[O]n the question of whether to delay forced school district mergers under Act 46, the House Education committee would like a little bit more time.
The irony was not lost on Rep. Jay Hooper, D-Randolph.
“We want a delay,” he joked on Friday morning, as the panel of lawmakers contemplated postponing voting on the matter for the first time that day.
The committee did ultimately take action, voting in the late afternoon to send H.39, a bill allowing communities facing forced mergers to put off consolidating until 2020. They sent the bill to the House floor, however, without a favorable recommendation.
But the vote may have just been a tentative signal. Committee members also took a first look late Friday at a proposed amendment that would allow for the delay and give districts that merge by July 1, 2019 – the current deadline – a small “merger support grant” as an incentive.
Key lawmakers, including committee chair Rep. Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, say that version of the bill might ultimately get the group’s seal of approval, which would much improve the legislation’s chances of picking up enough votes to pass in the House.
The alternative version is more complicated, and it raises new policy questions, including who exactly – voters or school boards? – should decide whether to move forward. Webb says the committee will need a little more time to debate the issue and finesse the language.
Delaying mergers is the top legislative priority for those lawmakers opposed to forced consolidations under Act 46. A tripartisan group of legislators from communities facing state-mandated mergers are pushing for a one-year delay in implementation, arguing that the courts should have more time to weigh legal challenges to the law before the unified districts take control.
The debate at the Statehouse is taking place as local school boards ready to send their budgets to the printers in preparation for Town Meeting Day. And the open question of whether forced mergers would go into effect next year have left many local officials wondering whether to write individual or unified budgets.
In guidance issued last month, the Agency of Education told districts facing mergers not to warn individual budgets – but many, on the advice of their own lawyers, did just that. Meanwhile, members of same supervisory union aren’t necessarily on the same page, with some joining lawsuits against the state to block mergers and others not.
“There are systems that are in conflict with themselves,” Nicole Mace, executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association, told lawmakers Friday.
Meanwhile, H.39 is expected to land in the House chamber next week. Anxious to move the legislation out of committee, where it has lingered for two weeks, Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, R-Stowe, who sponsored the bill, earlier this week negotiated a commitment from House Speaker Mitzi Johnson for a floor debate and vote on Tuesday.
Scheuermann called the proposed amendment “a new and interesting thought,” and said she was fine with postponing the vote a little longer.
“If it’s possible that we can get the support of the committee for a delay, by going in this direction, if I need to give it another day, and our group needs to give it another day, we’re happy to do that,” she said.
The Legislature isn’t the only branch of government considering a delay.
The 33 school boards jointly suing the state in one of three lawsuits challenging Act 46 have asked a judge to grant an injunction blocking mergers from going into effect while the merits of the case are considered. Judge Robert Mello is expected to hold a hearing – and potentially rule on – that injunction Feb. 15.
That’s led many lawmakers to say they’d rather let the court decide. Secretary of Education Dan French told legislators he also favors that approach, arguing that while a delay might be a good idea, a judge should ideally weigh in first.
“My impression is that the court is about to rule and at least provide some direction,” he told the committee this week.
And French said that while the agency would help districts if the courts – or lawmakers – ultimately allowed a delay, he was generally worried about undercutting the momentum behind Act 46.
“My professional diagnosis is that four months is a very aggressive timeline to try to merge districts, even if they were cooperatively trying to do it,” he said. “My concern is with people that are really trying to undermine the process and have absolutely no interest in doing this work.”
