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Bill H955 would make regional 'CISAs' mandatory, set study-committee timeline and new minimum services
Summary
A legislative briefing on H955 reviewed major governance changes that rename and statutorily create Cooperative and Education Service Areas (CISAs), require study committees to examine unified-district formation, and set deadlines, facilitator roles and minimum service offerings; startup grants rise from $10,000 to $15,000.
Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Council, briefed legislators on H955 on April 30, saying the bill renames existing boards of cooperative education services and makes several structural changes to how regional cooperative entities are formed and governed.
The bill replaces the voluntary 'boards of cooperative education services' model with statutorily created Cooperative and Education Service Areas (CISAs), and requires each supervisory union member to appoint a director to their CISA board within 30 days of enactment, St. James said. H955 preserves the existing Vermont Learning Collaborative membership and keeps broad member discretion about which services to use, while adding a required minimum set of services.
Why it matters: The change shifts the legal baseline from voluntary collaboration to a statutory regional framework, which could alter incentives and timelines for district consolidation and service delivery. The bill’s authors said the framework is not tied to the foundation formula; St. James told the committee, “Yes, the CISAs are not by the foundation formula in any way, shape or form.”
Key provisions and deadlines described in the briefing:
- Name and scope: H955 amends Title 16, Chapter 10 to change references from BOSes to CISAs across the statute book and to add definitions relevant to CISA governance.
- Minimum services: CISAs must at a minimum offer services in special education, business and administrative services, and support for union school-district creation, consultation and facilitation; members are not required to use those services.
- Start-up funding: The existing start-up grant is increased from $10,000 to $15,000; the bill includes an appropriation to make up the extra $5,000 per new CISA.
- Study-committee process: The Vermont Learning Collaborative is asked to hire seven facilitators and a lead facilitator by Oct. 1 to assign districts to study committees and support the advisability review of unified union school districts. Facilitators must consult school boards and use guidance groupings while considering factors such as aggregate ADM (recommended around 2,000), contiguity, topography and staffing.
- Deadlines: Study committees must hold their first meetings by Dec. 1, 2026; final reports must be delivered to member school boards by Dec. 1, 2027. The secretary will have 60 days (or until April 1, 2028, whichever is earlier) to review and forward recommendations to the State Board. The State Board must issue final findings by June 1, 2028, and any public votes to form new unified union school districts are to occur on or before Nov. 7, 2028.
- Modeling and transparency: H955 directs the Department of Taxes to publish an interactive calculator by Oct. 1, 2027 to help districts model potential impacts; presenters noted work remains to ensure the tool is usable by local business officers.
What the briefing did not change: The presenter said H955 leaves much of the prior BOS law intact (for example, existing financial reporting requirements to member supervisory union boards) and does not force any specific study-committee outcome; if a study committee finds formation inadvisable, districts may remain as-is or pursue other configurations.
The committee also reviewed related rulemaking and definitional changes required under the bill, and an expanded data-collection requirement for preK hours, a $75,000 appropriation for a cost-of-care contractor, and changes to small-school sparsity grant determination (moved from the State Board to the Agency of Education). St. James cautioned that some appropriations are drawn from the Act 73 education transformation funds and flagged one preK appropriation as coming from the general fund.
The committee’s next procedural steps are to consider floor amendments and to receive further staff analysis, including modeling and JFO reports. The presenter closed by noting floor amendments had been filed and that additional detailed questions would require follow-up with agency staff.
