Governor Phil Scott says a school redistricting task force fell short of its goal.

It would appear that those who didn't fulfill their obligation are okay with the ever increasing property taxes, the cost of education, and they don't want to see change, or at least not immediately.

But the group says new, larger districts would not save money or improve education.

Plus, MVP health care partners with a New York insurer with an eye towards consolidation and Burlington cuts funding for its mental health response team.

All that and more 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.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Good evening everyone.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's November 21st a Friday and joining us on the panel today we have Lola Duffort with Vermont Public Courtney Lamdin with Seven Days, and also from Seven Days, Alison Novak, thank you all so much for joining us today.

So muc to talk about on today's show.

So delighted to have this panel with us to go over these things.

I want to start with the redistricting that we saw there with that clip of Governor Phil Scott at the beginning.

He is not happy about what this redistricting task force did not do.

Alison Novak So first, tell us, what did they fail to do in the governor's eyes, and what did they recommend when it comes to school consolidation instead?

So this redistricting task force that began meeting in Augus and met for about four months, they had the task of coming up with up to three maps that would, draw new school district lines.

So, you know, pretty big consolidation of school districts.

So the report, which will be released December 1st, they had a draf that they presented yesterday, does not draw new school district lines.

Instead it has some other proposals.

Basically they found that they don't think drawing, new school lines and consolidation will actually save money or improve the quality of education.

And so they recommend something called education service agencies, which are essentially ways in which school districts and supervisory unions can kind of pool resources and money to work together and offer services like special education, transportation, purchasing.

So they believe that is one way to save money without the massive disruption that consolidation would cause.

They are also calling for, voluntary consolidation.

So school districts who want to band together, who want to consolidate, in an effort to save money and to improve education, they will have a path forward to do that.

What does this mean for the legislature, though?

When they reconvene in January, they're going to have a lot to do, right?

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's remains unclear what's going to happen.

The governor is clearly against what the redistricting task force has done.

Secretary of Education Zoe Saunders has also said that she believes that this is not the right plan.

This is not what act 73 called for.

And so I think there could be quite a battle when the legislature reconvenes about the path forward and whether we are going to see the legislature try to draw maps that actually consolidate districts, or whether they're going to try to put forth, a plan that kind of adheres to what the task force has recommended.

Your story mentioned.

Oh, sorry.

I just wanted to ask Alison first about something that I read about in your story where the task force was saying that they have evidenc and you alluded to this, that, you know, doing these mergers now, redoing the maps would not save money, would not improve education.

What were they basing that on?

So they were basing it on studies from other states.

They were also kind of looking at act 46, which was, you know, the law in Vermont that called for, calle for mergers that really hasn't been studied to show if it actually save money.

And there's some evidence that it didn't save a lot of money.

So I think, the yeah they're basically saying like, we have no, we have no research to really show that this is the right path for it.

And it's it would be completely disruptive to school districts.

You know, another thing to keep in mind is, this redistricting task force was created under this big education reform law, right.

And this was the first and kind of, most crucial piece in that, like if the legislature does not approve new district maps, then everything else that was in this law that we talked about last year, including a new funding formula, including a new tax on second homes.

All of that puts it goes away.

Right.

So if the legislature gives up on redistricting, it basically has to give up on all of that.

I mean, of course, they could just come up with like a new law that says, no will.

Do, you know, a funding reform without all of this?

But, you know, they had set it up this way, right, to kind of create internal pressure points so that they would do the whole thing.

And so what's going to be really interesting to see is whether or not, now that this, redistricting tas force is kind of giving up and also a reminder, this redistricting task force did not have like any actual authority.

It was advisory, right.

It was supposed to kind of do this work so that it could come to the legislature and say, here's the proposal.

Now you guys decide.

So, you know, could the legislature still redistrict the state?

They still could.

I do think the fact that things have fallen apart so spectacularly, you know, with the task force does indicate something about legislative willingness.

Like I have to wonder and I don't know, but I do have to wonder whether or not some of the lawmakers on this task force would not have voted accordingly if there wasn't some sort of tacit permission from legislative leadership.

