Despite opposition from many Democrats and outrage from large swaths of the public education system, legislative leaders some of the enough votes this week to send an historic education reform package to Governor Phil Scott's desk.

And, the three, the three bodies, the governor, the House and the Senate all come out, not extremely happy about a bill.

It probably shows that we got each person got a little bit that they wanted out of it, plus a bill capping what Vermont health care providers can charge for outpatient prescription drugs becomes law.

And Burlington temporarily renames Church Street as a show of support to our northern neighbors.

All that and more head on.

Vermont this week.

From the Vermont Public studio in Winooski, this is Vermont this week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Thanks for joining us on Vermont this Week I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, June 20th, and joining us on the panel today, Alison Novak from Seven Days, Calvin Cutler from WCAX and Stephen Biddix from Nbc5.

Thank you all so much for being here.

Well, as we talked about, you saw there at the top an historic education reform bill has finally passed the legislature.

But there are critics of course, let's hear two differing views on the bill.

We will look back on this moment as the turning point when privatization and standardization and undemocratic bureaucratic capture took over.

Voting for this bill is a way of saving public schools from what is coming out, and that is an animosity based on people's property taxes getting to the point where they can't bear it and they will vote all of us out.

Okay, so very pointed, comments there about this bill.

Also, Novak, I want to start with you.

What are some of the biggest things in this bill that are going to really be big changes to the way education is funded in Vermont?

So this bill, H 454, is basically a fundamental change in both the governance of schools and the funding of schools.

So it calls for larger consolidated school districts.

There'll be a task force that starts meeting in August, most likely, that will work on drawing maps for bigger school districts.

The recommendation in the bill is between 4000 and 8000 students per school district.

Right now, Champlain Valley School District is the only school district in the state that has over 4000, so that's probably going to mean a lot of change for a lot of school districts.

Class sizes are going to change.

What are we what we can expect about that.

Yeah.

So when the governor initially unveiled his plan, you know, they were for very big class sizes, 15 in elementary school and I believe 25 and middle and high school.

The legislature I think thought that was pretty extreme.

And so the class sizes are actually pretty moderate.

I believe it's ten in first grade, 13 in second through fourth grade, maybe, and goes up to about 18 in high school.

So, you know, some school districts, I believe are kind of meeting those standards already.

But it's not to say that if you can't meet those standards, a school would automatically close.

There's some provisions in the bill that say you would have to have three years of being not being able to meet those class sizes.

And then at that point, the Secretary of Education could recommend to the state Board of Education that action be taken on those schools.

The state board could decide to take action or not to take action.

So there are definitely some kind of, the bill was soft softened in terms of that language around class sizes.

And as you say, there's going to be some study about getting to these new districts and we're not going to start to see these changes for a couple of years.

Right, because of that.

Yeah.

So both the governance changes, so bigger districts as well as a new funding formula, which I haven't talked about, talked about yet, but essentially each student is going to receive a certain lump sum with with additional money going to students who are English language learners, those, who are living in poverty, as well as special education students.

And so instead of local voters voting on their school budgets, the state will decide how much each school district gets.

And this is kind of an attempt to equalize, between districts, how much, students are getting.

So there's, you know, districts that are more affluent wouldn't get to choose to necessarily spend more than districts that are less affluent.

But those spending decisions are pretty important.

And that's going to be this, this new formula.

Right?

Yeah.

And so both the formula as well as the new school districts would, if everything goes well, would go into effect in July 2028.

Okay.

There is so much in this bill.

And I want you guys to weigh in on this as well.

Of course.

There were questions about independent schools and what's going to happen there.

Second homes are going to be taxed differently.

What can you tell us about that count?

Yeah.

I mean, like, as Allison just said, there's so much this is a the beginning of a framework that will be implemented over time.

There's still lots of decision points that have to be made.

Check backs, studies, future votes from future legislatures.

So, you know, there's a question of, you know, how committed are they to this work?

What will that mean going forward?

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of, like, you know, creating a new property tax structure which potentially could include second homes or short term rentals, which is something that's been batted around in the legislature for years now.

But we still need to define what is a second home.

Deer camps versus, ski chalets and things like that.

So there's a lot of work that has to happen there.

Of course, big thorny questions about independent schools, sort of what will their role be going forward?

What will they be allowed to charge, versus public schools.

So there's just so many blanks that that need to be be filled in.

