A Weekly State House Recap
by Maggie Lenz and Nick Charyk on behalf of Atlas Government Affairs
The Meat of the Matter
Early in the session, the common wisdom was that education would be the issue dragging lawmakers into June or even July. But with major components of H.454 now moving and the Senate Education Committee pushing through long days of testimony and analysis, adjournment is increasingly being eyed for mid to late May. That doesn’t mean the work is simple or done, but it does suggest that the path is clearer than it looked a few months ago.
This past week in the State House, the education debate shifted into its next phase. With H.454 now in their hands, the Senate spent a week unpacking what the House’s sweeping governance and funding proposal would mean on the ground. Lawmakers examined how districts would be structured, how funds would flow, and what enforcement and oversight would actually look like. Meanwhile, the House turned its focus to a quieter but equally significant question: how Vermont ensures public dollars are spent in schools that operate with transparency and accountability.
In the Senate Education Committee, members began their deep dive into the bill’s core mechanics. Much of their attention was on implementation. What happens when a district fails to meet the new class size minimums? When would the state step in, and under what conditions? While the policy is slated to take effect in 2026, lawmakers were told that enforcement would require two consecutive years of noncompliance, and even then districts could seek a waiver. The underlying concern was clear. Would the policy as written deliver the equity and consistency it aims to create?
The committee also heard testimony from Dr. Tammy Kolbe, one of Vermont’s leading education finance experts and the researcher behind the state’s most widely used study on the cost of educating students with greater needs. Kolbe explained how the House arrived at the $15,033 figure now included in the bill as the “base funding amount.”
Right now, Vermont uses a complex weighting formula that adjusts how much each student is counted in a district’s enrollment based on need. For example, a student living in poverty or learning English might count as more than one student on paper, and that inflated count affects how much funding the district can raise through local taxes. The model proposed in H.454 flips that around. Instead of inflating headcounts, the state would first establish a set dollar amount that reflects the actual cost of educating a student who does not need any additional support. That is the base funding amount. Then, additional funding would be layered on top for students who do require extra services.
Kolbe stressed that the $15,033 number is not theoretical. It comes from real-world data about what Vermont schools are already spending to get actual results. She cautioned lawmakers not to rely on lower estimates, like those used in the Governor’s plan, which are based on idealized school models designed by consultants. If the state sets the base too low, she warned, it could fall short of its constitutional obligation to provide all students with an adequate education. “You probably are opening yourself up to a lawsuit,” she told the committee.
To see how the new funding formula might affect communities, senators reviewed a fiscal analysis from the Joint Fiscal Office comparing outcomes under four different district maps: the current 119 districts, a regional model from the Vermont School Boards Association, a nine-region proposal from Senator Bongartz, and the Governor’s five-region consolidation plan. The results showed that larger, more consolidated regions tend to reduce the biggest funding swings, but not without tradeoffs. Under the current map, 68 districts would gain funding and 53 would lose, with some seeing significant changes in per-pupil support. Consolidating into five regions narrowed those disparities, but also eliminated most small school and sparsity grants, which means less targeted support for rural communities. While broader regions may create more stable funding averages, they can also hide uneven impacts within them, raising new questions about how equity is defined and delivered.
Across the building, the House Education Committee spent the week examining oversight of independent schools that receive public tuition. In Vermont, students who live in towns without a local public school can attend approved independent schools, and the town pays their tuition. Those schools are supposed to meet state standards, but how that oversight works has become a growing area of concern.
State Board of Education Chair Jennifer Samuelson testified before the committee to explain the approval process. Because the Board acts in a quasi-judicial role, she said many details about specific decisions must remain confidential. While that may be true, the result is a system that provides little visibility into how private schools are held accountable for the public money they receive.
That concern has intensified following a recent Seven Days investigation into the company running Vermont’s juvenile detention facility, which also operates a licensed independent school. The article described lawsuits, staff complaints, and serious regulatory gaps. Lawmakers are beginning to ask how public tuition ends up in programs that appear to operate outside the level of scrutiny applied to public schools, and what safeguards should be in place going forward.
Taken together, the week marked a shift from vision to execution. While most lawmakers seem to agree, at least on paper, that our education system should be fair, funded to meet real needs, and accountable to the people paying for it, getting this bill passed and signed by Governor Phil Scott will require more than agreement on values. It will require agreement on structure, standards, and no small amount of politicking.
Straight Shots
Two weeks ago, we explored the long journey of Burlington’s charter change to prohibit guns in bars, a policy first approved by voters in 2014 and reaffirmed this Town Meeting Day with 86.6 percent support.
