Elections have consequences.

And in his inaugural address this week, Governor Phil Scott made clear that he thinks he has a mandate to overhaul Vermont's education system when it comes to politics.

I know it can be hard to admit when you've gone down the wrong path.

You need to turn around.

But we're not here to worry about egos.

We're here to do what Vermonters need.

And they just sent a very clear message.

They think we're off course.

But what will Democrats think of this potentially historic overhaul?

And when push comes to shove, will anyone in Montpelier really muster the courage to make unpopular choices to cut costs?

We've got a full debrief from the opening days of the legislative session ahead 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.

Thanks for being with us today.

I'm Mark Davis in for Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, January 10th.

So much to get to.

Joining us on the panel today, we have Pete Hirschfeld from Vermont Public, Alison Novak from Seven Days and Calvin Cutler from.

Thank you all for making the time.

Pete, we start in the obvious place, the governor's inaugural address.

He started to throw down a bit of a gantlet, didn't he?

Yeah.

You know, I think if leaving aside the policy, if you look at just the oration and the writing and the way in which the governor delivered this speech, it's as good a speech as we've seen him give since he became governor.

There was a moment at the beginning where, he choked up a little bit, recalling his mentor, former state senator Dick Mayes.

And he took a few seconds, and then he resumed, and it was almost like he was inhabited by a muse or something.

I mean, it was just a clean, crisp delivery.

Lots of compelling imagery in there.

And I think if you take 100 Vermonters and ask them what they thought of that speech, the vast majority would say he knocked it out of the park.

The legislature, however, Democrats in the legislature, heard a lot of lecturing in that speech.

They felt like their nose was being rubbed in election defeats on November, that they already knew full well why that happened.

They didn't really understand why Phil Scott had to reiterate it so vociferously on Thursday.

And there are Democrats who are left wondering right now, does Phil Scott really want to engage in this spirit of bipartisan unity?

That he lent voice to?

It's a good question, right?

I mean, for the past few years, I mean, really, since we've seen a Democratic supermajority, the governor, time and time again, has been pleading with Democrats to either work with him in his agenda or, try to keep state spending in line.

Remember all of that Covid cash he, you know, was begging them at the time.

Please use this for, for, you know, one time expenses not ongoing.

And so here is Phil Scott with the political wind in his sails, he's got more Republican allies than they've had in many, many years in the statehouse.

There it's going to be a much, much different session.

The relationship between the governor and Democrats, what policies that they can and can't get over the finish line.

I mean, I think the question is and I think he just touched upon it.

You know, what will they actually get done, get done in terms of education, finance and housing?

And some of these challenges underlying our demographics or like, will this just get or will they sort of, you know, not be able to come to consensus?

And will they continue to fight over this and say we don't know yet?

Well, and as you just noted, the first order of business, I think obviously is going to be education.

We heard a lot of talk about both education funding, education governance.

Let's hear a little bit more from the governor in his speech.

With my budget in two weeks, we'll share our full proposal to improve the quality, equity and sustainability of the pre-K through 12 system in Vermont.

With those three principles, and the mandate voters gave us in November will propose a multi-year plan to transform education.

First, it will include an entirely new student centered funding formula to provide more and better opportunities for kids who get costs under control.

Second, will propose a new, simpler governance structure so we can deliver better and more equal education across communities.

Third, we'll provide school boards and administrators with support and guardrails to reduce cost pressures.

Finally, we know Vermonters can't afford to pay more.

So school boards contain spending grow to the projected level.

My budget will lower the impact of this year's increase, with a goal to eliminate.

All right, Allison, inaugural addresses state of the state addresses.

We don't get a ton of policy specifics.

We're going to get that in the weeks to come.

But let's flesh this out a little bit.

What do we know right now about sort of what the governor is thinking and reforming public education.

So he talked about a student centered formula, which I think most people take to mean something called a foundation formula.

So this is a formula.

This is a type of education funding formula used by a lot of other states.

So essentially what it is is the state gives a lump sum to each school district based on kind of what is required to adequately educate each student.

