Legislative Update - Farms & Schools

The two hottest issues in the Vermont House last week were support for dairy farmers and reducing the costs of education. Both of these were painfully evident at a basketball game in the gym at Fairfax where local school boards and farmers are caught up in a system they cannot control.

I visited with a school board member who recounted how that board was doing everything possible to limit costs while continuing to provide the quality education that the community demands and students need. This board, as others, only controls a very small part of the budget. They have the responsibility of implementing policies created by Federal and State agencies but no real authority to decide what these policies will be. Local control evaporates when programs are prescribed and the purse is emptied.

I also sat with friends and their wives who were former students and former dairy farmers. Today, one drives a truck and the other drives nails. They were hard working young men, and they still are. But they could not support a family any longer by farming. These two issues cannot be placed on a back burner. Local school boards and local farmers are caught up in a system that they cannot control.

Farm relief is needed now. There is going to be a Fairfax farm auction mid-week. Another farm has sold cows to pay feed bills and will decide in the spring whether they will be able to go for another year. Asking farmers to consolidate or secure more loans for operating expenses is really the choice to do nothing. State dollars will not solve the problem but it may buy time and a fighting chance until Congress gets around to addressing milk pricing.

Addressing the cost drivers in Education is the second issue. Just as individual farmers cannot control their costs, local school boards are in a similar situation. Keeping community schools while consolidating services to schools is one idea being investigated.

The Education Committee is hearing testimony about the advantages of school districts coming together to buy maintenance and educational supplies in bulk, remove duplication of accounting and administrative services, and to share expertise so that each school could draw on professional staff who have the unique knowledge and skills that a district would not be able to afford on its own. Every school study since 1914 has recommended consolidation of school districts. And local voters have rejected each plan; voters who were proud of the quality schools they had created and maintained. They feared the loss of contact with a local board that they could trust to look after their interests and spend their money wisely.

Consolidation of services cannot be an answer by itself. Today’s educational programs are financed by cobbling funds from a myriad of sources: federal and state block grants, local dollars, categorical grants, Human Services monies, later reimbursements, and others that inventive administrators have found. As a result it is often difficult to assess the costs and benefits of a particular program. There is a need to identify the practices that are the most successful and most cost effective and can be duplicated in other districts.

The job of the Education Committee is to determine the way to get the best value for a taxpayer dollar and to form policies that will make that the practice in Vermont schools. We have the task of belling the cat. But the cat is an 800 pound tiger. Who will want to tell local school communities that the things they value are not in the best interests of the whole state? Do we want to choose the best for the state even if it seems harmful to our district or our town? Do we recommend policies that will find acceptance even if they are not the best way to cut spending? Do we vote to keep what is in our local towns even it interferes with improving education or cutting costs? What do you think?

I can be reached during the week in Montpelier by calling toll free at the State House 1-800-322-5616 where a message can be left at the Sergeant At Arms Office and delivered to me at seat 26, by E-mail at ggilbert@leg.state.vt.us, or at my home answering machine at 849-6333.

Gary Gilbert
State Representative
Franklin 1
Fairfax/Georgia