district has strongly been opposed. And so there's, as one long-term resident put it to me, we don't want the narrative for the next five decades to be that Mount Mansfield forced Huntington to merge. One other interesting piece of history that we were talking about when the mud merger happened is that when Mount Mansfield was originally built it was just the four towns. Richmond, Bolton, under Hill and Jericho, and two years later Huntington came along to join in. So we were hopeful that shortly after we had merged at some point things would change in Huntington, but they haven't. And we're concerned that given the emotion that has come from a lot of school districts and Huntington in particular, that if we were the entity that were to make the decision to hold this vote that there would be some animosity that I don't think rightly belongs with the school board. The next question then comes is if we do have a vote. And there isn't absolute clarity about whether or not the vote needs to be held in a town meeting style arena or whether it would be by Australian ballot. Personally I think Australian ballot would be more advantageous in some ways. One of the concerns though is it sounds as though because of the way the law, the state board order is written and the way our articles of agreement are written that we'd have to have a town hall style meeting. There are concerns that one town who is the most emotionally involved might send a lot more folks to that meeting and that might sway the results. So I hear you saying your number one ask is that the legislature should correct its mistake and resolve this issue rather than leaving it to you. This issue should not be up to the Mount Mansfield board absolutely. I think it's fair to say speaking from my committee we're not going to be rewriting the math which is that would do in effect. It would be us stepping in and saying now it's not a conditional merger, it's a forceful merger. So I don't think we're going to be doing anything like that. If we don't do that then situation remains and I guess the way I would put it is I feel like after having looked over the five now four conditional merger situations. I feel as though those communities fairly are unfairly, they have the tools to determine their own destiny. So if your board wanted to and I understand there are complications but if they wanted to they could warn a vote and potentially win the vote or they could warn a vote and Huntington could potentially win the vote. So there's a single thing left to do and then that conditional merger is either in effect or it goes away. So you can delay, you can warn a vote and win or warn a vote and lose. Either way those three options are in your hands. So to me that's an argument that the legislature at this point should step back and in this bill not address you. What's your thought on that? Given that we're not going to forcibly merge Huntington with you. And so you'll see in the Matt Mansfield motion that I included in the handout that our intention if a merger is not successful is to dissolve a supervisory union. There's an existing process. I don't think that it has been done very often. I expect that it will be messy and involves very difficult discussions. To me that there's a lot of ways that aren't very good out of this for the districts given the way the law was written whether that was intentional or not. I find it hard to believe that the legislature actually intended for part of our community to be voting against another part. I think we always talked about it in terms of would you vote to accept the other community. In other words this is an orphaned community. The metaphor was all hate and comfort. But I think you're right in practice it looks like a hostile takeover. This orphan doesn't want to be part of the family. And under this bill so we're going to have somebody in from Huntington. And what I will say to that person is if I'm you and you don't want to merge then my feeling is you should want to be excluded from this bill. In other words why add another year where Mount Mansfield could conceivably vote to accept you. So I think your supervisor problem is something that we might be able to think about in another session other than this one. Because it's unusual and I agree you're you're roped in in the SU with a partner who is suing you. And it's the only SU left in Chittenden County we should be able to figure a way out for all parties. We're facing crossover now and our plate is full just with the delay question. So I guess that's my last question to you is having deliberately left you guys out of this. Do you want to make an argument to be put in for your delay. I have to say it seems odd to me that with Act 46 intending to create unified unions that somehow through the language and the intention that the legislature would have wanted us to end up in the situation that we're in. With an orphan district that has the ability to stay separate that forces the existing district to continue being inefficient not being able to focus on students and to then be looking a number of years down the line for some other sort of relief. So that we can get back to focusing on students and get away from extending all of our energy and governance. I don't know that the deadline in Act 46 as it's currently written is going to have a huge impact whether it's July 1st of this year or next. Thank you for that answer. I would put it to you like this just not in terms of logic or policy because in this building sometimes those are in another room. And sometimes they're in the room you're in. But in this case if we were to add to this bill a piece that said Huntington notwithstanding other legislation will be forcibly merged. We would be writing an addendum to that map. And then it would be fair game I would think for anybody else to say X community will not be forcibly merged because we're in the game now of creating a new map. So I view my my path or action without horrific unintended consequence as very narrow right now. I think the supervisor union question is something that you can get relief through the state board. And I hear you saying you don't have any strong desire to be put in this bill. So we're not alleviating your your problem but we're not making it worse. You gave us a horrible situation to know you're not making it any worse. And I'm not sure that that Mount Mansfield and Huntington are the are unique. And I'm not as familiar with the other believe it's four months as I'm sure you are. And so I mean I wasn't suggesting that this legislation in any way be specific to our district but it surprises me very much that act 46 would end up in a situation where there were any districts for whom it was not determined. By the state by the state order as delegated to the state Board of Education exactly what was supposed to happen and instead it throws it back to communities. We've had the tools to merge for decades that obviously didn't work without the carrot and stick or without somebody coming and saying it needs to happen. And that that's that's what the outcome we expected act 46 was for the state board of the agency to figure out the best way for things to be organized and for that to happen. I hear you. This is the second time we've done a broad based consolidation of districts. So if you go back 100 plus years ago we had a couple of thousand districts and they were you know sometimes three to a town. So you have a tiny little town with three schools each its own district. And at that point there was consolidation and it was when you look at it now it and you look at it from 30,000 feet. It seems