January 13, 2026

Legislative Report

Another legislative session begins, and it looks to be a humdinger.

But before diving into that, I wish to recognize with heartfelt gratitude the many kind words and encouragement offered by friends, acquaintances and neighbors, locally and in the State House, this past ten months.  Coping with a cancer diagnosis and treatment is a trial that so many of us eventually go through.  Thanks to government-supported research, many treatments today are far more effective than just a few years ago.  For me personally, combination chemo- and immunotherapy has resulted in full remission and I have resumed a full schedule in Montpelier.

I also must acknowledge the anguish I feel about the senseless murder of Renee Good at the hands of ICE agents in Minneapolis.  That, and the bald-faced invasion of Venezuela for oil, and the wild threats against Denmark's Greenland and other sovereign countries, should have every American alarmed.  Our national government has not always covered itself in glory, to say the least.  But we as a nation share fundamental values of freedom and rule of law that Trump and his minions obviously do not.  I believe only continuous mass protests can force our leaders to stop this madness.

But my job as a state legislator is to deal with the challenges immediately before us in Vermont.  And they are urgent.

Reform of our education system under Act 73 is certainly the dominant issue this session.  Governor Scott has doubled down on forced school district consolidation; he talked about nothing else in his State of the State speech to start the session.  He dismissed the dedicated and detailed work of the School Redistricting Task Force, calling it "a political strategy to preserve the old system."  He said nothing about some other pretty big issues confronting us: health care and insurance costs; state budget chaos caused by the Trump Administration; housing and homelessness; and where we must make public investments to stabilize and grow rural communities and economies.

But Phil Scott has been governor for nine years.  What responsibility does he and his Administration bear for spiraling costs and for Vermont students slipping from among the best-performing in the nation to among the worst?   The Task Force report commented repeatedly that data requested from the Agency of Education was not forthcoming or not available; we still have no data on cost savings from the last round of district consolidations under Act 46.  It's worth noting that Governor Scott appointed Zoie Saunders as Secretary of Education, despite rejection by the Senate, even though Ms. Saunders has no experience in public education.

Perhaps more to the point locally, what might be the result of district mergers on our relatively small schools?  Sen. Beck's suggestion to Danville and Cabot school boards that they might be forced to tuition their children only to another public school — eliminating the option of tuitioning to an independent school like St. Johnsbury Academy — seems highly unlikely.  That provision in the original bill was removed, and there is no evidence the Legislature would consider it again.

Instead, a more likely possibility is that a new regional district, if it includes old districts that did not operate a public school and instead tuitioned, might be pressured to allow more widespread tuitioning.  Such "choice" sounds attractive, but it poses challenges to the principle of quality education for all.  There isn't space to go into the details here.  However, it does beg the question whether the motivation for merging districts — which evidence shows does not really address the major cost drivers — is at least partly to implement widespread "choice" without having a full debate about its merits and hazards.   

Major cost drivers appear to be health care and insurance costs, and special needs services, as well as deferred maintenance and facility projects postponed in the absence of state construction aid.

Still, it's obviously true that 52 supervisory unions and 119 districts represent a lot of overhead and duplicated services.  The Task Force's recommendation was to tackle that directly with a shared-services model called Cooperative Education Service Areas (also known other states as BOCES, Board of Cooperative Education Services).  This strategy would control costs by regionalizing such functions as purchasing, transportation, business offices, specialized staff, and tuition rates, while avoiding the costs and disruption of full district merging.

Secondly, the Task Force also recognized that merging districts with shrinking student populations does make sense, but it is better accomplished with local leadership and buy-in.

Thirdly, the Task Force recommended moving toward regional comprehensive high schools over a ten-year period.

That's an extreme simplification of a 208-page report.  As I read it, I found its analysis and recommendations persuasive.   

Ed reform is an acute and complex problem.  But Vermont must face many other critical issues at the same time.  I will address them in the coming weeks and months.

Last update January 13, 2026

Apologies for the long dry spell since I last updated this website! Will do much better now that we’re back in session but it will take awhile to update all the pages.
Scroll down to see what I’ve been up to.

Join me for “coffee hour” once a month on Saturday! All meetings at 8:00 AM:

Jan. 24, Kitchen Counter Cafe
378 Railroad St, St. Johnsbury

Feb. 21, Mooselook Diner
1058 Main St (Rte. 2), Concord

March 28, Kitchen Counter Cafe

April 25, Mooselook Diner

May 16, Kitchen Counter Cafe

What I’ve been up to

I was in treatment from April to August last year, and after several more months I’m pretty well recovered.

During that time I chaired the second year of a two-year off-session committee, the Building Energy Code Working Group.

We met seven times from June through November and produced a final report (link) recommending that —

• Vermont adopt a residential building construction code (did you know we don’t have one?!);

• energy codes, which are mandatory but have no enforcement or penalty, be placed under authority of Division of Fire Safety (which enforcing commercial construction, electrical, plumbing and other building codes);

• major improvements to the Secretary of State's Office of Professional Regulation Residential Contractor registry, which is also mandatory as of 3 years ago but also has little enforcement and a very weak website; and

• a Task Force be convened to assist OPR in making the improvements and advise in developing certifications that registrants can obtain voluntarily.

I have a bill in process to implement some of Working Group’s recommendations.

Among other ongoing work as a legislator, I participate in the Climate Solutions Caucus. The climate disruption now underway due to human activity is a defining challenge of our time.

My background is building construction, design and energy-savings analysis.

I am not a climate scientist, but I have been keenly aware of the existential challenge facing us for more than 30 years.

Skyler Perkins is a Vermonter, documentary videographer and a member of the next generation, even more aware of this challenge and how we as a society have failed to confront it.

He is in the process of producing a series explaining how climate disruption, pollution, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss is poisoning the planet’s—and humans’—future.

Event calendar
St. Johnsbury/Concord/Kirby