Editor’s note: This commentary is by David Schoales of Brattleboro. He is chair of the Brattleboro Town School Board and a member of the Brattleboro Selectboard.
[A]s the legislative session winds down, three bills that would support young Vermonters hoping to stay in Vermont after high school or college are being left behind.
One bill that would support solid workforce development efforts is languishing in a pile somewhere, hoping to receive a little funding. Another that would provide modest tuition support for strong Vermont students to attend our state colleges and university looks dead. A third that would help fund community efforts to extend high-speed fiber to more homes and businesses may not be supported because of controversies over 5G wireless. These issues are at the top of the list for young Vermonters, but Montpelier doesn’t seem to see it.
A small Band-Aid of a little more funding may be applied to early education, which will allow a few more young Vermonters to become underpaid early educators, but that is cold comfort to this year’s high school and college graduates, who are looking to actually make a living from their careers.
As for the governor? Well, he wants our tax money spent on economic development and bribes to attract a couple dozen people to live here for a little while instead of investing in our own children.
It’s sad.
Still reading? How about Act 46? Act 46 makes Medusa look good. Boards across the state are struggling to settle really complex issues with little guidance or support. Citizens are bewildered by the confusion and unanswerable questions these transition boards are struggling with. Boards, superintendents and business managers are straight out trying to run the existing school districts, provide support for the transition boards, warn and schedule elections and budget votes, inform their communities and prepare for graduations and the ending of the school year. Boards are having to spend taxpayer dollars on attorneys for answers to questions they should be able to get from the Agency of Education and the Secretary of State. The turmoil that will result for our children from budget rejections this late in the fiscal year looms on the horizon. Meanwhile, the House and Senate seem unable to make a simple decision to delay the forced mergers so the work can be done prudently. Seems like a lot of legislators need to cover their butts over the myriad of problems coming out of Act 46 by doing nothing.
Another bill that probably will pass continues the ongoing efforts across the state and nation to centralize control and limit employees’ rights. The Legislature took away emergency workers’ collective bargaining right to withhold their labor a few years ago, leaving them with no alternative to a final offer from the state or the town they were negotiating with. Part of H16 now includes language letting these employees spend a lot of money on an arbitrator who will look at the final offers on both sides and pick the winner. Although a lot of professional arbitrators are fair and competent, that is not always true.
It is true that binding arbitration (read “secret arbitration”) is a tactic used especially by retail employers to keep their workers from uncovering gender and age bias. The more this comes to seem normal, the more employers are able to ignore anti-discrimination and favoritism laws. No one will know or be able to gather any evidence because employees will lose their jobs if they say how much they are earning or what their benefits include. It’s a bad precedent.
And then there is the legislative overreach into local contract negotiating processes between employers, employees and employees’ bargaining agents. As the VLCT has pointed out, the state’s relationship with its employees only affects one employer and the state tax base. Municipalities are separate governmental entities with separate employees, budgets voted by municipal voters and property tax bases unique to each municipality. Our contract negotiations may drag out, but there is rarely an occasion where a contract is imposed. Contract terms should be determined by the employees and the elected officials whose job it is to negotiate them and who are directly accountable to the taxpayers. These contracts affect public employees who provide essential public services, and our communities have always supported them. Maybe the state has issues because they are so big, but, like Act 46, binding arbitration is not a good idea for local communities.
It looks like the Speaker of the House and the Senate president are meeting with leaders with the doors closed and will be working through these issues in secret. This is also sad. At least voters will know who to blame for turning their backs on our young people.
