Vermont education secretary urges faster move to statewide funding formula, outlines governance trade-offs

Vermont Education Secretary Zoe Saunders told the Legislature’s Education Committee on March 26 that the state faces a choice between continuing year‑to‑year cuts and pursuing a coordinated, multiyear transformation that pairs a new foundation funding formula with changes to school governance.

Saunders said the proposal aims to reduce inequities in per‑pupil spending, align resources with student need, and support teacher pay equity statewide while protecting core local priorities. “We have a rare opportunity in Vermont to not only make our system more affordable for taxpayers, but to improve quality of education for all students no matter where they live,” Saunders said.

The discussion focused on two linked elements: an evidence‑based foundation formula the agency adjusted for Vermont conditions, and a governance model that would create larger regional districts to achieve scale and share services. Saunders described the agency’s modeling as an “adjusted evidence‑based model” that took national research and refined base funding amounts and weightings to reflect Vermont’s smaller schools, teacher pay below the national average, and the state’s career‑technical education (CTE) system.

Saunders told the committee the model includes policy priorities such as expanded early childhood programs, more after‑school and summer programming in underserved communities, preserved allied arts (art, music, world language), additional mental‑health supports in schools, and stronger college‑and‑career pathway staffing in grades 9–10. The model assumes protected teacher planning time (25 percent of teacher time) and includes administrative support positions in the base assumptions.

On teacher pay, Saunders said the modeling shows an option to raise average teacher compensation using the foundation approach; sample budgets the agency shared show potential increases ranging from roughly $5,000 to as much as $20,000 for some districts depending on prioritization and local choices. Those increases “would still be subject to contract negotiations,” she cautioned.

Committee members pressed Saunders on why the agency’s proposed governance configuration centered on five large districts and whether the foundation formula would work with different district sizes. Saunders said the agency picked the five‑district model because it met the proposal’s objectives—student population similarity, demographic balance, and preserving pathways such as CTE—while acknowledging the evidence on an “optimum” district size is mixed. The evidence‑based model the agency used referenced a 3,900‑student district size as a baseline in its assumptions, Saunders said, and the agency built a multiyear ramp to account for Vermont’s smaller schools.

Several committee members asked for comparative modeling showing the consequences of alternative district configurations (for example, districts of 2,000, 4,000 or 12,000 students). Saunders said the agency has a rubric and sample budgets and can model other configurations, and she recommended establishing clear objectives and parameters first so educators and superintendents can apply them when drawing lines. “If you can give us the parameters, we know how to do it,” she said, describing superintendents and principals as the people who can refine maps once the committee sets policy goals.

Committee members raised concerns about local access and governance: residents’ ability to attend school board meetings, transportation patterns (for example, geographic obstacles), and how small communities could keep local schools while sharing specialized services. Saunders said the regional approach need not be “a monolith” and that regional central offices could deploy supports to local communities; she also emphasized that forming new districts would be followed by a lengthy transition period to establish leadership and alignment of systems.

On timeline, Saunders said the agency’s proposal assumes about two years before transitioning to the new governance and funding model and recommended a schedule that would include school board votes (the agency flagged November 2026 as a target for a school board vote in its planning discussion), elections for new boards and superintendents, and a fiscal-year transition (the agency mentioned fiscal year 2028 as the year when the new governance/funding would be in effect in the model). Saunders warned that elongating the timeline could mean an entire cohort of students experiences repeated budget cuts while awaiting reform.

Saunders described data sources used to validate the modeling, including the state education profile and a national evidence‑based funding study contracted by the General Assembly (the agency told the committee it adapted that study’s assumptions for Vermont). She said the agency validated recent data up to the prior year and adjusted weights and assumptions after consultation with external consultants and input gathered through listening sessions.

Committee members asked for specific staffing and class‑size assumptions. Saunders said the agency did not propose a rigid input‑based staffing matrix but included assumptions that allow flexibility; the evidence‑based model’s class‑size assumptions were 15 for kindergarten–grade 3 and 25 for grades 4–12, and the agency’s more recent sample budgets modeled slightly lower class sizes (13 for K–3 and 22 for grades 4–12) as feasible within the proposal.

Members repeatedly requested that the agency provide visual timelines, the modeling outputs for alternate district sizes, and a clear rubric of objectives and parameters the field can use to draw district boundaries. Saunders said the Agency of Education can supply those materials, reengage its “policy sprint” team to weigh in on governance options, and be available to the committee with staff or subject‑matter experts as the committee needs them.

The meeting ended without any formal votes; committee members instructed staff to continue work on modeling and timelines and to solicit superintendent and principal input on draft boundary proposals.

The discussion underscored the tradeoffs policymakers will face: pursuing scale and statewide standardization to increase equity and shared services, while responding to local concerns about governance, access, and community control.