Now, that's an interesting speculative thing.

And also, there's a good number of the legislators on the task force actually voted against the bill against act 73.

So in a way, you know, it shouldn't be that surprising that this is the outcome.

That's just what I was gonna.

Yeah, the governor sounds like he almost had that statemen prepared in a way like he knew this was not going to happen.

I mean, I also have to say so one of the tasks Force's task force's job was to get input from the public, from Vermonters.

So they held for public hearings.

They, you know, looke at a lot of survey, responses.

And they heard from more than 5000 Vermonters, according to their, report.

And by and large, Vermonters said they did not want this.

They did not want consolidation.

They were worried about how it was going to affect kids travel times, how disruptive it was going to be to schools.

And so, you know, that is one of the things they say in their report in terms of wh they went the route they went, is that there's not lot of public will to do this.

And so I think that's really important to keep in mind that, you know, nex year will be an election year.

Like are there legislators who are willing to say, you know what, Vermonters don't want this, but we're going to push this forward anyway.

But what are the risks, though, if they do not?

Let's say the voluntary mergers don't happen, you know, and these districts, you've got these, you know, very small schools and very low student populations.

What is the effect of that overall?

I mean, exactly to this point, you know, I find it really interesting.

So Rebecca Holcomb, lawmaker, former education secretary, was kind of the f 46 czar, right, when she was education secretary.

And now she's on this task force and she's been a huge critic of, this whole reform effort.

She is proposing the kind of more voluntary pathway.

And she said, I think one of the smartest things I've ever heard about, sort of education reform and sort of what ails us.

And she had said to me some for I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but like schools are going to close changes coming.

Are we going to manage it or not.

Right.

And we're seeing this now.

Right.

We are.

Whether or not Montpelier does this, we are going to see schools close.

And I think the question is, are the right schools going to close right.

Is it going to be, rural elementaries in poor communities where you have, tax averse communities that say uncle first, right?

Because they're like, we just can't close it.

Or is it going to be, schools in communities where there actually is an option ten minutes away?

But, the folks in that community are just more willing to pay higher taxes.

And, you know, of course, we were going to see so much pushback during this process.

And I do think it's a very open question whether or not we were going to save money, particularly with administrative, consolidation.

And there is like a sweet spot, right.

Like research says, it seems to indicate that like if you consolidate huge entities, you don't save much money, but if you consolidate little things, you can right there.

Is there just kind of small maybe.

Well, they're just economies of scale.

If you go to big, but like tiny entities also are inefficient.

But yeah I mean, if we give up on like, any sort of centralized planning, what does that look like too?

Because it does not mean that beloved local schools are not going to close.

They're closing now.

So what's the next step?

Heroes and I mean are the are that are all the meetings over?

Is everything been been settled or there's still going to be more to come on this?

Well, the task force had their last meeting yesterday.

And so there's a couple of, you know, there's edits they have to make to the report, which is due to the legislature in December.

Yeah.

I think, you know, their work, as I said, is pretty much done.

And so now the legislature has to kind of pick it up from there.

And, you know, it'll remains to be seen what they're going to do.

I did also want to mention that one of the things that the task force suggest is these bigger regional high schools, that's also one of their three recommendations.

But again, to this point of, yes, it would make sense for certain high schools to consolidate, like especially ones that are in central Vermont.

There's a lot of high schools in very close proximity.

However, in order for that to happen, we would either need to renovate schools, existing schools or build new schools.

And there hasn't been construction aid for schools since 2007.

And so that's a very big piece of the puzzle, too.

We have, you know, crumbling school infrastructure and no clear path for how we're going to get out of that problem.

And so that is something that I think the legislature is also going to have to address when they come back.

You know, it does kind of tie into this reform question, because if we want these regional high schools that are going to provide good opportunities for all students, then we're goin to need to build and renovate.

And that is really expensive.

And like we've reported on so many problems with schools having everything from difficult water problems to hospitals, all kinds of stuff.