like an amazing efficient consolidation. But if you start looking at it there are these little anomalies and unfortunately I think the act 46 process will also produce anomalies places that in a perfect world a perfectly logical hand would have come in and said to Huntington earlier than now five years ago. We're going to write it so that you must merge in the final plan if the board says so we didn't. So that may mean in our final map that Huntington just with the gray dots there may remain its own district going forward 40 years. Here's my prediction. My prediction is if we leave you out of this July 1st will come and if you haven't worn the meaning of Huntington remains by itself and their compulsion to merge goes away. I predict within three years they come to you and is that best case scenario you know but it could conceivably happen because they are I believe looking at rather high increases in their property tax. At a nine and a half percent budget increase this year they're running a hundred thousand dollar deficit this year as well. Exactly. They're not going to be able to sustain that. That's my feeling so I wish that I could offer you two kinds of relief today especially because as I said Mount Mansfield has been an amazing success story for the state in terms of being an early adopter of these kind of governance. We have in the past written specific legislation to help your situation. I just don't see how we do it at this moment in time with this bill for us. Any other questions for Andrew? Could I just have a comment? Well Andrew thank you for your testimony and for all the work that you've done. I am a former school board member who went through that 46 process. I've co-chaired my committee and we always look to you to try to figure out what did they do first so we could figure out what to do. And so thank you for being a role model. I hear that you're in an impossible situation. I represent Huntington and I am trying to have their best interests at heart. And I think that the law as it was set up was supposed to be will you take in the orphan not will you overtake. It was supposed to be a comforting not as Senator Bruce said. So and it sounds like that's not going to happen in this situation and there's no way that this committee will vote to force them to come to you. I would not vote for that. So I think that the way that it's written that we are trying to do the best thing we can for both of your situations. And just want to thank you for your work and sorry that you're in the situation you're in. But it is the way it is and yeah. Good luck. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming. I appreciate your listening and we'll continue to do the best that we can with the cards we've been dealt. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Alan Gilbert. Very nice to see you in the building. Thank you very much. Alan, I missed the days when you waited on this ever judiciary bill. I missed it. So the record for the record my name is Alan Gilbert. I'm a member of the Worcester School Board and I'm here representing myself today. I came up with this testimony. I'm sorry. Can I just clarify? So in other words you're not representing your board with an official policy position? That's right. I can't do that because we haven't voted on whether this is an official doctrine from the board. And we're very, for any of a number of reasons we're trying to be very careful about that whenever any of us speak. Okay. But I will say that our board did vote to join the Athens litigation. So we are part of the litigation that's moving forward. So if that's a statement of the intent that we're trying to pursue at this point. That's the one with 33. Yeah, 33, 34. Okay. So I came up with this testimony largely to get my own thoughts going about this. I think I'm going to go through and read this. You can do that. The first paragraph is just who I am and why, how I've ended up in this situation of being back on my Worcester School Board. I had been on school boards for 20 years before this. Local Board, Supervisory Union Board. I was chair of the Supervisory Union Board for a period. I was the president of the Vermont School Board Association. I was very active in Act 60 and equity work generally back in the 1990s and 2000s. That work led to my working for the ACLU from 2004 until 2016. My district, when I was the chair of the Worcester School Board, became a plaintiff in the Brigham case. And working with the ACLU on that is what finally led me to take a job with them several years later. So that's the first thing I wanted to say. The second thing I wanted to say was paragraphs two, three, and four are really some history that I've run into because I'm working on a book about equity. And I've tried to understand what is it about Vermont that from the very beginning of this state's history, it set extraordinarily high goals for educating kids in this state. I mean, we were the first state to have public education for all kids. In the 1777 Constitution, the first one in the state, we talked about setting up primary schools. We talked about setting up grammar schools. We talked about setting up a university. And there was no other, I mean, we weren't even a state then. There were two states arguing over the wilderness that was Vermont and who really owned it. And yet the people who formed this state were already thinking that far ahead about how important it was to educate kids. So it was a really heavy lift that the Constitution put in place for all of us to continue working on. And I think over the years, you read some examples I've given, it's been almost impossible to really meet the goals that were set out in the original Constitution. And there have been a lot of arguments. There have been lawsuits. It's absolutely nothing abnormal about the way we've done education in this state for two centuries. So the hard work has been worthwhile. I think we have a great school system, but it has come with a lot of social capital that's been needed to make it happen. And that I think is what school boards have been about for a good number of years. And one of my biggest concerns about what's happening now is that we do have a situation where things in some towns have become toxic. I think merger itself, just because of the decrease in the number of school boards, means you're going to have fewer people who are communicators of a school's mission and the work that's done there than we have now. I think of building a sheetrock wall, and if those of you who have ever done this remember, when you do so, you put a four-by-eight sheet of plywood, you have studs behind it that are 16 inches off-center. And this would be like building that wall, but with two of the studs missing in the very middle of the sheet of plywood. Because in our case, we're going to end up with about one-third the number of school board members at the end of the process than we have now. So you're going to have that many fewer communicators. That more than anything else is what really worries me about what I think is about to happen. On top of that worry is the worry of the divisiveness that the process has engendered in the five towns that my supervisor at UMU makes up. I was appointed to the Worcester School Board last May because there was a vacancy. I felt we should not be going through the process without five members on the board. So I took a ticket, I got on the train, and I really have been as much an observer of this process as anything else. And because of the writing I've been trying to do, I'm also looking at this from a historical standpoint. And I am concerned of