Updated on May 25, 2026.
Legislative leaders and Gov. Phil Scott have reached a tentative compromise on an education reform package that could break their impasse over forced school district mergers and result in a key Statehouse vote as early as Tuesday.
After a week of intense negotiations between a team of lawmakers and administration officials, a draft of the deal was posted to the Senate calendar on Friday evening.
“I’ve said all along this is always a cooperative process, and what you are seeing is cooperation in action,” Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden-Central) told Seven Days on Friday.
The media are “always salivating” for a story about a standoff that might lead to a government shutdown, Baruth said, but Scott and lawmakers recognize that that’s in no one’s best interests.
“I think we’ve all been at the table in good faith working really hard around the clock to figure out a bill that we all feel good about,” said Ashley Moore, Baruth’s chief of staff.
Baruth first hinted that a deal was possible last Wednesday, when the Senate held off voting on its version of the House’s education reform bill, H.955.
In postponing a vote on the bill, Baruth said lawmakers were “trying our best to put together an amendment that may be acceptable to all of the relevant parties.”
A team of four Democrats, two from the House and two from the Senate, met all last week with the administration to hammer out a compromise that Scott and lawmakers can accept. The goal was to give lawmakers the holiday weekend to think about the changes.
If the Senate approves the amendment on Tuesday and agree to suspended their rules to speed things up, the House could quickly follow suit. That could pave the way for the legislature to adjourn this week.
It could also all blow up, several lawmakers said.
There seemed to be growing optimism, however, that the apparent standoff between lawmakers and the governor had been replaced by significant momentum toward a deal.
Scott had vowed to not sign the state budget and keep the legislature in session over the summer if the reform effort did not include mandatory mergers of school districts. Democratic lawmakers have strongly opposed that approach, arguing that the majority of Vermonters don’t support forced mergers.
Scott seems to have backed away from his threat. Sen. Scott Beck (R-Caledonia) said the compromise language instead creates very strong incentives for districts to merge voluntarily.
“We hope the people who are going to merge are going to merge by 2030,” Beck told Seven Days on Friday.
Asked why the governor now appears to accept a reform framework that involves voluntary mergers, Beck said everyone involved understands the need to compromise to move the complex process forward.
“It’s the end of the biennium, and everyone is trying to find common ground,” Beck said.
It’s wasn’t immediately clear what will happen to districts that don’t merge by 2030. Some have been concerned that certain districts could become “orphans” if they can’t find a partner with which to merge.
The draft amendment requires the state Board of Education to report to the legislature by November 1, 2029, about what to do with “isolated districts” of fewer than 750 students that have yet to merge with another district.
Gov. Scott has previously said he doubts enough districts will merge voluntarily to create the kind of cost savings needed for a state with steadily declining enrollment. One of the sticking points in the negotiations had been figuring out ways to keep costs down in all districts while the consolidation process plays out, Jason Maulucci, Scott’s legislative affairs director, said on Friday afternoon.
“Every district will have a very strong incentive to get to scale,” Beck said.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