And I think it still remains to be seen, you know, whether in two, three, 4 or 5 years, all of these pieces come together for a critical mass, as Allison said, you know, all of these have to hit at the new maps, and the funding formula has to hit at the same time for this to work out and for, for for property tax payers and for the education system to really seamlessly, if I can use that word, ease or where as seamlessly as possible.

And it really still remains to be seen whether this work will continue after the next election.

There's still so many, pieces of this that that still need to be figured out.

But again, you know, getting back to what Senator Filbert Ruth was saying at the beginning there, you know, this is the legislature responding to voters responding to that property tax revolt that we saw last year.

So, more on this to come responding to that.

Yes.

But I know that there was a lot of wrangling about local and state control and, this this was a big issue for a lot of lawmakers, right?

Yeah.

I mean, I think the fact that budget votes are going to be taken away from local voters now, there will be a provision that allows, voters to approve a 10% increase above the foundation formula.

So there could be some, you know, local voting.

But I think a lot of people really value in Vermont the kind of being able to go and town meeting day and vote on their school budget.

And I think that's going to fundamentally change that.

And I think especially for rural schools, small schools, small school districts, the idea of bigger districts where there's less connection to their school boards, less connection to the administration in their districts, I think is a prospect that is really scary and upsetting to them.

And I think, you know, going off of that, too, when we're redrawing these new district lines.

I mean, this is one of, you know, school politics and school boards.

That's kind of its own, special type of politics.

But redrawing these new lines, I mean, this potentially will have some of the biggest political changes that we've seen here in Vermont, probably since reapportionment back in 1964 when we went away from one vote, one town, one vote to the system that we have right now.

So this is a huge sea change just in terms of how Vermonters interact with, government from a democratic standpoint.

Yeah.

We we can't not talk about the politics of this.

And Stephen Biddle, let's talk a little bit about the vote breakdown, how this went down, who voted for this?

Who did it, what do we know about all that?

So on the Senate side, it went through on a 17 to 12 vote.

It was a bill that had, you could argue, zero party ties.

A lot of these bills.

We know Democrats try to have mostly Democratic support.

Republicans the same.

And it'll either go through party lines or it won't.

Most of the time, this one was just I don't know if every man for themselves is it's every man for the district basically is how do they think man woman is how are they going to best represent their district and what they want.

So in the Senate it went through 17 to 12 Democrats and Republicans and support some Republicans and Democrats not in support.

But then going to the House is where things got very interesting.

We were sitting up top watching everything go on.

There were some senators up top as well, looking to see what happened, but because they had already voted on the bill, and when Speaker Joker Lewinsky comes through and asks, do we want to adopt the conference committee report, she asked for the yes, there's a majority of yes, and that's for the nays.

There's a minority of nays.

And then she goes, yeah, as a peer to have it.

And after that I see some senators look around and they're like mouthing to each other, like, what did we just watch?

Was it that simple?

Like they just voice voted it.

And then the next question, which is usually more procedural, is are we then going to send it to the governor?

And when she asked that, one representative, Troy Hedrick, stood up and was like, I'm not quite ready to send it to the governor yet.

And then it became at that point it was recognized that they had voice voted this bill through some intentionally knowing that, some maybe not realizing where they were in the process to where they were in this weird limbo land where they had approved the bill as the House, but they hadn't yet sent it to the governor.

So the legislative leadership went up, talked to the speaker.

They basically came to a deal to let people that wanted to talk and give their thoughts that would have, during the typical debate, to be able to do that, and that's what ended up transpiring before they then roll called, which my multiple years of covering the state House.

I think it's the first time I've ever seen a roll call.

And should we send something to the governor?

And it went through 96 to 45 on that.

Whether it would have been different, if they would have voted, when everything typically would have happened, we'll never know.

But it was very interesting watching how the house procedurally went through that.

So I just want to make sure I've got this right.

We know how the Senate breakdown went down.

We know which senators voted for and which against, but we don't know exactly which House members voted for and which voted against the bill.

We do.

So the numbers that we have is for should we send it to the governor, which typically is never roll call.

Okay.

But it was just a strict voice vote for is the House going to adopt the conference committee report?

So I don't think we'll ever really know what exactly that support would have been.

And the implication here, accountable.

Right.

For for lawmakers casting this vote.

This is a this is the largest overhaul of public education in Vermont in decades.

And yes, they had the the, you know, roll call on that more procedural vote.

But in terms of, you know, putting your money where your mouth is and casting the vote, you know, there potentially could be implications about accountability or lack thereof.

We'll never know.