You've been reporting on that before, too.

We should mention, too, that you have been on the education beat for quite some time.

You are now on the on the health care beat, and we're so grateful to have your expertise on that.

And, to that point, I want to ask you about something we talked about at the top of the show here.

So few insurers in the state of Vermont MVP, though health care is one of them.

They're going to be officially affiliating now with a New York insurer.

What's going on there?

Yeah.

Independent Health in New York going to be independent no more and is, affiliating with MVP health.

Yeah.

So, you know, as in, in education as in health care, the story is about mergers and acquisitions and consolidation and, you know, it's interesting.

I went to a little press conference that MVP put out, about this.

And they were basically saying, you know, they were, talking about how they're like the bad guys in, health care, and it's the, the, like, scary national, insurers.

And, you know, they're the scrappy local, regional insurer, your friendly local health insurance company.

But of course, what they're doing to try and, you know, stay solvent is doing what the nationals are doing, which is consolidating.

Yep.

And so here we see another affiliation.

And so this has to be approved, though still it's not a done deal yet.

That's right.

Regulators in New York, have to, approve of this, and we'll have to see what comes from that.

Courtney Lemon, I want to turn to you a story that you wrote about in seven days, recently.

And this has to do with the city of Burlington.

They had a mental healt response program called cares, which, unfortunately, I suppose is not going to be around any longer.

What it cares do.

And why is it shutting down?

So cares was a program that was first envisioned in 2021.

It came after the sort of George Floyd reckoning in this country about how can you respond to various emergencies that maybe don't involve police officers.

Right.

So this is sort of was mean to be an alternative response.

It took several year to pull this together, though, and it finally launched last year.

They responded to 600 calls, which isn't bad.

But even so, the full program as it was originally envisioned didn't get off of the ground.

It was supposed to be a four member team.

They only have two people.

One of the missing positions was a nurse or EMT.

And apparently having that position, was sort of vital for them to be able to respond to specific calls, like the ones people having like a real medical, you know, crisis.

So the funding was a problem.

It was funded by a state grant, and that grant will expire next month.

The city wasn't able to find any other money to help pay for it.

So it's sort of short notice, which I think city councilors didn't appreciate necessarily that this program is going away.

But the administration says they have a plan for that.

So a couple of staffers are going to be laid off because of this.

Who would this burden downfall two largely if CARES is not going to be taking care of these emergency calls where people are maybe in a mental health crisis.

Yeah.

So I'm I'm Mulvaney Stanek has said that the Howard Center, which is the designated mental health agency in Washington County.

She's saying that that organization is best positioned to do this work.

And it's a good argument.

Right.

Like they have a street outreach team, that I think has been around for 20 or 30 years.

They're well established.

But like everyone else, Howard Cente has funding issues of its own.

They recently had some layoffs.

And the city of Burlington kind of stepped in during its budget process and said, we will help backfill some of those funding cuts and invested in Howard Center's street outreach team at historic levels.

It was almost $250,000, which is a lot, for that.

But but the problem is about investment won't get Burlington anything more for its money.

That money is just backfilling.

It's not going to hire more staff, and it's not going to expand the hours that Street Outreach is serving the city.

So it feels like this program never really got off the ground, as you see about a year in planning.

And now it's just gone.

It is.

And so I think councilors have some questions.

They're concerned about Howard Center's capacity to take on this caseload.

That was being kind of taken care of by the CARES team.

So I think this really kind of underscores the budget struggles that everyone in this system is having right now.

Councilors.

On Monday, they were set to approve an agreement with Howard Center to kind of require them to document how they're spending this money just as an accountability measure, provide some data.

But because the City Council had so many concerns about how this service will be provided, they held off on held off on that.

And so they're going to discuss it next month.

But I think people are upset.

One of the city councilors who learned about this did so because a client that was part of the Kerry's team, you know, contacted her and said, like I heard, this program is being defunded.

Like, I'm devastated.

I rely on this.

So I appreciate your reporting on that.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

And I he's like pointed this out before.

