House Appropriations committee gives straw-poll backing to education amendment creating school-boundary task force and nonhomestead tax study

Representative Casey Tuft, a member of the House Education Committee, introduced an amendment to an education bill during the House Appropriations Committee’s April 11 meeting that would expand a school-district boundary subcommittee, establish a task force to study school-district voting wards and direct a study of the nonhomestead property tax.

Tuft said the amendment contains five instances. The first adds four legislative members to the mapping/boundary subcommittee — two from the House and two from the Senate — and specifies that appointees cannot be from the same political party or the same school district. The House members would be appointed by the Speaker of the House and Senate members by the Committee on Committees. Tuft said the four added legislative members would be nonvoting.

The amendment also increases the subcommittee size from five members to nine and creates a school-district voting-ward task force. Tuft described the task force’s membership as the secretary of state (or a designee), three members of the Vermont Municipal Clerk–Treasurer Association (appointed by that association), two members from the Vermont School Boards Association and the director of the Vermont Center for Geographic Information. She said the task force would consult with the school-district boundary subcommittee and work on ward boundaries, determine an optimal number of school-board members to maximize public representation and coordinate with the Secretary of State’s office, the Agency of Digital Services and the Vermont Center for Geographic Information.

Tuft said the task force would be required to complete work "on or before Oct. 15" (the transcript lists that date) and that committee members would receive per diems and translation support where needed; she characterized the compensation as limited and said no fiscal note had been prepared for the amendment.

The amendment’s fourth instance would convert proposed reclassification of the nonhomestead property tax into a study. The transcript indicates the commissioner of taxes would study implementation and submit a report in December 2026; Tuft said the study would allow the department time to work with Ways and Means and to prepare implementation for the later statutory effective dates (discussion referenced 2028 or 2029). The fifth instance addresses effective dates for the amendment’s provisions.

Committee members then conducted a roll-call straw poll to record support. Committee members who were recorded as saying “yes” were Representative Willey, Representative Harrison, Representative Consensta, Representative Roche, Representative Roecky, Representative Nigro, Representative Swarole, Representative Stevens, Representative Yakko and Representative Shatt. Committee member Brett Dickinson was not present for the vote and was recorded as absent. The chair described the vote as a straw poll to support the amendment “favorably.”

No formal fiscal note or final, formal committee vote on the amendment was recorded in the transcript. Tuft told the committee she could answer questions and that the commissioner of taxes would prepare the study and report, and she noted the amendment had already gone to Ways and Means and House Education.

The committee then moved on to discussion of a separate strike-all amendment on the calendar. Ending