Rural School Alliance urges Vermont House to expand statewide shared services, opposes forced mergers

Cheryl Charles, chair of the Westminster School Board and the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union, and Jeannie Albert, chair of the Lincoln Town School District board, told the Vermont House Education Committee on Feb. 13 that statewide cooperative education service areas (BOCES/CSAs) should be the first step in implementing Act 73 rather than imposing forced district mergers.

Charles said the Rural School Community Alliance (RSCA), formed about a year earlier and representing more than 100 towns, supports mandatory participation in a shared-services structure that would not dissolve local school boards but would assign each district and supervisory union to a CSA so districts can select services that best meet local needs. "We don't believe that forced mergers are effective," Charles said during her testimony.

The witnesses cited the 2024 BOCES legislation (Act 168) and the Act 73 redistricting task force's sequencing that starts with shared services. Charles said shared-service models operate in 41 states and, based on submitted testimony from business managers in eight Southern Vermont districts, produce measurable savings: she cited examples from the Southern Vermont BOCES pilot of "66% savings on professional development, 20 to 50% on evaluation services, up to 50% on full-time-equivalent positions in special education, 62% savings in consultation fees and up to 85% savings in program areas." The Southern Vermont BOCES pilot was described as seven supervisory unions and one district serving about 8,000 students.

Albert emphasized that supervisory unions preserve local accountability, community identity and democratic involvement while delivering shared services and cost efficiencies. She summarized public engagement with the Act 73 task force, saying the record included public comment from over 5,000 individuals and that 26 school boards representing roughly 100 towns documented preferences to remain in supervisory unions rather than accept large-scale, state-mandated consolidations.

Albert and Charles provided examples of voluntary collaboration and local resolutions—from Northeast Vermont and Caledonia-area districts to a Grand Isle resolution—to illustrate locally led approaches that align with some task force objectives. They also described charts in their submitted testimony comparing per-pupil spending across organizational structures and a counterfactual analysis arguing merged districts would have increased statewide spending in recent years.

On implementation, the witnesses urged the committee to begin by creating a statewide CSA map assigning each district and union, perform comprehensive district and supervisory-union data analyses, incentivize strategic voluntary mergers where appropriate, and consider folding a professional-judgment panel into the ongoing funding-formula work so the model can account for local variation.

Committee members questioned the interpretation of spending differences. One member noted that spending largely reflects what voters approve in budgets and said that could explain differences between supervisory unions and merged districts; the witnesses agreed further analysis is needed to determine causes.

The committee accepted the offer to receive the RSCA's detailed report electronically for distribution. The chair said the committee may take up two bills next week and asked members to review testimony over the weekend.