So instead of like as is the case now, school boards determining what they need and then the state funding it, the state is actually taking the lead and saying this is how much we're going to give you.

And there's an adequacy kind of calculation that the state will use to determine, like what each student, needs to, you know, get their education.

There's waiting as there is now.

So there will be waiting, for things like English language learners, special education students, and, students living in poverty.

But it's a pretty complicated formula.

But essentially, what will happen then is the there's local control is being taken away and states are really take or the state is really taking the lead on how much each each school district gets local control being taken away.

I think it's a it's a vital thing to talk about here that is, an incredibly controversial idea.

Pete, what is the appetite for something like this in the legislature?

Oh, really?

Is this.

It's far more robust than it was two years ago or four years ago.

I was, a little bit surprised at the, level of excitement that Senate President Pro Tem Phil Bharath expressed after the speech when asked about some of the ideas that Phil Scott was putting on the table.

He said, a I'm really excited that the governor is presenting a plan that appears to have some robust thought behind it.

His team has obviously been putting some work into, the specifics that are going to be rolled out in the weeks to come.

And he said this idea of a foundation formula actually would behoove the legislature.

We've been taking the blame, for the past nine months for these 14% property tax increases that Vermonters are experiencing.

He said the reason we've suffered so badly politically as a result of that is because we have no say in what school budgets are, and yet we have to raise the taxes sufficient, sufficient to pay for them.

So, according to Phil Truth, at least there are a lot of reasons, good reasons that lawmakers might want to be open to what the governor is saying.

Yeah.

I mean, I think at least as of right now, of course, Senator Bharath and Speaker Jill Kruczynski, I mean, they are largely they say they're mostly on the same page with the governor.

They're very receptive to his ideas.

They say everything needs to be on the table.

But, you know, I already am hearing some some pushback from some in the education community.

You know, the Vermont, teachers union, the Vermont Principals Association, they're raising concerns about what would a foundation formula mean?

I mean, the idea, that or the concern that they have is, okay, so if you live in a more affluent town or places that they actually can, you know, continue to, to raise revenue on the local level, that it will lead to that imbalance that we've seen in other states and previous formula of, you know, more expensive or more affluent towns being able to have nicer amenities and a better education for kids than in rural towns.

And I think the other kind of point, too, is, you know, the NEA says that the state doesn't have a spending problem.

They say it's a cost problem.

It's how we fund it.

And so I think Alison, you've written about this before, but the NEA is sort of pitched to this idea of, using, income tax as opposed to a property tax to fund education.

They say that would be more, more equitable and that would fund schools in a better way.

But I don't know how much.

To Pete's point, you know, where that conversation will end and how that will sort of manifest itself into this, into the conversation.

But it's going to be I think that's going to be the other counterpoint, so to speak.

Yeah.

And I think what's unclear to me is how a foundation formula would actually save money.

That was one of the things the governor said, that changing and or education funding formula would actually have cost savings.

But if you're funding an adequate amount per student, to me, there's no real like, there's no real obvious way that it would save money.

And so that's where we get into kind of the second part of his plan, which is the governance structure and changing the governance structure.

Right.

And so when he talks about how many schools we have, how many supervisory unions we have, what I think what I hear in the subtext is he's saying consolidation, that we need to consolidate, that we need to either consolidate schools and, you know, that would eliminate some administrative costs or closed schools, which again, talking about kind of a third rail on what's palatable feels like that to me is even less palatable than changing education funding formula is, you know, this idea of closing small schools.

And I had a conversation with Senate Minority Leader Scott Beck, who, as you might presume, has some familiarity with what the Scott team is working on right now.

Another way to get at the issue of cost is to get at personnel, right.

This is 80% of, the money that we're spending on public schools is tied up in the staff that we have in those buildings.

And I think there's a very good chance we might see Phil Scott resurrect a plan that he first put out there in 2018, which would effectively mandate, a reduction in staff and districts across the state.

He says that we could do this through attrition, so you would be able to avoid layoffs.

Either way, it results in a significant reduction in the salary costs the districts are burying over time.