We were talking before the show, especially with the bill, the impacts that it has, people want to know how their lawmakers that represent them in Montpelier voted on this.

And it was also interesting.

You mentioned the politics.

I was talking to some senators and there were senators because obviously they represent they represent a county that has multiple districts.

There were senators working with their House members to some vote yes, some vote no, and vice versa, because while they may not have been in support of the bill, they needed some yeses from their area because there's multiple study committees that are coming out of this bill.

And if a whole district or county voted no, they didn't want to be left out of those committees.

So there was also interesting votes getting divvied up within their own districts for that, too.

There's still some confusion swirling around all this.

It sounds like, Allison, what about the education, official sort of reaction to all this?

How are education officials reacting to this?

So in terms of superintendents, school board, chairs and school board members the weekend before the vote.

So the vote was on Monday.

There was a lot of emails coming from superintendents, offices, from school board.

Chairs, basically urging urging their legislators to vote no on the bill.

Basically, one of the things they pointed out was that the conference committee, which was the committee of three senators and three representatives that kind of hashed out their differences in the bill.

There were some kind of interesting proceedings there where the senators on the conference committee brought up some very kind of last minute things and kind of derailed the process at one point.

There was also concern that there was a lot of talk about independent schools.

And given that only 5% of Vermont students who use public funds go to independent schools, I think the public school community felt, as one senator told me, like second class citizens, they felt that their interests were kind of being ignored in favor of, you know what?

What would be good for independent schools.

I think there's also just a lot of fear because of the scale of this change.

And the fact that you can't really do a lot of modeling until we know what the new districts are.

I think school districts are very concerned about how this is going to affect their budgets.

If they're going to have to, you know, make major cuts, that is really going to change the kind of way they deliver education.

Well, the only thing we know is that all of this sort of was driven by the big issue of property taxes.

So now we've got this new bill, Calvin, our property tax is going to come down because of it.

That still remains to be seen.

Right?

I mean, this isn't necessarily cutting education costs one way or the other, but this foundation formula, I mean, there's a lot of pieces to this that are all supposed to be working in tandem to help bend the cost curve, because, as we know, the cost of education has been skyrocketing because of what schools are providing, right?

Mental health, food, washing kids clothes, in addition to, to, you know, providing an education.

But, you know, in terms of whether this framework will actually deliver a property tax relief, we will have to see, I mean, the the idea of the education, funding formula change for a to a foundation formula is to basically put some controls on local spending, because right now, as we the system that we have it, you make your, your, your budget at the local level and then you send the bill to Montpelier that we all pay into.

And so there's really no a check for, you know, local spending.

And so this seeks to sort of tamp that down.

There's other pieces in the bill that look to sort of bend that cost curve.

But yeah, in terms of property taxes and relief still remains to be seen.

They bought down rates this year as well using surplus funds to get to 1%.

Right.

What's it going to look like next year?

I mean now we're talking about macroeconomic forces that are way beyond the state's control.

We're talking about trade wars.

We're talking about tariffs.

We're talking about inflation.

There's a you know, what our relationship with Canada, I mean, you can take you can take the dog for a walk, so to speak, any, any one of these, areas.

So I think there's a lot that still remains to be seen about taxes and tax relief.

Well, thank you all for giving us, you know, the nuts and bolts of what we do know about this bill.

Now, one of the things and you touched on this briefly, Calvin, is the fact that, you know, outside forces are having an impact on what happens with education.

Things like health care costs.

Now, there was a bill that caps the cost for outpatient prescription drugs.

Stephen, I know you've been reporting on this.

This sounds like some good news, but this was a big problem, right?

I mean, why did that have to be capped?

Yeah.

So what it does is it sets a cap, at the average sales price of 120% for drugs that are administered in an outpatient or an office setting.

So this isn't something where, say, you have asthma, you get prescribed an albuterol hailer, you go to CVS and pick it up.

It's not something like that.

It's more for people with cancer treatment, autoimmune diseases that need these very, very expensive drugs quickly and necessarily in these hospitals.

And they don't really have a choice but to pay what the hospitals are asking them to pay.

Right?

I mean, we're hearing markup prices of pretty crazy amounts that these hospitals are marking up for these people.

And so by creating this cap, they're hoping to one, make it more affordable for Vermonters and to also help insurance companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield Vermont, for example, because they're the ones that are then having to pay what the hospitals are asking because they cover the Vermonters through insurance.

So lawmakers are saying it's a big win for Vermonters.