where we're at now and how we move forward. So I welcome the opportunity to figure out how can we make this happen and have the final outcome be as positive as anything. I wanted to point out one thing that I think is really important to remember. And that is the third paragraph from the bottom where I say that the order that was issued November 3rd for merger of the six schools by July 1st wasn't the most favorable light. It was a tough challenge to meet. And then the filing of the Athens litigation added a further layer of uncertainty. That uncertainty has not ended with the ruling that came from Judge Mello in the St. Albans Superior Court the other week. And the reason is that it's true the Superior Court Judge's initial ruling was against the plaintiffs. The same thing happened in the Brigham case. In the Brigham case, which was filed in 1995, the first review of the case was in the Lamoya County Court in Hyde Park. And the plaintiffs lost. And for any of the number of reasons, both sides agreed to an appeal to the Supreme Court. And that appeal was heard about four months later. And then two months after that, there was the Brigham decision handed down by the Supreme Court in February of 1997. So just because there's been an initial ruling denying a stay of preliminary injunction doesn't necessarily mean that the legal questions have been addressed and they're over. They're not. The simple fact that that's still the case, whether we agree or don't agree on what the ultimate outcome we think is going to be, exists. And people in my town are concerned that there's still open litigation on this. And it really would be better to delay this for a year until we work through the entire process. Would a year be enough? I don't know. But certainly in the Brigham case, the court showed when it had to, it can move very quickly. And it did six months after the initial ruling from the judge. So that's, I think that's something important to keep in mind. The other thing that I wanted to point to is to tell you, as I think you know already, we're one of the towns that really is concerned about the debt issue, about the assumption of debts. And what I tried to do was to look at a spreadsheet that the state filed as part of the Athens litigation to estimate the additional burden on Worcester taxpayers owning certain homes to see what it would be over the course of the time we'd be paying the outstanding debt from other towns. My town has no debt. There's one other town in our five-town district that has, I think it's 12 million, might be 10 million of outstanding debt that will go for another 10 years, I believe. How has your deferred maintenance in your building? We have had a capital fund that for the last five years has kept pace with maintenance items that had to be done. So. Because I think one of the, not in every case, but in a lot of the cases, sometimes you have town side by side where one has accrued debt because they've been making upgrades to their savings. And then sometimes in the other town you'll have low taxes, low debt, but a building that's in need of serious work. We had an improvement expansion project in the late 1990s, early 2000s, and that took care of a lot of stuff then. And I believe people have been keeping up with it since then because there is a capital fund that has substantial money in it. The estimates for what it's going to cost somebody who has $100,000 home in Worcester is they have an additional tax burden of $69 every year, $2,000 home, 138, $300,000 home, 207. And I know that no pre-bate amounts are reflected in these amounts because it's impossible to know how that could work out. So these probably don't seem like large amounts to most people, but if you look at the profile of Worcester, the income levels there are not particularly high. And the second thing you have to realize about our town is that 51% of the land in the town is owned by the state or is held by entities for the public. So there can be no development on their land. I know that means nothing in terms of our ability to raise school taxes because it's a state grand list we have now. But it means that when we as a town need to repave a road, the only tax base we have is from our town. So in fact, we have one of the few paved local roads in our town needs to be repaved. And in our town meeting this year, we spent a half an hour trying to figure out how we were going to at least get a top coat of asphalt put down on that road because it is close to becoming impossible. So for us, something like $40,000 or $50,000 a year, which is a very rough ballpark estimate of what the amount of money that's going to be leaving Worcester because of the debt issue, that's actually a fair amount of money for us. And it means something substantial to people in town. That has become an issue that unfortunately has heightened the division that was already building just because of merger, the debt issue. And if I could just jump in here, so I said to Mr. Pond that we wouldn't be rewriting the map. I don't want to speak definitively for the committee, but I feel similarly about rewriting acts 46 or 49 in terms of the conditions under which people will merge, changing their default articles. So the way it stands now is that map behind us is the final order. There are default articles which are in place. So speaking to your debt problem or trying to help your debt problem is in effect taking sides in your disputes with your neighbors, which this bill is not going to do. So if I could ask you more clearly, does the debt issue bear on whether you want a delay or not? Or is it just a factor that's made it tough for you to merge to this point?  So I think a delay for us is good no matter if the debt's there or not because the process has really been very, very fast for us. And the filing of the lawsuit and the general discussions that we've had in our towns have made it difficult for people to move in the kind of measured comfortable state that I think would lead to good decisions. I think if the debt issue could be addressed, it would help us to tamp down that divisiveness and have more rational conversations about moving forward. If I may, we're not asking for a solution from the legislature on the debt issue. What we would like would be to be able to determine ourselves how we can possibly mitigate the effects of the assumption of debt. Which the judge pointed out in his 25-page ruling that communities have the ability to amend their articles of agreement with regard to debt. So that is possible. It might not be easy, but it is a tool that's available to you already under your default articles. We actually didn't, we're not sure the judge has that right to tell you the truth. If I could walk out of this room feeling that the legislature has our back, if we tried to do that and came up with another solution, it would make me feel really good. Well, in terms of the legislature having your back writing law to say that, no. But I do see that the judge, in other words, nothing against your board. But if I have the Superior Court judge and his take on acts 46 and 49 for your boards, especially since he's arguing what you want argued, that's what I'm going to go with. Which is, he's saying the ability is there to amend with regard to assumption of debt. So there was one other thing you said that I want to talk about. You were talking about a delay. You said it would be good for your community. And then you said, would a year be enough? I don't know. And I really want to speak to that because this draft, as I can see it to, makes it very clear that what's being offered here is a year delay