(Host) Governor Peter Shumlin says school boards have acted responsibly and don’t need orders from Montpelier to hold the line on budgets.
Under state law, two votes are required to approve school budgets that rise more than 1 percent above the rate of inflation.
But the House voted recently to repeal the two-vote provision. Shumlin says he supports the repeal.
(Shumlin) "Listen, local control works. If there’s any proof that local control works it’s in the results of yesterday. These school boards are working as hard as they can to respond to dwindling enrollment populations and to respond to taxpayers who are making the same money on average that they were making in Vermont ten years ago with bills that have gone up and they’re trying to reduce spending as fast as they can."
(Host) Shumlin says he made a mistake in supporting the two-vote bill four years ago when he was president of the state senate.