This week, the Senate Government Operations Committee advanced the proposal on a 3 to 2 party-line vote. That may sound like a small procedural step, but after a decade of delay, it was the first time the measure cleared a committee.
The day before that vote, the same committee approved a Morristown charter change by a unanimous 5 to 0 vote. That charter allows the town manager to hire and fire employees. No media attention. No philosophical debate. Routine.
Charter changes made by municipalities in Vermont require legislative approval before going into effect. So why is one charter change moving quickly while another stirs up statewide controversy? It comes down to the simple fact that guns tend to short-circuit our usual norms of debate in Vermont.
Governor Phil Scott addressed the Burlington charter change this week on The Morning Drive radio show. A caller asked him directly whether he would support the measure, noting that nearly 90 percent of voters had backed it. The caller said, “I mean, isn’t a vote a vote? If you think this is a stupid idea, just be honest about that.”
Scott pushed back. “Wait a second. First of all, I vetoed that years ago. I don’t think it’s effective. I don’t think it makes any sense. I’ve said that consistently.”
But he didn’t veto it. The original charter change never made it to the floor, let alone to his desk. It died quietly in committee. It is a small factual error, but one that says a lot. Because when emotion enters the conversation, rationality tends to bend.
Scott did clarify his concerns about the effectiveness of the policy. But he stuck to the turnout critique too. “I don’t know what 90 percent represents,” he said. “I don’t know how many people turned out. Is that the majority of Burlington? I don’t know.”
Here is what we do know. Burlington’s population is around 44,500. Roughly 9,800 people voted on the charter change. Of those, more than 8,300 voted yes. From a democracy standpoint it is hard to argue with a straight face that this result does not reflect the will of the people.
To Scott’s point though, the turnout on Town Meeting Day was low. His own reelection in 2022 saw 71 percent of registered voters go to the polls, a significantly stronger showing.
But here is the harder question. Is there a magic number where turnout makes a vote count? Does a 71 percent mandate matter more than an 86 percent vote among fewer people? When dozens of school budgets went down in flames last Town Meeting Day, no one paused to ask if the turnout was high enough to validate the results.
In a committee hearing the day before the vote, gun rights advocate Chris Bradley argued the updated language was undemocratic and likely unconstitutional. He cited state preemption law and pointed out early drafting errors. He also had an unintentionally comic moment when he referred to legislative counsel Tucker Anderson as “Tucker Carlson,” a slip that was not lost on those in the room.
The Burlington proposal is not particularly novel. Even states like Texas and Florida have restrictions on guns in bars. But in Vermont, firearms have a way of distorting political gravity. Once emotions run high, facts get flexible. And politics only amplifies the effect.
Curiosities: a weekly peek at the odd and intriguing happenings under the Golden Dome
Every Man is an Island
Jay Hooper, Around Age 5 or 6
Rep. Jay Hooper (D-Randolph) has spent the last year calling out a political culture within his own party that, in his view, too often prioritizes image over action and inclusion. Last fall, he backed a challenge to House leadership. He organized forums. He asked who was actually making decisions and who was being asked to fall in line. "Fewer than ten people are really running the show," he said then. He has not walked it back.
But he does still consider himself a Democrat. And so do his Republican colleagues. Earlier this year, he tried to sit in on a Republican meeting. He showed up casually, figuring maybe he could observe. After all, he was the only Democrat endorsed by the Governor last cycle. But he was told at the door that he wasn’t getting in.
Hooper is in his fifth term representing Randolph and nearby towns in Orange and Washington counties. He comes from political stock. His father, Don Hooper, once held the same seat and later served as Vermont Secretary of State. Jay grew up around State House culture, but his approach has never quite followed the script. He is younger than most, more direct than many, and increasingly at odds with how his party manages itself.
"We butt heads," he said of his father. "Sometimes I have to remind him the seat’s mine now,” Jay jokes. At one point, he said, leadership even tried to get his vote through his dad rather than speaking to him directly.
November’s losses for Vermont Democrats, followed by the whiplash approval of most school budgets in March, have left more questions than answers. In the wake of the election, the narrative pinned Democratic losses largely on voter backlash to school spending and rising property taxes. So in the months between November and March, the Democratic majority appeared to be reading the room, signaling a willingness to work closer to the middle and bring more voices to the table.
But if there is a course correction underway, it has not been obvious to Hooper. “It feels like the system just reabsorbed the shock and carried on,” he said. The energy that followed the election, the brief self-reflection, the talk of recalibration, all seems to have faded into the backdrop of the golden dome.