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Negotiations over one of the biggest bills the Vermont legislature has grappled with in recent years got under way shortly after 4 p.m. on Tuesday. There was just one problem: The public had not been notified that the freshly minted committee was meeting.
In the tiny Senate Education Committee room, three members of the House and three members of the Senate sat across a table from one another and began sketching out how they would work to reconcile two very different visions for how to reform the state education system.
“We’re getting together just to touch base and figure out the path forward,” Sen. Seth Bongartz (D-Bennington), chair of the Senate Education Committee, said.
There had been no public notice, as required by law, of where or when they would meet. They just picked a room and started to talk turkey.
They didn’t get very far. After about five minutes, Senate Secretary John Bloomer opened the door and poked his head in.
“John, do you need something?” Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (D-Brattleboro) asked.
“Sort of,” Bloomer replied. “Nobody seems to know this meeting has been noticed.”
It wasn’t a secret that the House and the Senate needed to form a conference committee to hash out the differences in pending education reform bills. And the meeting was also being broadcast live on the Senate Education Committee web page.
But the committee had started conferring before its existence, members or agenda had been posted to the General Assembly’s Committees of Conference page, which is really the only way that members of the public not stalking the Statehouse halls can track negotiations.
About a half dozen staff and lobbyists attended the meeting in person. No members of the public or media were in the room. The YouTube recording shows 26 people watched remotely.
“There’s no notice of this anywhere on the website that we could find,” Bloomer informed the group, adding that he just wanted to “make sure you don’t get any blowback.”
The confusion underscores the challenges that the public, media and even advocates face in tracking the often last-minute changes to bills at this late point in the legislative session. After months of plodding deliberation, the pace of deal-making in the Statehouse can accelerate sharply once the finish line is in sight.
The committee assistant tried to explain that they were waiting on the House Clerk’s Office to update the website, but Bloomer — who had been alerted to the oversight by a Seven Days reporter — wasn’t interested in the explanation.
“Well, we need to have the public know this meeting is occurring,” he said.
The committee members agreed to take a brief break until the website could be updated.
They resumed about 10 minutes later after a link and agenda to the committee appeared on the appropriate Statehouse page.
“Colin knew we were here,” Kornheiser quipped, referring to Colin Robinson, lobbyist for the National Education Association, the state teachers union.
“It’s my job,” Robinson replied.