in service of getting to the end of this process. And that doesn't include everybody being in the same place next year. So we have you in next year to talk about another year delay. That, for my discussions with Pro Tem, as well as with other people, no one wants that to happen next year. So I understand there are some communities who don't want to merge in with like endless delay. What this is offering is a delay in service, specifically a final delay in service of being done by July 1st of next year. So nobody can predict the future. Probably some people will come in and ask for a delay next year. But at least as regards me and this committee, I would be completely unwilling at that point to do anything along those lines. So anything else you can tell us all about the pieces of the bill that would affect your community? Have you had a chance to look this over? Yeah, I don't think I've looked at, there's a new version of the bill that came out at the new time. Okay, because I didn't see that. My understanding is that when it comes to a delay, we would have an option to, if the new board voted on a delay, there could be a delay. If we were to do that, any chance of tapping the small schools grant would disappear because you have to make a decision to merge effectively as of July 1st of this year. Well, you could still, you would still be in the process that the state board has laid out. You would still be able to apply for a small school grant each year, but you would have to go through that 16 point process. Right, so even if we delay for a year, we still have the chance to go, okay, well then I misunderstood that. The real advantage to going to July 1st 19 in terms of the small school grant is you don't have to apply. Right, you should know that one of the things in the lawsuit, you probably do know this, is there's a challenge to the small schools grants. Yeah, so it's ironic for me to testify on yes, we'd love to be able to tap that small schools grant when the lawsuit says we think they're inequitable. But I do worry about having to vote for a merger partly for the reasons that I think Emily was describing, or maybe it was Donna. These elections for who will be on the new board, I don't know how contentious they're going to be in our five towns. But if they become a referendum on whether you're in favor of voting, whether you're in favor of a delay in merging for a year or not, it's going to set back, it's going to set us back even further to getting beyond the point of contention that we're at now. For me, the important thing is not necessarily merging, and I know from the legislative standpoint that's the goal. For me, the goal is being in a different place in somewhere between one and five years where we're collaborating more closely together as a school union, saving money, providing broader opportunities for kids. By school union, do you mean a unified district? Well, I think to us that's much less important than actually achieving the goals of efficiencies, lower costs, and broader opportunities for kids. That's what most of us in our district, and I know it's what I'm focused on. And I think the focus here, and most people's focus, has been on one step after another, moving forward, getting to the change in governance, and then we've done it. I mean, that's only the beginning, and I want to make sure that once we've gotten past that beginning, we're actually going to be set up for success and not failure. One of the things that I would say across the board, from Act 46 to Act 49 to now, one of the things that has been universally true, when people empaneled the study committee, those people might have been hostile to the idea of merging, almost invariably those study committees themselves, the committee, came after study to believe it would be good for them. Communities that did merge, almost without exception, have decided that it was a good thing for them. So there's this period where people's perceptions are one thing, until their governance shifts, and they realize that it was an invisible line all along. Now there's a slightly larger invisible line, and yes, a couple more people are on a board somewhere, but now my kid has banned, now my kid has AP courses, now my kid competes in sports where they couldn't afford. There are real tangible benefits for parents, and that's what changes the attitudes. That and, you know, communities that acted earlier got substantial tax benefits for doing so. So it has not been a history so far of buyers regret. It's been more a history of people getting right up to the point where they would be able to see that and stop it. So I do want to make sure that we, I have a meeting at 4.30. Anything else you'd like to make sure you share with us now? No, I think I'm finished. Okay, I appreciate you coming. Thank you. Appreciate the time. Okay, Patrick Fudd, please join us. Good afternoon, my name is Patrick Fudd. I am the chair of the Woodbury Elementary School Board. We have between 45 to 50 students in a 100 year old school that's actually in terrific shape and has no denser. I'm here very specifically to tell you that I really think we need a delay. We've come to the conclusion we need to move forward with Act 46. I'm not going to talk about that at all. You don't want me to get started. No, I want to talk about a delay, but I want to make a couple of points. One of them is that we were surprised in the fall. We were required to merge with Hardwick and with Greensboro and Standard. That came as a surprise to us. We had been told as recently, I believe as early as November, that we were not going to have to merge. When the preliminary report came out from the state board, it said you're going to have to merge and then the final report confirmed that. But the reason for that in our mind was we had met with Secretary Holcomb back in the summer. We had a great meeting with her. She was hearing from different schools that were impacted. We all went in from the whole supervisory union. Every school was there. We talked to her about what we were trying to accomplish voluntarily. In terms of integrating, in terms of sharing resources, we had some great ideas. She loved it. She didn't talk to us for 15 minutes. She talked to us for an hour. People were coming to the door saying, and she kept talking to us because I think we convinced her we were all there. We were all together. And that, in my mind, is why she didn't require us to merge in her, excuse me, in her initial report. So we were taken significantly by surprise in November. We had put together a Section 9 plan. We had done a lot of work done. But we had not given the serious work to what really needs to be done if you're going to merge districts. We've started that work. I don't want to tell you that we have not. We're trying. It's very complicated, which I'm sure you know. But just trying to deal with the transitional work, we have not. And here's an example of what we're up against. So we scheduled, this is just normal. This stuff happens. We had scheduled an organizational meeting for, I think, the, gosh, the end of January. We did it incorrectly. The supervisory union did not use the correct number of days notice. Somebody complained. We had to reschedule it. We scheduled it to the end of February. We had the meeting. People came in. It was well organized. And they motioned for and got a recess until this Friday. So we've lost two and a half months. This is just normal politics. This stuff happens. But time is really running out. And that's my key message here. We're not trying to avoid the merger. We're going to try to make the best of it, even