RutlandHerald.com - We Are Vermont

Schools slam Douglas ed. proposal

Rutland Northeast Superintendent William Mathis did not mince words Friday, calling Gov. James Douglas's education proposals in his inaugural address "inappropriate and insulting."

"It's really saying that the local electorate who vote on the budgets each year and the local school boards are not doing their jobs and he can do it better for them," he said. "It's nothing but a power play to manipulate government."

Education officials in Rutland County may not have all shared Mathis's vehemence, but it was tough to find any Friday who were enthusiastic about the governor's ideas.

Douglas proposes to do away with Act 68 and cap local spending by requiring school districts to flat-fund their per-pupil spending for the fiscal year 2010 budget.

Under the proposal, local school boards could spend more per pupil, but with severe restrictions. The additional spending would have to be paid for entirely by local residential property taxes and income sensitivity would not apply.

Arguments that issues like fuel costs, or multiyear contracts with workers, were out of the boards' hands, did not convince him that the schools should not have their per-pupil spending frozen.

"We have the same pressures in state government, yet we are spending less," Douglas said during a press conference Friday where he defended the plan. "They have to recognize reality."

Mathis said that 93 percent of school budgets pass on the first try in a typical year, showing that local populations generally approve of what their school boards are doing.

Mathis also said he saw a number of contradictions in the governor's speech, such as talk of how property taxes are too high, coupled with a proposal to effectively raise them on many people by changing income sensitivity.

Moving the teacher retirement fund from the General Fund to the Education Fund didn't gel with the goal of lowering property taxes either, Mathis said.

Freezing state appropriations, he said, would be a disaster.

"Teacher contracts are already there," he said. "Budgets are already there. … That means an immediate and massive shift onto the local property tax, which would be a horrendous burden. … The sum total would be a financial crisis in every town in the state."

Dana Cole-Levesque, principal of Otter Valley Union High School, said that the issue with education spending is not education.

"Health care is the issue, health care is the issue, health care is the issue," he said. "You've got to fix health care to control the costs of education spending."

Fear of losing health care coverage for their families, Cole-Levesque said, drives many people in education to continue working, who might otherwise retire.

"Until the governor and the Legislature can remove the disincentive from retiring … we're going to face excruciating issues with our staff," he said.

Principal JeanMarie Oakman of Poultney High School said she understood where the governor was coming from.

"He's taking a stance, very clearly, saying schools will get hit," she said. "Know it, understand it, schools will get hit. … I knew it was coming. You'd have to be stupid not to gauge the economy."

Oakman said Poultney recently had to make a lot of tough decisions about staffing and programs after losing almost a quarter of its student body in four years, and as a result has seriously reduced its per-pupil costs. Other schools, she said, could do well to exercise the same sort of foresight.

Rutland City School Board President Peter Mello said his reaction was one of caution, pointing out that the governor's proposal was short on specifics.

"I think you'll hear the same thing from any school board chairman and anyone who knows how schools operate," he said. "Level-funding is basically a cut. I don't think we can level-fund without looking at what the circumstances will be for the students."

Rob Bliss, assistant superintendent of the Rutland City School District, pointed out that Rutland's per-pupil spending is already below the statewide average, and level-funding would hurt Rutland more than it would schools over the average.

"They hurt low spenders and don't really benefit anybody," he said.

Bliss said he disliked the idea of dismantling Act 60 and Act 68, which he said have allowed lower-spending schools to do a lot more than they would otherwise.

"I think we'd all do well to look at how well Vermont does compared to schools around the country," he said.

Bliss said Vermont always scores in the top five in the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests run by the U.S. Department of Education. Mathis echoed the point.

"Yes, Vermont is a high educational spender," he said. "When we look at our education achievement, or kids' social health indicators, we're always second or third."

Spending more, Mathis said, means getting more.

"How bad do we want education to get?" he asked. "If we systematically underfund it, you'll get some losses. You get what you pay for and the governor has said he wants a mediocre education system. … It's just an irresponsible and silly proposal. A serious person should not be thinking these things."

Louis Porter and Sarah Hinckley contributed to this story.

Contact Gordon Dritschilo at gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com.