But it's so fascinatin how like and Lainey Stanek ran as you know, this spread eyed progressive and the main task of her tenure has been mostly kind of dealing with the fallout of, a prior mayor's post-Covid spending spree.

Right.

And she's been the one that's had the hard task of, like, laying people off as the first progressive mayor.

And I don't know how long and it's an interesting dynamic to watch for sure.

And the Burlington City Council have been keeping busy.

Let's stick, there for a moment, because, Courtney, you were writing about, some problems that UVM students were bringing up about thei housing, things like mold and, you know, just problems that they were bringing, to the attention of the city.

There were concerns over the aging housing.

What did the city council do most recently to get involved in this?

And what's the upshot of all this?

Yeah.

So the real question here, it's not news that there is issue.

There are issues with student dorms.

Right.

And complaining about your housing on campus is part of going to college.

But they have this group called the Student Tenant Union at UVM formed in the last year, and they've done a lot of documentation of some of the things, that they've seen pests, mold leaks, things that aren't being fixed.

Where the city comes in, is is sort of to investigate UVM and whether they are bound to, comply with the city's housing code.

Part of the housing Code says that, you know, colleges are exempt from these routine inspections that city inspectors do for every other apartment in the city, but they still have to self-certify every year that they're meeting that housing code.

And UVM has not done so in more than a decade.

Really?

That long?

Yes.

A city councilor, Mark Broderick, he's also a UVM student.

And he did this research and found that there was basically nothing on record showing that UVM was proving to the city that, hey, we're following the rules and that was disturbing to him.

So what resulted is a resolution that ended up passing unanimously on Monday, where it doesn't seek to change the system.

It's really to gather more information.

So America is asking them to, you know, submit information about its current inspection process.

UVM officials were at the council meeting on Monday night and even so did not provide any detai that satisfied the councilors.

So they want that.

They want information about the inspectors qualifications, documentation of housing code violations, and really calls for everyone just to kind of come to the table and talk about this, to see what could potentially result.

And if nothing else, I would think the students have to feel good about at least they're they're getting some traction now and getting people take notice of this.

They absolutely are.

And they got a lot of, kudos from city councilors for their advocacy.

Yeah, very much appreciate the update on that story.

Alice Novak, I want to turn to a story now that you featured, in seven days, this has to do with, I guess, according to Let's Grow Kids, this organization, which I'd like you to briefly describe, this is a success story for them.

They were on a mission for, like a ten year mission, basically to make child care in the state of Vermont more affordable or at least accessible to more people.

Let's go, kids, is no more.

Does that mean they failed or they succeeded?

So I think they would say they succeeded.

So, they started well, they launched in 2015 essentially as first to spread awareness about the importance of child care in, you know, brain development and making sure that we hav kids who are ready for school.

But then they work to pass act 76, which is, a law that was passed in 2023 that invested, an additional $125 million annually into the child care system.

And what that did was expand subsidies for families.

So more families became eligible for child care subsidies.

It also increased the reimbursement rate, to child care programs so that they were actually getting more money from the state as well.

So after act 76 was passed, I think kids felt like they had accomplished their mission.

They had always set out to, you know, have a ten year campaign.

And Ali Richards, who that was the executive director, told me, you know, that was intentional.

They wanted to create a sense of urgency.

They raised $77 million, during the course of their campaign, which is no small sum.

Yeah.

And so they, you know, spent two years after, act 76 was passed making sure that it was being rolled out.

Well, and then they disbanded.

There will be another organization called Let's Grow Kids Action Network, which is much smaller than Last Grow Kids, which will kind of continue lobbying for child care related issues in the legislature, work to pass some additional legislation on like smaller legislation and make sure act 76 is still being implemented.

Well.

But, yeah, they they sunset it about a month ago.

So, so they want to still continue with this, extension of a lobbying group.

Now they're going to kind of be monitoring progress here in Montpelier.

They don't want to let this issue go.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah, I do I have to ask, though.

I mean, child care in this country is and the state of Vermont is still expensive.

