House pulls education funding from bill for lack of votes
MONTPELIER, Vt. --House Democrats pulled an education funding bill from the floor at the last minute Thursday because it didn't have enough votes to pass, jeopardizing the Vermont Legislature's chances of enacting property tax reduction legislation this year.
House Speaker Gaye Symington blamed Gov. Jim Douglas, who she said failed to persuade Republicans to get behind it. Democrats were reluctant to back an initiative they believed was too much of a compromise in favor of Douglas' priorities, not theirs, she said.
"It would have been defeated today," she said. "If this were a purely Democratic bill, it wouldn't look like this."
Republicans responded that it was majority Democrats' responsibility to line up votes if they wanted to pass a bill. "The governor's not the minority leader," said Douglas press secretary Jason Gibbs.
Nonetheless, Symington gave Republicans who want a bill more to their liking until Tuesday to line up votes. Otherwise, she said, she will free her Democratic colleagues to draft one that they like, which means a formula that would pay for schools with the income tax.
"There are many Democrats who have wanted to focus on that," she said of an income tax-based system.
Douglas issued a statement late in the day lambasting lawmakers for wasting time and warning that no income tax increase would get by him. He said that would only shift taxes, not slow growth.
"Shifting the tax burden is not a solution to our problem, it will only exacerbate the spending problem and I will not support a higher income tax for education," Douglas said.
Few around the Statehouse had anything good to say about the withdrawn bill, whose central feature was a penalty on schools that spend 120 percent or more of the previous year's statewide per-pupil average.
That was designed to slow down spending growth in schools, although it likely would have reduced growth by only $9 million or so.
"There seems to be a lot of concern out there about the education bill, what it does, what it doesn't do," said House Education Vice Chairman Greg Clark, R-Vergennes, a supporter of the legislation. He said 46 towns likely would have been penalized if the bill were in effect today. "I think people looked that over and said, `This bill doesn't do enough good for me to go and support that.'"
About two-thirds of the 93-person Democratic caucus was willing to support the bill, Symington said. House Minority Leader Steve Adams of Hartland said only eight or 10 Republicans would have voted for it.
So, Symington suddenly delayed action on the bill until Tuesday and invited Douglas to help rally support.
"I'm not willing to push this through without the administration being part of it," Symington said. "We've pulled our weight -- more than our weight. It's time for the governor to stop playing politics with this. We want to do something substantive but we can't do it alone."
Gibbs said that was unlikely.
"Why would the governor ask legislators to support a bill that they have such strong feelings against?" Gibbs said. "A first step has to be meaningful and the consensus is this step won't have a meaningful effect on property taxes."
Adams said that was the conclusion of members of his caucus, who will be critical to passing a bill that doesn't include an income tax.
"I think they all felt it did not produce the property tax relief Vermonters wanted," he said. "That's not what our constituents are asking us to do."
Symington said the bill represented a huge compromise for majority Democrats.
She, Douglas and Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin brokered an agreement early in the session, however, about what they were comfortable including in an education funding-property tax package. Democrats were never satisfied with the spending caps and other provisions proposed by Douglas, but went along with the understanding they'd be working with Doulgas' support.
She conceded the bill didn't take big steps toward reducing the growth in property tax. But she said that was the nature of a compromise.