It's a big win for helping insurance companies not have to ask for higher rate premiums, because this is going to help them not to pay as much money when it comes to medications.

But then there's always the other side of the bill.

And so when it comes to the hospitals, some of them are frustrated because while they want to be able to help people, they also have to make money to operate and buy up.

Pricing.

And selling drugs that people need is how they make part of their money.

And they're saying, hey, we're at a 120% cap now.

You look at other states across the country that have implemented similar bills.

They're looking at like 300, 350% cap.

So the fact that we're only at 120%, they think is a little unfair.

And there's also some concern for, say, smaller, more rural areas that also make their money off of charging the amount they do for these drugs.

But there is a provision in the bill where if a hospital feels are not able to provide a sufficient amount of service or they're going to go under because of this, basically they are able to then ask the Green Mountain Care Board to be able to get it higher caps that they can continue keeping on with their business.

Okay.

Well Calvin Cutler, this had sort of an immediate effect here.

Right.

Because Blue Cross Blue Shield had a response to this cap and they were able to actually reduce their rates.

What can you tell us about.

Yeah it's interesting you know so right now we're in the, insurance rate review process where the Green Mountain Care Board is looking at rate requests from Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP and sort of what are the inflationary factors?

What are what are the factors that are driving up rates.

And right after this bill went through, they're on I believe it was Thursday of this week.

The Green Mountain Care Board issued their final decision for large group employers.

So for people, employers that have, over 100 employees, they landed at about 13%, they wanted, I believe it was like 17 or 18.

They landed at a 13.7%, but two percentage points, coming down, was because of, of this bill, right?

I mean, it's so we are seeing an immediate impact on, insurance rates.

And I think a lot of lawmakers and a lot in the health care community are saying that is a good thing, right?

Because we all pay into commercial insurance.

And that spills over in many ways.

But there are still huge headwinds.

You will that's that's yes, I was going to say that's the good news.

But briefly Calvin, you know, down from say 17%, which is what BCBS was seeking was about 13.7.

That's still a pretty big hike for folks who are already having trouble, paying those insurance premiums.

Yeah, I believe this is, going to be the third or fourth year of double digit rate hikes.

And I think we can continue to expect this for individual plans and for small group plans, putting out the pressure on small businesses and individuals.

You know, it's still pretty dire out there.

Hospital finances, you know, hospitals, by and large, don't have a lot of cash on hand.

Blue Cross Blue Shield, in many ways is facing, has a real dire threat of insolvency.

You know, the cost of care is continuing to rise.

It's it's still a really intractable problem that is also putting lots of pressure on our school budgets and on property taxes.

So it's, it's a real, real tricky puzzle to work our way out of.

Let me jump back to schools for just a brief moment.

Alison Novak, something we've been talking about on the show for a while.

There was a, bill for banning phones in schools that passed, and it was pretty widely accepted in a bipartisan way.

When will this take effect?

What can, parents and kids expect to find out and see?

Yeah.

So this is phone free schools legislation that has been kind of in the works all session.

There was even a bill last year that didn't go through.

But this has been on people's minds for a long time.

And this bill really gained a lot of bipartisan support.

It actually was rolled into the miscellaneous education bill.

So when that passed, which was right after 454, that reform bill, the House then passed a miscellaneous ed bill.

And so what it does is it, requires the agency of education to create a policy for, a ban of cell phones from bell to bell.

So from arrival to dismissal, so kids can't have their phones out in between classes or in the cafeteria.

And then each school district will either have to adopt the EO policy or they could then, you know, create their own policy that was either as stringent or more stringent than the EO policy.

Another interesting thing it does, which not many, bills, there's been a lot of legislation that's passed across the country, but not many states have done this is it prohibits schools from using apps like Instagram or Facebook to cover communicating directly with students.

So you couldn't, you know, message a student on Instagram a school could in or a school sports team couldn't saying, practices canceled today, that kind of thing.

And, that's kind of a unique aspect of that bill.

And it goes into effect not this school year, but the next school year.

So 2026, 2027, thank you so much for that update.

Calvin Cutler.

The legislature has finally adjourned.

They went overtime.

What a difference a year makes.

It's last year was the year of the veto override.

This one very much not.

It's incredible.

There was this statistic from, that we pulled up last year in the first, I believe it was 178 years of state history.

There were there were six.

It took 178 years for the legislature to rack up six veto overrides.

Last year, the legislature did that in one day.

