The Vermont Agency of Education is stepping up its pressure on school districts that are fighting their Act 46 forced mergers.
Secretary of Education Dan French sent out a memo Friday saying if districts don’t move forward with the forced mergers, the state "will take every action legally available to bring the district into compliance."
Districts were supposed to hold organizational meetings in January, but at most of those meetings opponents stood up from the floor and postponed any further action.
Opponents argued that they were waiting for a ruling from Superior Court Judge Robert Mello on a preliminary injunction that would have slowed down the merger process. But Mello denied the injunction on March 4, and so the Agency of Education sent out its memo late last week to encourage school boards to move forward with the merger process.
In a press release Monday, Agency of Education spokesman Ted Fisher said:
“The guidance explains there is enough time for each newly formed union district to take the steps required to begin operations on July 1, 2019. Communities are strongly encouraged to carefully study the timelines outlined in the memo to ensure smooth transition of services within the new union district for the benefit of students.”
But districts are now facing a very tight timeline to get meetings warned and budgets passed before June 30: Because of the schedule, some districts can’t hold elections for new school board members until May 21 and a subsequent school budget vote cannot take place before June 21. That leaves less than two weeks before the June 30 deadline.
"Failure to use the time remaining between now and June 30, 2019 will result in serious consequences to students and staff." — Vermont Agency of Education memo, sent March 8
State law allows school districts to borrow money if the voters have not yet approved a spending plan for the upcoming year. The law gives districts authority to borrow up to 87 percent of the current year budget if voters continually vote down proposed budgets.
But since these new districts have not been operational, they do not have an existing budget — and so there is no mechanism in place for the districts to operate if the budget is not approved before June 30.
The Agency memo issued Friday also said “failure to use the time remaining between now and June 30, 2019 will result in serious consequences to students and staff.”
The Vermont Senate Committee on Education will look at a bill this week that could give school districts more time to come up with a plan to meet the requirements of Act 46.
