House Education panel presses Agency of Education on Act 168 BOCES rollout

At a Feb. 12 House Education committee meeting, Agency of Education officials updated lawmakers on implementation of Act 168, the law authorizing boards of cooperative educational services (BOCES), and said the secretary of education has not approved any BOCES formations and no startup grants have been awarded.

The update matters because Act 168 is intended to give districts a mechanism to pool services and reduce costs, particularly for special education. Committee members and agency staff said the statute sets a multi-step process — districts must vote to explore a BOCES, negotiate and vote on articles of agreement, then submit those articles to the Secretary of Education for review — but that steps beyond those procedures remain constrained by agency capacity and budgeting.

Jill Briggs Campbell, interim deputy secretary at the Agency of Education, said the agency has received articles of agreement informally from districts and that staffers are prepared to move to a formal review once the districts submit materials for official consideration. Campbell said the agency lacks in-house staffing and technical expertise for the work at scale and has been cautious about pushing a full implementation without additional resources. "I don't know that we're setting up for success," Campbell told the committee when describing the agency's concerns about rushing formation without built capacity.

Lindsay Hedges, interim director of policy and communications at the Agency of Education, said the agency has engaged a contractor with national BOCES experience, New Solutions, and has been working with the Vermont Learning Collaborative to review model articles of agreement. Hedges said the contractor and collaborative materials provide a starting point but that the agency must evaluate fiscal, legal and programmatic implications before releasing templates or approving formal articles.

Committee members pressed staff on the practical effects of those constraints. Representative Brown asked whether the committee could expect a commitment to proceed under the law as written; agency staff answered that they are prepared to review formal submissions but may need to build further internal expertise before signing off and that the agency's forthcoming budget request includes resources for broader education transformation that could fund implementation work.

The committee also discussed the law's startup grant: Act 168 includes a $10,000 startup grant available to newly formed BOCES, but agency staff said the startup award is not available until the Secretary of Education has approved the articles of agreement. As of the Feb. 12 meeting, the secretary had not signed off on any BOCES and no grants had been issued.

Members and staff highlighted that the conversation about BOCES is occurring alongside broader, unresolved policy proposals about education service agencies (ESAs) and possible systemwide reorganization, which complicates timing and planning. Agency staff described two parallel tracks: (1) implementing Act 168 under current law with districts forming regional BOCES, and (2) contemplating a possible future governance or ESA structure at a different scale. Staff urged that the committee weigh measurable goals and funding relationships before choosing a structure.

Next steps identified during the meeting: districts that wish to form a BOCES should submit formal articles of agreement for Secretary review; the agency will use its consultant support to evaluate submissions and, where needed, provide feedback; and the agency's budget request — when presented — will include staffing and resources tied to education transformation and potential ESA/BOCES roles. The committee postponed a separate budget presentation and asked staff to provide staffing and consultant-use details when that presentation is rescheduled.

The discussion ended with the committee pausing for a short recess to continue other business later in the session.