This doesn't solve that problem.

Right.

But does it in fact make it more affordable?

Are people who want to find childcare for their kids in a better place now than they were ten years ago?

So I talked to a lot of families for this story, and the ones I talked to said, you know, yes, that they feel like this law has really helped them.

One family in particular said, you know, they felt like they were able to have a third child because they had the subsidy available there to public school teachers who didn't qualify for a subsidy before 76 was passed, because they increased the law, increased that income eligibility after it was passed.

They did.

They had a third kid, and now they're paying, you know, less than half of what they paid for for child care.

Then, you know, years before.

So they were paying $29,000 a year, which is a lot.

And now they're paying less than $12,000 a year.

And I think this is kind of an important point to highlight, like, hey, PSA, if you have lik one kid in childcare right now and you're thinking about having a second, this law basically gives you a two for one deal.

It's incredible for those those families who are trying to go from like 1 to 2 or 2 to 3, right.

Because you weekly share doesn't increase.

And then on paper, you're also poorer, so your subsidies go up.

And so I think that's like one place where you can say this, this law has made a profound difference.

That being said, I think that like, you know, while the the success of this, of this reform is like really clear when you measure it against kind of the goals of the movement.

Right.

It still falls like pretty short.

And Vermont is a national leader in child care right now.

That's true.

The barn, America's extra ordinarily low.

It's important to point out.

And, you know, we still have a system in which there is still a shortage of child care, particularly in the infant space.

We're talking about workers now, right?

No, no, no, no, I'm saying, like, if you're looking for a slot, there's still a shortage, right?

It particularly for infants, if you are a child care worker, you got a raise because of this law.

And that was necessary because you were making poverty wages before.

That being said, you're not making good money.

You're you're still not making as much as like, hey, an elementary school teacher is and you probably still don't have health care.

And if you are a family, you might be saving hundreds of dollars.

Under this law, you are still probably going to be paying thousands and thousands of dollars for child care.

A lot of the people who are newly made eligible under this law for subsidies are, in fact, being held harmless by the other dynamic in this law, which is that it raise the cost of care.

Again, for a good reason, to give child care workers who needed it a raise.

And so, you know, I think everything is relative.

And when you compare us to the rest of the industrialized world like we still look pretty bad.

And having a child in Vermont is still really financially difficult.

Yeah.

You know, we didn't talk a lot about it in this particular show, but I know we're going to be doing it in future shows.

You can make the same argument about health care in general.

You know, the little the little things that we're doing here and there around the edges are one thing.

But you compare us to the rest of the major industrial nations in the world, and it is still, I can't think of one person that would trade their healthcare system for ours.

That's going to have to be a topic for another time.

Yeah, yeah.

I do think we want to make sure, though, that we say that like we were really, really the the bar was low and we have raised the bar in Vermont.

So I think, you know, Rick Davis, who founded this group, has said, you know, we still have a long way to go.

I wish we got farther in ten years.

But I do think, you know, this is to me, in a way, a good news story.

Yeah.

It's kind of remarkable what that organization, if nothing else was able to do in a ten year period.

You can read all about it in seven days.

We want to mention, some political news that Molly Gray, who was, once lieutenant governor of Vermont, even though it's a year out from the election, she has put her hat in the ring.

She wants to regain her old job there.

And before we go, a couple of things to remind you about happening this weekend.

The University of Vermont men's soccer team is ready to defend their national title.

They are the defending Division one national champs.

They will be playing, Sunday in the second round.

They got a bye in the first round.

So they will be able to do that.

So some things you can watch for their, And I want to make sure that you tune in next week as well, because yesterday there was a reason I was talking sports.

We're going to do a special sports show next week right here in Vermont this week for our Thanksgiving special.

And we hope you'll tune in for that special panel for that.

Meanwhile, I want to thank our wonderful panel today, Lola Duffort with Vermont Public, Courtney Lamdin with Seven Days and also Alison Novak with Seven Days.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb, thanks so much for watching.

We'll see you next Friday for Vermont This Week.