though we have lots of things to talk about. But I just want to say to you folks that I spent 29 years in state government. I was a commissioner of two departments. I was the deputy secretary of H.S. for four years. I was around during the, what I considered, the ill-fated reorganization of H.S. during the Douglas years in the early 2000s. We reorganized all of H.S. We took months. We spent millions of dollars. There's only one part of that reorganization left. The rest of it all fell apart. The part that's left is the department that I ran, which was Dale, because we did it right. And I used those words too early, Mr. Chairman, because that's what you said earlier. You talked about doing it right. And doing these kind of complex reorganizations is difficult. And it's not just about deadlines. Deadlines are really important right now. It's about relationships. And we are already encountering some of the burgeoning toxicity that you've heard about many, many times. And we want to manage that as prior speakers have said. We don't want to live with this for the next five years. People are already deciding they're not going to be on the board in the future because it's too challenging. So I can keep this relatively short. We need more time to put together a budget. We haven't done that work. There's a draft budget. We haven't really, the boards have not reviewed it. To elect a new board, if you look at the rules in the articles, we have basically have to give six weeks notice in order to have an election. It's not going to happen. To do all that and have a board in place that then approves a budget, to have that all happen in time, it's not going to happen. There's going to be a serious stumble. With that in mind, what this contemplates is a year delay. In order to get that, you form a transitional board, board a meeting and then elect an initial board. That board makes the decision. Do you have time to do that? Yes. We certainly have time for the transitional board. We're going to have the organizational meeting this Friday. I think the transitional board will probably be sworn in next week. We will sit down. We'll go circle on over the budget. I think we absolutely have time to then warn a meeting and elect a new board. Now, just by exactly by when I can't say. Yeah. But that would be up to you. And I've read in your bill and I don't think I've looked at the most recent version, but I will. And you have a provision in there that says that the new board would vote yay or nay on a delay. You know, personally, I think we can live with that. It's democracy at work too, right? But that delay is not clear to me when that delay would actually be till. It's until July 1, 2021. Okay. But if we completed things sooner, we could have more time. Yeah. So, you know, as I say, the people in my in the three towns, I can only speak for Woodbury. I'm not pretending to speak for Hardwick or Standard or Greensboro. So I don't think they'll come in here and say anything different, but who knows? I think we can pull that off, but we need more time or it's going to be utter chaos. Yes. Okay. I appreciate your testimony very much. And you know, the thing that I always think is the most hopeful when people come in is when they talk about wanting to get it right and wanting to fulfill what they perceive their obligations to be, whether they like them completely or not. And this is meant to be open-handed to those sorts of districts. If people are not willing to take the steps to form an initial board, let's say, then they're on the path that they're on now. But for people who are just looking for more time, who want to build community support, who want to reduce that level of lack of understanding in their community, I think it's a fair amount. I do think in the bill right now, if I'm not mistaken, you have some hard deadlines around July 1st. Yes. I think it's going to be hard to accomplish all that at the same time. So for example, the articles for us are, I would say, contentious. You know, one town thinks this article needs to be changed, the other town thinks this one needs to be changed. And how we negotiate all that and then warn a meeting and get it, you know, that is going to take time. We don't have a draft set of articles yet to go with, and that's going to take some time. If at the same time we're trying to push an election on the board and at the same time we're trying to build a budget, it's all the same people. Well, there's another provision, which is default budget piece.  All by July 1st. All by July 1st. Then there's a default budget that would kick in for you for this year. Even though there's a delay. Well, you don't have the delay yet, right? Right. If you voted for the delay by July 1st, then the default budget does not kick in. Okay. So even though we don't have a, we probably will not have a unified budget at that point. Right. If you vote for the delay, you don't need a unified budget. Okay. We're going to have our unified budget in the following year. Yes. Well, that's a relief because I'm trying to pull that off at the same time. Yeah. That's doable. No. And otherwise, you might as well not have this bill. Exactly. Exactly what I was thinking. Well, thank you, by the way, for your 30 years of service. I mean, I've known you in various capacities. Just so you know, we didn't forget. I sure haven't forgotten. Some of it perturbed into my memory. Anyway, I'll be happy to answer any questions. I thank Senator Perchlick for being in touch with us and helping us attend the hearing. And I'll follow the progress of the bill. And again, if we can get that kind of a delay, I think we will be able to accomplish what you want us to accomplish. Perfect. Thank you. Christine, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We came down from meeting in those falls two years ago, and we tried our best to address Donaldson's issues, Vernon's issues. We thought maybe we were creating an act 49 of a path for the DNC. It didn't work out for us. And for those of you who don't travel down to our little corner here, this is Donaldson town I represent. This is our proposed Resby district. And there's Vernon. That's New Hampshire. And that's Massachusetts for those of you who don't travel down. So they're quite isolated. And they have withdrawn from our high school union on the basis of Act 46 so that they could keep their 7 through 12 choice. So that was very difficult on our SU because we had a partner. It was difficult on our high school union actually because they've been a partner. They've been contributing to our high school. And we have great concerns that there's private schools that way. There's private schools that way. There's public schools that way. For many children it's closer. We're very concerned it's going to weaken the admission at our high school union and their tuition dollars we were receiving before as part of our high school union. So it has been very difficult down in our corner of the woods. And I'd also like to point out that as of now I just checked my email. We still don't know the long term status of Vernon. So right now we are not able to merge into a unified union district because we have to maintain our supervisory union district for Vernon. And Vernon contributes to our SU funds. And it still hasn't been determined what their final status is by the SU board. I'm just wondering because Huntington is in an SU with a merged unified district. Is there a provision that says you can't be a unified district if you're in an SU with Vernon? We have to maintain our supervisory union structure. Yes. Couldn't you form a unified district within