And one other thing we heard the governor talk about that honestly, could have been the headline on any other day is that he's going to be putting forward a plan that would ensure that no Vermonter sees any increase in their property tax bills next year.

We don't know how he's going to do that, but we do know that the Commissioner of Taxes is now projecting a 5.9% increase in property taxes on average next year.

We know that none of these broader reform plans are going to do anything to avert that in the short term.

So it's going to be really interesting to see what the governor comes forward forward with as a way to forestall those tax increases and whether or not Democratic lawmakers are going to be able to stomach that plan.

Yeah.

Speaking of those Democratic lawmakers, obviously, Republicans ascendant, Democrats still in the majority in both chambers.

Let's hear a little bit from Speaker Jill Krinsky on the education plan the governor laid out.

I just can't emphasize enough how focused we need to be when it comes to making sure that our kids get the best education that Vermonters can afford, and it's going to take again, all of us working together towards that goal.

We can't leave this legislative session without big change.

And so that's what we're going to be focused on.

All right.

Allison, so we've talked, the executive branch, legislative branch, clearly kicking around some notion of changing an education formula, something that in a broad strokes might look like state gives out a certain amount of money.

If communities want to do more, it's on their tab.

There's a third branch of government that the judiciary, and there's something called the Brigham decision, which I think we're going to start to hear a lot more about.

Can you remind us of what Brigham is and how it might impact this conversation?

Sure.

So the Brigham decision was a 1997 Vermont Supreme Court decision that basically said that, where a student live.

So depending on whether they live in Stowe or Winooski, that shouldn't determine the quality of their education.

And that's what kind of led to our revamping of our education, formula, you know, 20 plus years ago.

And so I think there is this question, as Calvin brought up, if the base funding amount given to school districts is too low, it is still going to be up to, you know, individual school districts to raise more money.

And, you know, the the school districts, that have like a more low income population are not going to be able to raise as much money as, you know, the more affluent districts that.

So that could kind of fly in the face of Brigham.

But some also argue that the system that we have right now, too, also already kind of flies in the face of Brigham, right?

I mean, like, even though some students in some schools might be getting, you know, a, a equitable or a the same amount like per equalized pupil, but if you have, you know, depending on where you live in the state, if you live in South Burlington or in, you know, more urban centers in the, in the state, your students might have opportunities to a football team or a study abroad program or different language programs that places in maybe the Northeast Kingdom or in rural Franklin County don't have.

So that's, I guess, kind of gets back to the nuance.

That is a very good point.

And for sure we do not have an equitable system, right?

We have Barry, who took, you know, until this August or September that passed their school budget.

But, and then we have districts that passed very easily, and it's usually the more low income districts that are the ones that end up having to cut, cut, cut and have the lowest cost per pupil.

And of course, we talk about Brigham.

It's a very old decision.

It's the entirely new, Vermont Supreme Court, new judiciary.

So times change.

Certainly the speech was education heavy.

You and I talked to the newsroom before.

Is this speech going to entirely be about education?

Is he going to sort of pull a Peter, someone who in 2014, I believe, gave over his entire address to the opioid epidemic, education heavy, but not exclusively.

The governor did, make some time for a few other topics, right?

Yeah.

Housing primarily.

The governor has talked at length in recent months, frankly, throughout his entire tenure, about the need for more housing in Vermont.

That crunch has never been more severe than it is right now.

And he said to lawmakers, if we're going to solve our demographic challenges, if we're going to solve our challenges in public education, we need homes for people to live in.

I didn't see any specific policies, but pretty clearly he wants to, increase funding for the program called V hep, which is provide state subsidies for bringing blighted rental properties back on to the market.

He wants to expand the use of tax increment financing districts.

We won't go into the legal leaps around that right now, but but suffice it to say, it's a it's a form of tax breaks to encourage development and housing construction.

And of course, the governor wants to get rid of a lot of the land use regulations that he says are holding back housing.

So so that debate will be front and center again in 2025.

Let's hear a little bit more from the governor on housing this session.

