[T]he standoff between the House and the Senate over delaying forced school district mergers under Act 46 continues.
As promised, Senate Education chair Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, asked his fellow Senators on Tuesday to discharge the conference committee tasked with crafting a compromise bill between the two chambers.
As passed by the Senate, H. 39 would grant up to 44 districts a one-year reprieve from mergers under Act 46. As passed by the House, the bill would give 26 districts the delay. House conferees, in their latest proposal, offered 10.
“I am frankly at a loss with what to do with a conference committee that has moved not only away from us, but away from their own bill,” Baruth told the Senate.
Senators agreed on a voice vote to discharge the committee and form a new one. But Baruth himself acknowledged their action could not force the House’s hand. And House leadership has indicated little willingness to go along with Baruth’s request for a new conference committee.
“The Senate’s action today does not affect the House, nor the House conferees. Our appointed members await the committee chair’s call for the next meeting,” said Katherine Levasseur, chief of staff to House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero.
Likely anticipating the House’s response, Baruth made one additional parliamentary maneuver – tacking the Senate’s language delaying mergers on to H. 521, a bill that would delay the implementation of Act 173, a special education overhaul passed last year. That bill is up for a third reading in the Senate tomorrow.
House Education chair Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, defended the House conferees’ against Baruth’s charge that their offers in committee had moved away from the House’s position on the matter.
Much has changed since the House originally passed their version of H. 39 in early February, she said, and the vast majority of districts are on the path to meeting the July 1 deadline currently in law.
“The House position has always been to reduce chaos for those communities struggling during this period of transition,” she said.
And Webb suggested she might object to Senate’s decision to tack Act 46 on to the special education bill on procedural grounds.
“One of the questions that I will have is: is it germane?” she said.