I mean, it really goes to show where we are from, a political balance of power this time around.

Governor Scott, vetoed five bills, I believe, and I don't believe they were able they did not, override any of the vetoes.

I didn't even attempt to this year.

Exactly.

Because you don't take a vote if you don't have the votes.

Right.

And so I think, you know, the whether we're talking about the house, you know, the education bill or the chip housing bill or any, you know, the criminal justice bills compromise, I think, was the name of the game this session.

And also the interplay between the House and the Senate, the governor, a lot of people I talked to in the building have said that it's a healthier, I think is the word that I've heard.

Many have told me, you know, environment in the building, but it's just such a much, much different dynamic.

And also just the amount of legislation that's been passed as well.

We haven't seen nearly as many bills as we have of the past four years when there was a Democratic supermajority.

Stephen.

Bill, give us an update on the what was supposed to be a secure youth facility, for juveniles in Vergennes.

It looks like not going to happen at this point.

Yeah, that's right, Mitch, for about a year now, maybe a little bit over that, we've been covering what was going to be a 14 bed youth juvenile facility, campus in Virginia called the Green Mountain Youth Campus.

It was going to replace Woodside and everything that happened with that.

It was going to focus more on a therapeutic approach and be state of the art.

And this whole thing that the Department for Children and Families were pitching.

Well, we come to find out that late last week, the state reached out and withdrew a rezoning permit from the city of Vergennes because they would have to rezone that land to be able to build something on the land, because right now it's just agriculture designated grass that, you know, goes up to your shoulders, very tall, not commercial land to build on.

And so by pulling that, it all of a sudden raised a bunch of questions, well, hey, what's going to happen with this now?

So we talked with the city.

We talked with the state.

This from the city's perspective, they feel like the state has kind of been confused with the whole zoning and permitting process the whole entire time this has been happening and not quite going about it the right way.

But talking to DCF Commissioner Chris Winters, he said, because of the zoning and because of the permitting, from their perspective, they think it was time to just take a step back, reevaluate and start looking other places and just call off this for Jen's project.

But then that leads to the question now of we know it takes time in Vermont to build things.

This was still going to be maybe construction starting this summer, to still not be done for another year or two.

And now we're starting that process all the way from scratch again.

We've seen preeminent capacities not want it there.

They seem like they found with for Jen's now that's falling apart.

So what does this timeline look like now?

And they really didn't have one for finding a new location.

We're gonna have to wait and see on that one.

Thanks for the update.

There some good news?

Allison Novak.

Vermont's summer meals program looks like it's going to have a healthy year.

Yeah, so I think we've heard a lot from under the Trump administration meals programs kind of and nutrition programs under attack.

But the summer meals program, which provides meals to last summer, over a million meals to kids in Vermont, is going to be in full swing starting next week.

So in many cases, it's school districts that run these meals programs.

And so what's really interesting is pre-pandemic, they had to serve, congregate meals, so kids had to come and eat at a site.

But because of pandemic changes, now, school districts can prepare these meal kits or bags that have, for example, a loaf of bread, a tub of peanut butter, a gallon of milk for a whole week worth of food and distribute it to families.

And that's allowed the state to serve a lot more summer meals.

And, yeah, those programs are running strong.

Kids still are hungry in the summer.

You know, at school they get, going to get to meals.

And so, this is intended to make sure that kids are eating well over the summer because as we finish up here, Governor Scott recently met with, some Canadian officials to talk economics and things and very much on the mind, you know, is our relationship with our friends north of the border.

The Burlington.

Burlington is temporarily renamed Church Street.

It is not touristy right now.

It is through Canada.

And this is sort of a nod to our friends to the North there.

And big news out of Middlebury.

There is a new mayor in town, folks.

And, it's safe to say you've never seen a mayor like this before.

Say hello to Teela Montgomery, who you can tell there is a canine golden retriever.

And that is the new mayor of Middlebury.

This is the first time Middlebury has ever had a dog.

Mayor.

I'm not exactly sure why they wanted a dog, mayor, but now they've got one.

And I think that's good news for everyone.

The dog mayoral race helped actually raise $7,500 for Homeward Bound.

That's why that is Addison County's Humane Society, and that is good news for them.

We're gonna have to leave it there for today.

Thank you to our panel, Alison Novak from Seven Days, Calvin Cutler from W-c-i-a, and Stephen Biddix from Nbc5.

Thank you so much for watching.

Thanks for listening to.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb, but I hope you'll join us again next week for Vermont this week.