It's crucial we pass an actual housing bill.

Focus on four strategies.

First, let's strengthen our foundation with infrastructure for housing and flood recovery, not just with funding, but with a creative expansion of our successful Tip program.

Second, we can give a helping hand to the neglected community spike, continuing to transform dilapidated houses into homes and economic opportunity.

Third, we need more people investing in and revitalizing working class neighborhoods.

So let's continue to grow creative programs like VIB and help more mom and pop investors be part of the solution.

And fourth, if this is truly the crisis, we all know it is, let's treat it like one.

In order to make real progress, we've got to address our appeals process, which has been abused for far too long, and we have a lot more work to do.

On last year's land use bill, like expanding the 850 exemptions currently provided to a select few and giving rural communities see this table so they too have an opportunity to thrive and grow.

So that's education.

That's housing.

Pete, often interesting to look at what's not talked about in this speech.

We heard almost nothing about public safety.

We heard almost nothing about flooding, about health care.

The governor really focusing in on a few topics.

We heard nothing about president elect Trump.

I think we wondered if the governor, who famously voted for Vice President Harris, might weigh in.

There is a very focused speech.

I think something that caught my ear, though in some others, the governor has long sort of lamented the the disparate fates of Chittenden County versus the rest of Vermont.

That's not new, is his rhetoric on that topic seemed a bit more intensified in this speech than it has in the past, though.

I think the the line that might exemplify that was when he looked at lawmakers after, you know, this lengthy treatise on the inequities between rural and urban Vermont, on the two Vermont, theme, as we've heard so many times.

And he looked at lawmakers and he said, senators, there are 17 of you that represent these communities, House members.

There's 83 of you that represent these communities.

If we come together, we have the majority here.

So it was this fascinating us versus them.

If we band together, we rural Vermont can take control of this state and rest it from the Chittenden County.

Folks, you know, maybe he might include Jill Krinsky and Phil Berreth in there, right, that have have had undue influence over the course of our legislative policymaking over the past four years.

So it was an interesting nod to that constituency.

And it is a message that does resonate with voters.

I mean, just look at John Rogers.

That was the core message that that he ran on, that Montpelier was out of touch, that rural Vermont and its values and that, you know, the voices of of low income and rural Vermonters are getting squeezed out in are not included at the statehouse.

So, yeah, I mean, it was really fascinating to hear the governor say that.

And it's also a little side note, it wasn't just Chittenden County.

He went with northwest Vermont and specifically referenced Franklin County and sort of lumped Franklin County in with Chittenden.

I would speculate that there might be some swaths of Franklin County who might not be too thrilled to be, lumped in with with Chittenden.

Calvin, we've referenced, Speaker Krinsky.

You know, the Democrats took a bit of a beating in November.

There was some talk then that perhaps that might lead to a challenge that perhaps the speaker was vulnerable.

We got resolution this week.

Turns out she didn't have too much to worry about.

Not not particularly.

No.

I mean, yeah, to your point, I mean, there was a lot of soul searching that was happening within, you know, the state House about.

Okay, what message were voters trying to tell us?

And, you know, how do they feel about leadership at the top of the House of Representatives?

For most Vermonters, the speaker of the House, you know, I mean, it's a very public, very powerful position.

But not a lot of Vermonters quite know exactly the dynamic of it.

It's very sort of inside baseball, if you will, at the state House.

So, Representative Jill Crow inside of Burlington, was facing a challenge from Dover, independent.

Laura.

Cecilia.

And the vote really wasn't close.

It ended up, the speaker crow in ski maintained the gavel with 111 votes to, Sebelius 35.

But it did on the floor debate.

There was some really interesting, you know, the distilling sort of like what were Vermont voters trying to tell us?

And, you know, how does the leadership of the leadership style of Crow in Ski, you know, is that the best way to lead the chamber?

And, you know, at the end of it, she basically said that, you know, she's going to try to be more transparent with members, but also with Vermonters as well, and let them know sort of what the decision making is in the House.

