I'm Mikaela Lefrak.

These are the highlights from Vermont Public's 2026 gubernatorial debate between incumbent Republican Phil Scott and Democrat Progressive Amanda Janoo.

The candidates disagreed on how to address skyrocketing healthcare costs.

I think a big root driver of not only our rising budget as a state, but also the pressure that's on our schools, on our businesses, on our nonprofits, on our families is the fact that health care has more than doubled in a decade.

And we need to get to the root of that spending, which is recognizing at this point, we have to move towards a universal health care system, and a first step of that can be universal primary and preventative care.

The Vermont way of bringing back small town doctors and nurses and mental health providers, and really ensuring that every Vermonter has access to that best quality of care.

For instance, if if we use some of the age banding and so forth.

Look at what New Hampshire has done.

They have used the Affordable Care Act to their advantage.

So when when someone, a young person in Vermont goes and buys insurance, it costs them about $800, right?

$800 dollars a month.

And in New Hampshire, it's $300 because they've used some of these tools from the Obama Care Affordable Care Act.

And I think that we we have an obligation to go back to that and figure out what we can do in the meantime, and then let them debate on the national stage as to whether we go to Medicare for all, as Senator Sanders has been advocating for on education.

Janoo wants to invest in a community schools model.

Scott wants to right size the state's school system in the face of declining enrollment.

We know that two of the primary drivers of rising education costs are health care and mental and behavioral support for kids.

And so the important thing is that we actually have to address and look at what are those actual root drivers of costs, because otherwise no amount of consolidation is actually going to decrease the overall spending.

And so I proposed this idea of community schools, which I can get into more.

But in my logic, I guess we deal with property taxes through property tax reform, not through public education cuts, because we can reduce the property tax burden for residential Vermonters through other types of property tax reform.

But the community school model, which we piloted since 2021, is really about integrating a wider range of community, nonprofit state services into the schools themselves.

So we're providing the holistic care that kids need, which has been shown to substantially improve outcomes and also help us diversify the budget streams that are going.

How will you limit the relentless increase in the cost of education?

Well, again, let's remember that not everything is funded from property taxes.

One third of the budget, $800 million is from that we've spent on knee jerk reaction.

The cost of education goes up.

We just find another tax and we lump that all in.

So sales tax, purchasing use, etc., etc.

to the tune of 800 million of that 2.5 billion.

So we have to look at the system itself.

And again I would disagree that it's all health care related, $1 billion more in the last ten years.

The numbers just don't add up.

But when you look at the number of kids that we're we're losing out of our schools, 30,000 over the last 25, 30 years.

That tells you everything you need to know.

I mean, we still have the same number of schools.

Staff has probably increased, same footprint, same costs and so forth.

But 30,000 fewer kids.

In my area in Washington County, you have U-32 their senior class was 139 kids this year.

Their their kindergarten enrollment is 85.

That tells you everything you want.

Have to want to know about what's going to happen in ten years, you know.

So we have to fix the system.

It's the system itself that is just absorbing, sucking all the life out of us and not getting to the kids.

And and we don't talk about the quality of education enough because it's just spend a lot of money.

One of the most in the nation.

And our test scores are not showing the results.

In the lightning round, the candidates shared several moments of agreement.

Is there an issue that the legislature spends too much time on?

Yeah, I mean too much time on raising taxes.

School consolidation.

Sally of South Burlington asks “Should Vermont have term limits for governor and other statewide positions?” Sure.

Yeah, as long as yeah, I have always been a proponent of of term limits, but Id like to see it on the federal end as well.

Hardest job you've ever had?

As a flagger.

When I was 17 years old.

Most difficult job.

Most monotonous.

Difficult.

You take a lot of grief as a flagger.

Oh, babysitting?

Maybe.

Tough.

Have you ever placed a bet through an online sports betting company?

No, I have not.

No.

How many days should state workers be allowed to work from home?

I mean, I'm happy for state workers to return to remote work.

I actually see a lot of benefit of folks being distributed all across Vermont and being embedded in a variety of communities.

I think it's important, you know, based on different administrations, how often they want to make sure that they have folks all together for a meeting in person.

Governor Scott?

As you may know, three days a week in the office, two days remote work is what we're contemplating.

And we introduced and went to court over Who is a member of another political party who you respect?

Pat Leahy.

Why?

He just I still stay in touch with him.

He was just a good person.

Reach across the aisle, try to get things done.

He accomplished that in Washington.

But my second one is Dick Mazza.

Of course.

He was someone I was very close to, and he put his arm around me and taught me the ropes and very much appreciated him.

Well, I respect Governor Scott.

Why?

Oh, well, I think first of all, hes just super nice.

And I appreciate the fact that you've, you know, you haven't followed along with the Republican sort of like Trump MAGA fascist regime and really sort of held your own perspective throughout this time.

Thank you.