that structure? Well we can't until they figure out what yes we can find a unit but we can't be a hold on it's late. We can't be a single SU one district. Yes. Yes. So that's how that's what they have advised for us. The gray can legally and right now must legally merge. Yes. Yes. But we can't get rid of our supervisory union. The state board has not made any ruling about Vernon. That's the situation that Andrew ponded. Exactly. So it's actually a very similar situation that they've talked about either putting them with William Central which is about a 40 minute drive away from their school to their SU headquarters or merging all of our districts next year. Potentially a win in northeast and a win in southeast into a big SU. We don't know. So that's part of our problem in our corners. They have not told us what's happening. And just for a little context for people on the committee. I believe this is correct. The state board put off requests regarding SUs because they were focused on vergers of the unified districts. So they essentially pushed off those questions. But it seems to me that when we address the situation that we have now, the SUs, I don't know what you want to call them, the kind of vestigial SUs. So you have Huntington still roped in with the unified district and Vernon in this case. Should do a consolidation of them. The thing is, Special Ed is delivered from the SU level. So you've got to have them in an SU with somebody. And transportation. And if they move, the special education teachers get ripped throughout the whole supervisory union because they're employed at the supervisory union level. So we will upset special education delivery relationships to our most vulnerable students is one of these unintended consequences with the Special Ed consolidation that occurred in the middle of this. I'm very concerned about that. So that's definitely something we will have to look at at some point or direct the board to look at. Probably the latter. But anyway. So I'll let you. I'm Christina Naylor. I am chair of the Denver St. Town School Board. I have served on the study committee. I have served. I am serving on our SU board currently. I also served on our Alternative Governance Structure Committee. And I am also a Window Regional VSBA representative, though I am not testifying on their behalf today or anybody else's just on behalf of my board. So our board, our voters have worked hard to meet the Act 46 goals alongside with our other SU partners. We've participated in over 50 study committee meetings, drafting articles. These articles were rejected by our town. Overall, 70-1% of the four town district voters rejected the merger. In Dumberston, 84% of our voters rejected the merger. And their voter turnout was very high. Having this kind of failure does not help inform our process going forward, which was originally in age 39, that we should know what to do. We know what not to do. We know not to do that. And we spent a long time. Exactly. So I'm arguing against that House bill. We are asking for a delay. We are, I guess, slow band-aid rippers. Our board has applied, went back and applied a growth mindset to Act 46. We work with members from all SU boards as well as teachers and community members. It was a very open process. We met over 25 times to build the study, on the study committee work and create our alternative governance proposal. Our Dumberston voters endorsed this proposal in a non-binding vote last town meeting day by a vote of approximately 200 to one. I've included a copy of our executive summary in your packet there. Last time we needed you last week. No, a year ago. Okay. It was reasonable for us to consider that this was an option for a Section 9 governance structure. We had heard Governor Shumlin talk on DPR's Vermont edition about how he would, I don't think you are ever to see, ever in Vermont, a state board saying to communities, you shall do this. But here we are. And that included a transcript. I'm a former middle school teacher, so I like handouts. That's UPS. So obviously we invested a lot of time and effort into trying to comply with the law and finding other ways to meet the goals of the law. This was very important to us. I don't know of a school board member that I've served with anywhere in the SUA that doesn't want to do better for their children and better for their taxpayer. Not down in our corner, anyone. So based on this understanding of Act 46 and our voters' clear endorsement of our alternative governance structure, when the AOE ordered the forced merger of our SU, we entered into the lawsuit. We asked at the lawsuit the given time to work through the courts to assure we do not have to undo a merger. A year delay will also assure we don't have unintended consequences and that our SU has time to carefully plan for this monumental task. Experts caution against moving too quickly. Pykus, one of the authors of the Pykus Odin Study, said this to the House Committee of Education in 2016. Proceed cautiously in attempting to achieve savings through consolidation because the complexities of school finance may lead to unintended consequences. It will take time. Vermont Digger reported just yesterday on the unintended consequences of rural children going hungry due to school consolidation. Months ago I expressed this exact concern to our superintendent. This is not fake news. It's happening. A more local to Dumberston expert, Frank Rucker, who is our WSDSU business manager and currently the president of VASBO, the Vermont Association of Business Officials, told our district that typically a year is good practice for planning to make a transition of this magnitude. We have three months. And these are not ideal circumstances. Our mergers are forced upon voters who voted against it. Our neighbor and Wyndham Central districts are struggling with mergers supported by their voters, supported by transition grants, supported by generous tax incentives. They were also supported by a year of planning their implementation. Under these ideal circumstances their taxes are increasing dramatically. And under these ideal conditions, our local newspaper is filled with stories of contentious school board meetings in Wyndham Central and letters from unhappy families in the initial implementation. WSDSU also has the Vernon problem. Vernon has been a part of our SU and our high school union since 1956, and that has recently changed. This will, if they move us around next year or the year after, this will mean we will undergo two governance changes potentially. If the state board decides to merge our Wyndham South East Supervisor Union with Wyndham North East Supervisor Union, we will have to merge SUs after having just gone through this governance change. So that would mean two of these transitions in two years. Although that's pretty speculative. They talked about doing that. That was there. That was all of several state board members spoke about that. And then Daniel French said we should wait until after this portion is through to determine that, to do that. We also will have to figure out how to make up Vernon's assessment that comes through our SU as well as the disposition of our special education teachers. And all this is going on while implementing a new financial package that is not going well for our business office apparently. So you needed a life? That's what I am asking. We also need people to find, to run for the board. A lot of people didn't want to run for the board. It's a heavy lift. It's not a popular thing to work on. I have kids. I have no business. It's being sure of a small board is a long day for me. And this