So, not a huge surprise, but I think it is, significant that that there was a challenge from, from within same speaker, new lieutenant governor, however, John Rogers sworn in this week after, a vote, we'll get to the vote.

But let's hear a little bit from the new lieutenant governor.

I was a Democrat for many years, and now I'm a Republican.

That said, I'm always a Vermonter first, like President Carter.

I value honesty.

I give Vermonters my word that I will always be honest.

I will not lie, and I will never avoid the controversial issues.

We'd be remiss to not note the stellar red jacket red tie combination of the lieutenant governor.

I wish my closet had something like that in it.

Stellar.

Inspirational.

But Pete, what else did you make of the new senator governor speech?

Not the first time I've seen him wear that jacket.

So maybe his favorite one.

What?

Some point?

You played the clip that stuck out to me, invoking former President Jimmy Carter on the day that he's being laid to rest in the Capitol and, John Rogers is consistent.

His message is the same no matter the audience, no matter when he's speaking.

And, it's going to be, a new personality and force in the state House that I think could have the effect of, altering the dynamic of the conversation in that building in ways that we don't always see.

Lieutenant Governor's do.

So he's planning on using this position to exert some influence over not just a legislative process, but to communicate with Vermonters at large.

And it's going to be interesting to see how he takes that on.

I mean, during on the campaign trail, Rogers had even said that he will try to bring in Vermonters from some of these marginalized rural communities that feel like they're forgotten.

You know, he said, you know, I want to bring everyday people to the statehouse to tell their stories, to let lawmakers know what they're working on and how it affects people in all corners of the state.

So I think Pete's right.

We can definitely see a more hands on approach there, and I try to get to it quickly.

A couple other things here.

This one would have been pretty big news almost any other week.

We did want to note that on Tuesday, Vermont got word that we're going to receive $68 million in federal long term flood recovery grants.

That was announced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This is not FEMA money.

This is a separate congressional appropriation, designed to help low and moderate income people.

It can be used for things like housing infrastructure, up infrastructure upgrades, and hazard mitigation.

There's going to be a months long process to determine which projects get funded.

Importantly, this is money for our historic floods from 2023 has nothing to do with our historic floods in 2024.

Pete, last, item from this week news north of the border.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau been in power for ten years.

It's about to come to an end.

It is, impossible to overstate the importance of Vermont's relationship with Canada.

They're our largest trading partner by far.

When the special guests were seated at the governor's inaugural address, two of them were high ranking officials from Canada, including the Quebec delegate to New England.

What we're seeing in Canada right now is a leadership void, and we're seeing that as president elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, the same president elect who has talked about maybe Canada could become the 51st state of the United States.

A lot of concern about how this plays out right now.

A lot of state commerce officials in Vermont are paying very close attention to this.

We get a ton of energy from Canada.

Hydro-Quebec just one example.

So, we rely on Canada in ways that are, cover just about every aspect of our economy.

And we have a lot at stake in seeing how these high stakes international negotiations play out.

Well, yeah, the Canadians, this potential 25% tariff, the president elect has talked about the Canadians are saying that could be something like a million jobs gone, for them, fascinating time for for this to be coming about, perhaps my favorite story of the week, Prime Minister Trudeau.

NBC is teasing an interview with him that will air this week, in which Trudeau said he met with Trump a couple months ago as all this 51st state talk was brewing and and apparently the Canadian prime minister, joked about perhaps annexing Vermont as part of this.

You ready to be Canadian?

You know, I'm gratified to hear they think so highly of this, because I have a bit of an insecurity complex.

When I go up there and don't speak perfect French.

So makes makes me feel good that he would think of us.

I'm not a I am a New Year's resolution person.

I know it's not really in vogue anymore, but I've been working on my French.

Coincidentally, the Duolingo is wonderful.

I'm ready to go if we need to.

Well, that's about all the time we have, for today.

My thanks to our wonderful panelists, Pete Hirschfeld from Vermont Public, Allison Novak from seven days, and Calvin Cutler from WCAX.

Thank you, everyone so much for being here.

And we'll see you again next week.