Secretary of State Lauren told a joint session of the Senate and House Government Operations & Military Affairs committees on Feb. 14 that the administration’s school-district restructuring proposal raises multiple open-meeting and election-administration questions that the Legislature must resolve before implementation.

The secretary told the committee that large, multi-town school districts created under the proposal should be treated “like state bodies as opposed to local bodies” for open‑meeting-law purposes and recommended that their meetings be recorded and posted on district websites. She said the distinction matters because the Open Meeting Law enacted last year applies different requirements to state decision‑making bodies than to local bodies and that recording provides broader public access.

The recommendation matters because the proposal shifts several decisions — including approval of the district’s base budget — from direct voter ballots to votes by elected board members. The secretary’s office and multiple committee members flagged a second, separate process the administration proposed: a districtwide “voter budget vote” that would allow voters to raise additional property taxes for specific capital or project items. That vote, the committee was told, would typically require an Australian‑ballot election conducted across towns in the district and would add operational work for town clerks and the secretary of state’s office.

“We would recommend that under the law, it'd be clarified that these are state bodies, not local bodies, so that they are required to be recorded,” Secretary of State Lauren said, summarizing the office’s advice on open‑meeting implications. When asked whether existing law already requires hybrid meetings for school boards, the secretary replied, “Yes. I believe they're required to be hybrid, but they are not required to be recorded or closed.”

Committee discussion detailed several election logistics that lawmakers must decide: whether voter budget votes would be a one‑time question or repeatable; whether multiple separate itemized questions would be allowed; the timing for required informational meetings; whether the election would be run locally town by town or via a universal vote‑by‑mail (VBM) process; and how to ensure polling locations and ballot administration across multiple towns.

The secretary’s office recommended statutory timelines for required informational meetings (for example, an informational meeting within 45 days but no fewer than 10 days before a budget vote) and suggested at least one in‑person informational meeting in each ward when residents need in‑person access. The office also said the districtwide voter budget vote must occur before the start of the fiscal year.

On staffing and cost, the secretary said the office will need IT changes and additional staff capacity to support new district votes and any universal VBM implementation. “I think we'll need at least 1 position on this,” she said, and added that universal VBM “takes 65 days.” The office estimated universal VBM currently costs the state “like a million and a half, almost 2,000,000,” a figure the secretary said she could provide in exact detail later.

Town clerks’ workload and funding drew repeated attention. Committee members and the secretary’s office warned that many duties currently performed at the municipal level would increase and urged that the Legislature build implementation funding into any final bill. The secretary’s office asked the committees to advocate for appropriations to support town clerks, district clerks, website and IT needs, ballot production, and related training.

Several legislators raised representation concerns. Representative Morgan and others cautioned that in very large, multi‑town districts, populous towns (committee members cited Burlington as an example) could determine outcomes in districtwide votes and urged lawmakers to consider ward design and proportionality in drafting the statutes. Members also discussed whether some budget or policy questions could be limited to the voters who directly pay for them (for example, a tax increase limited to a single ward) — an issue the committee identified as a policy decision for legislators.

Election‑administration technical issues were discussed at length. Committee members explored options for avoiding physical commingling of ballots while still reporting districtwide results. The secretary’s office said current election software reports results by the submitting town but that changes to the election management system could permit town‑level counts to be kept private while reporting unified district totals; “Currently, no. But we would build that,” the secretary’s office said when asked whether software could avoid night‑of‑commingling logistics.

Members also raised curriculum and policy questions, noting the proposal would place certain policy determinations (for example, district‑level curriculum or local school policies) at the district board level and could authorize district‑level votes on policy items. The secretary’s office said the administration’s proposal contemplates making those determinations at the district board meeting level but that the Legislature must decide whether to allow districtwide policy votes and whether voters may petition policy questions onto a district ballot.

The committees agreed to continue the discussion in subsequent joint sessions and to share the secretary’s office’s operational concerns with the House and Senate education committees. The secretary said staff would provide more precise cost figures and the election‑management scope of work to the committees as the statutory language is drafted.

Ending: The committee meeting closed with plans to meet again next week to continue drafting and to coordinate with education committees; members were reminded the administration’s draft legislation may be circulated imminently.