job is monumental. Also we need to be thoughtful about our budgeting because Bradderborough's tax is in a combined merged district. We'll go up. And they have the least ability to pay. We need time to not have Bradderborough tax payers receive a tax increase that they voted against courtesy of Act 46. It feels very much like Obamacare implementation. And if we can try and find some of those savings in the year to plan, I think that will help with implementation greatly. I would also like to say that there is good news happening that Act 46 has caused us to double down on our work. And we have done a lot of things not only in Dumberston, but throughout the district in terms of increasing efficiency, increasing equity and transparency and accountability. Again, I have a handout where I've listed the what our study committee. Can I borrow that? Yeah, sure. Can I have Vanna White this for a minute? These are the primary equity programming equity initiatives that our study committee looked at. We've accomplished many of them. In fact, ones that we consider to be really important like pre-K, we have gone way beyond the goal from preferred merger. We've also started diversity training at the SU level. Our board has started broadcasting one of our monthly meetings so that we can increase transparency and accountability. And we have done the heavy lift of implementing pre-K for four-year roles for next year. This has made even more impressive when you look at our tax rates, which I have included on table three. We've kept maintained a level tax rate while we've added all these programming. And we've done this without merger. We've brought down our per pupil costs. We've brought down our overall spending by using resources efficiently by sharing more resources within our SU and done that while increasing programming. The House Committee on Education had testimony from the former board chair, Browbro, that stated that we needed to merge immediately because domestic students were not prepared for the high school. This is not actually correct. I have checked with our superintendent. There's no data to that effect. And in fact, our students score in the top and five schools for middle school for the last five years. So we're getting excellent results and there's no reason to expect that our children are not prepared. The former Browbro chair also testified that one of our neighboring towns, Guilford, needed to immediately merge so they could get behaviors in their classroom, teacher leader programs, and maintain their programming. Well, I've checked with the superintendent. They have teacher leaders, they have behaviors in the classroom right now, and they have expanded programming. And in fact, if we don't merge, next year they plan to increase their programming from the four-year-old pre-K to a three- and four-year-old pre-K. So when I look at this and I, with my business background, I say, wow, we're getting excellent results down there. We're maintaining our tax rate. We are increasing programming. We're increasing equity and transparency and accountability. It's what I call a benchmarking system in the business world. Who's doing what? How are they doing it? And what are the good things they're doing? I find it hard to believe that these good things would be bad for our children to continue another year. We're not going to stop. We're always continuing to do better for our kids. That's all, that's what we do. That's what we're there for, to do better for our families and kids and our taxpayers. So I thank you for taking my testimony. I'm happy to answer questions, and I appreciate you squeezing me in at the end. Sorry, I talked back. Any questions from the day? Just the question of the bill as it's drafted. Have you looked at it? I have glanced at it and I have not glanced. So I am concerned as Emily spoke about the toxicity. We have managed to stay working together, and it has not been pretty. And the public has, you know, the public have not all been pretty, but whatever side I talk to everybody whether they agree with me or not, and most of us have maintained that. I'm concerned with the small schools grant that that would be really difficult. I mean, I understand the motivation behind doing it. I'm just concerned that it's just one more bit of toxicity for our district as well as others. I'm thinking, you know, the idea behind this was to say you can get a delay. The communities, the great communities, many of them wanted a delay. So you can get it by electing this initial board. So I think it changes the equation in a way. Before it was, you have to elect an initial board and then you're going to, you know, be heard along to make it July 1st deadline. Now you can say to people in the community who want to merge or forming our initial board. For people who don't want to merge, you could say we're forming our initial board. That's how we get your delay. So I think there will be less toxicity around this approach than people are making out because in effect it aligns for that vote, not perfectly, but it has people moving in the same direction for different reasons. So A, I should say I'm not speaking on behalf of my board because it was met last night and I was authorized to say this so I'm speaking, and I haven't even read it where I consulted legal counsel or the superintendent. My concern is the toxicity of the small schools grant because two schools get small schools grants. Not so much the transitional board issue, but the push to do it very quickly in order to get that small school. I would advise them to vote for 2019. Right. That's really a good thing for the schools. I understand what you're saying which is it gives the side that doesn't want to delay an argument. Without it, it's clear that everybody would want to delay, but from our point of view, we're trying to make sure that communities do have an argument to move forward. So we have a couple that we're watching that are very close to happen is to have people say okay, there's nothing to be gained now, we might as well drop our tools for a year and then pick it up again. So the small school grant is on the one hand meant to provide just a small evidence, but on the other hand it's an issue that has to be dealt with anyway because the state board threw it back to us for us to take some sort of position of it. But I hear you I think it's fair to say any change you make to the chess board now produces complexities. And in the largest sense, we're trying to get you the time where those complexities are not going to kill anybody, they're going to be smoothed out by the fact that there's an additional year. I think that's the most important thing and if it could be a clean additional year that we're just working and there's not something we have to argue about ad nauseam in this legal council, it would be refreshing for the hard working board members. I think I can say that on their behalf. They would just like something clean that we don't have to call six lawyers to understand what the implications are and anything that reduces the volume on the various sides would be very helpful and some of the things in the bill I believe could, but especially the small schools grant where do it now, throw your budget under the bus. And just to clarify something we talked about before, but we need to hear. So, if you take the delay, it's not that you don't get the small schools grants, it's that you have to go through that process. So, it's not that you're getting money you wouldn't have, it's that you're getting it easier if you... But you may lose it. You might lose it if your analysis of your excellence in teaching went down. Exactly. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So, Susan, how long will it take you to do? No, I didn't mean to do it in five minutes. Okay, so please, join us. So, Susan is the last witness we have. I had hoped that maybe we could... Andrew has some ideas we wanted to put out. I had hoped we could get for those by 4.30 because I have a meeting tomorrow. I don't have one of the things that I might need for that, so I might be better to do it tomorrow. Yeah, we'll do it tomorrow. So, with Susan, we're talking now about the so-called avic language and the piece of the miscellaneous bill about how to deal with the prospect of colleges closing on expected. Susan Stightley with the Association of Vermont Indian Clinic Colleges. I just want to quickly remind you, I know you all know the higher education is the third and fourth largest industry in the state. We are suffering right now. We still have over 16,000 students, even with the colleges that are going to close over 4,000 employees and staff and 1.1 billion in direct expenses. Granted, the communities that are going to see these colleges close are really going to feel a lot of pain. So, I think our conversation should be more about how we can work together rather than overburdening the colleges and this new language which we're not in favor of. I think we already have several triggers here that the agency of education or the state board can go to court. They could also, in the case of Burlington College, they could have gone to the insurance company and director and officer on liability to pursue an action there. So, Susan, just for clarity, if you're not in favor of the new language, it's yours in part. I would have to say it's become your language. Okay, but what you gave us what I'll call news type of language and we had old type of language. So, they were both of your offers. Are you objecting to the new piece or are you objecting to the fact that it's been paired now with the old ones? I'm objecting, we're fine with the new language that we presented that went in institution. We agree, we're fine with what the agency has requested that in five business days, once they go on probation, not necessarily financial probation, they have to notify the agency and that in 60 days, they have to submit a student record plan. So, we think that is sufficient and that the previous language is no longer necessary and particularly now it's giving us to be responsible for members who were members within the last two years. So, for example, in the last three years, Green Mountain College has only been a member of AVIC for six months. So, this makes us liable for somebody who just, you know, there's not only a member in the last for six months of the last three years. So, we don't think that is equitable and we think that there's enough safeguards already and with the legal resources that are there. Okay, so let me just ask the opposite question. So, you're saying that so, new and old, you're saying that you're a kid with a new language and you think that it's sufficient and that it will provide enough safeguards. Yes. So, if that's the case, then the old language which finds AVIC by a memorandum of understanding would never be triggered. We actually had asked that language to be struck. I understand that. But in other words, what I'm saying is your argument to us is take away the old language and the new will never impact the state because it's sufficient. So, what I'm saying is that that's true then that old language will never be triggered. Right? Right. So, there's no reason really to get rid of the old language. Well, it does. It's still there. It's still there. So, you never know what's going to happen. I don't want it to happen to the state. But again, you know, we had one outlier. This has happened the first time in history. So, you know, you're putting additional safeguards for one unique outlier situation that is highly unlikely to happen again. AVIC in the last year has done a lot of due diligence. I handed out our records policy. So, we adopted and voted on that so that we're trying to get everybody in line with the record so that they can easily be transferable. So, I think we've done our due diligence on this. I do question whether legally you can require us members who have no obligation to each other to contract in this way before we agreed to it. No, we wouldn't agree to it. So, say you had a farmer's association and a farmer had an environmental violation and couldn't fix it or pay for it. Would you require all the farmers in that association to come forward? Well, if we had this legislation in place for them where they were required to create a common memorandum of understanding so, as I see it, it's asking the organization to cover for its members in the case that one of them goes down. So, they're in a sense insuring a stake against and you remember the context which was to avoid having to take out bonds, financial bonds. So, rather than go down that road again of requiring your members to have $50,000 bonds, we could do that, that I still exist, but it was problematic. Your people really didn't want it. It would probably put two or three new colleges out of business. So, what I'm feeling is that with three different colleges in the news about possibilities of closure, I would rather go with more safeguards rather than less. So, I understand the house I believe is doing what you want in terms of just a new language for my own and I'll speak for myself if we haven't voted on it yet. I would prefer that we move the pieces together. We'll wind up in a conference with the house and it may be that they can be persuasive about a different way to do it or but I know when I turn on the radio or pick up Vermont Digger or whatever it is and there's another college looking at closing, I immediately feel like I should have done more. So, I like the idea of adding your new language to what we have and if you're right that it will never be triggered in the old language, then nobody's the worse one. Cory. So, quick question. You just said to have a bond like a surety bond if we put a couple of colleges out of business I mean in most I've already talked about what I do for a living I give you some surety bonds. Most gas stations have a tax bond that costs like 500 bucks a year and a $50,000 surety bond cover that would be like a thousand bucks maybe. So, my understanding and I have very little knowledge of it is that it's based on your financial circumstances so if a college is in financial trouble they're going to have a higher bond where like Norwich University will be paying nothing Right, but a $50,000 is not you never pay more than $50,000 you pay a very small percentage of that. But it's based on their financial stability, so. We went around and around for a couple of weeks who would offer them what would people have to pay dot dot dot and as soon as we suggested now the old style would be like which we went with. Right. It's all steady. Object. So, I I I understand that your objections and your preference that we swap out the new with the old and we will put that to a vote and you know I think that miscellaneous bill is just about ready what we haven't done is vote on that concept. So, we'll be doing that probably Friday but if you'd like to come in Friday for that discussion. Okay, I would just you know really say the original Stitely Language is much more accepted of all the new about growth language which includes people who aren't members. Which was offered entirely by members. Did you have the two years? No. That's the part. That's the only. Well, thank you.