[W]hen a panel tasked with advising the Legislature on the rollout of Act 173, the state’s special education overhaul passed last year, recommended the law’s implementation be delayed a year, lawmakers looked likely to accept the request.
The Senate went ahead and advanced H.521, a bill granting that delay, and in the lower chamber, House Education committee chair Kate Webb, D-Shelburne – a key architect of the law – said she preferred Act 173 be done right than on time.
But in the waning days of the legislative session, that consensus appears uncertain.
The Vermont Agency of Education is arguing postponement would cost the state upwards of $40 million. And the question of whether to delay another major education initiative – Act 46 – has further complicated matters.
In an attempt to force the House’s hand to return to the table and negotiate for a deal on the question of postponing forced school district mergers under Act 46, Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, attached the Senate’s merger delay language to H.521.
That strategy looks unlikely to work.
House Education committee members on Thursday appeared to double-down on their position that as few districts as possible should receive a merger delay, arguing that nearly all are on track to meet the deadlines already in law.
Rep. Dylan Giambatista, D-Essex, a House Education member, pointed to a memo from the Agency of Education that showed all but one group of districts on pace to merge come July 1.
“We ought to weigh very carefully what this says to us. Because to me, it tells me that Act 46 will be successful,” he said.
Rep. Caleb Elder, D-Starksboro, remarked that the House and Senate positions presented “not a very bridgeable divide” and suggested further talks were unlikely to be fruitful.
“What happens if we do nothing on 521?” asked Rep. Chris Mattos, R-Milton.
The answer to that question is a matter of substantial debate, and the standoff over Act 46 muddies the water on a matter of policy with far wider implications for education in Vermont.
The state spent close to $190 million in special education payments to local school districts last year, refunding districts for programming that helps the most vulnerable students.
Act 173 was passed last year to much fanfare, with the twin goals of addressing special education’s notoriously complex bureaucracy and ever-climbing costs. To do so, it transitions the state from a reimbursement model for funding special education to a census-block grant system, where schools receive a set amount in special education dollars based on its total student population.
But an advisory panel whose members include representatives for the state’s superintendents, principals, school boards, independent schools, and special education administrators, say the state just isn’t ready. They point to vacancies and turnover in key positions at the agency, disagreement over draft rules that dictate the law’s implementation, and inadequate preparation for local districts.
As written, rule-making under the new law is supposed to be done by this November, and the funding would begin to shift in fiscal year 2021. The advisory group is asking rule-making be extended until November 2020, and for funding changes to wait until 2022.
The agency, for its part, insists it’s ready to move forward on the reforms. And Secretary of Education Dan French also predicts the state could forgo anywhere from $30 to $60 million in expected savings if it puts off changing the funding model.
“Under a pretty stable model, we predict that a full-scale delay would at least cost $46 million. So the stakes are pretty high from a financial perspective,” French told lawmakers in the House Education committee on Wednesday.
Nicole Mace, executive director at the Vermont School Boards Association, objected to French’s argument. The VSBA, along with organizations representing the state’s superintendents and principals, have repeatedly warned lawmakers this session that a lack of leadership from the agency had left local districts on their own to figure out how to prepare for coming changes.
Mace told lawmakers Wednesday that if educators on the ground aren’t given the right guidance about how to change the actual delivery of special education, practices won’t change. And even if the state’s reimbursements to schools declines, Mace said districts would need to pay up anyway, because schools can’t simply ignore children’s special education plans.
“Until we change the practice, there is no savings. There’s a cost-shifting exercise,” she said.
Traci Sawyers, Executive Director for the Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators, echoed Mace in her remarks to lawmakers on Wednesday. But she added that the council was particularly concerned about draft rules the agency has written, which are currently before the State Board of Education for review.
Act 173 was largely sold as a way to simplify the complex bureaucracy surrounding special education. The law was intended to make the administration and funding simpler and more nimble, to better enable schools to target interventions as they saw fit. But Sawyers said the agency’s proposed rules for implementing the law are far more rigid than expected, allowing for little innovation.
“They say that they’re simply aligning the rules with federal requirements and that actually the flexibility related to Act 173 has been oversold. And I think our members feel like that isn’t an accurate interpretation of what could be possible,” she said.
But if lawmakers – with only days left in the session – are hoping to punt a messy debate to the second half of the biennium, Mace, at least, is arguing that’s not an option.
“Service plans are due in September,” she told lawmakers Wednesday. “So we can’t wait until January to see if maybe the delay will occur.”
The House Education committee is scheduled to take additional testimony Friday.
