The battle for $12M under way

BYLINE: Terri Hallenbeck

The battle

for $12M

under way

MONTPELIER -- Put $12 million on the table and it should come as no surprise that there would be a scramble for the money.

So it is with the debate over state money for college scholarships and workforce training.

The Legislature is deciding how to divvy up $12 million in funding targeted for those purposes this year and next. As the legislation passes from committee to committee, from the House to the Senate, many hands are reaching for their share of the prize.

Even after the Senate Economic Development Committee voted on its plan for parsing out the money this month, Chairman Vincent Illuzzi, R-Essex/Orleans, was getting e-mails from college presidents lobbying him for more.

"We'll continue to make our case because we feel pretty passionate about it," said Gretchen Babcock, director of government relations for the University of Vermont.

So, too, do the advocates for spending more of the money on job training. "It's just critical that that money remain intact," said Rep. Michele Kupersmith, D-South Burlington.

Therein lies the greatest tension in the battle for the money -- between supporters of traditional college scholarships and advocates of workforce training programs. Backers of each disagree about the best way to fulfill the underlying goal of educating the next gener- ation of Vermonters and keeping them in Vermont to fill needed jobs -- whether to provide help with long-term education or put people in jobs more immediately.

When this debate is over, both sides will come away with some of the money, but how much each will get and who will decide how it's spent is very much still in play.

"They're all legitimate needs," Babcock said. "Legislators have the hardest job because they have to choose."

Representatives of all the interests have lined Statehouse committee rooms for the last three months as the "Next Generation" legislation makes its way through the legislative process. This week, they'll reach one of the last stops -- the Senate Appropriations Committee -- where they can be sure some changes will be made before the bill goes to the Senate floor and then to a conference committee with the House.

"The swirl is coming my way," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Bartlett, D-Lamoille.

How it began

This all started last year as a proposal by Gov. Jim Douglas for traditional college scholarships -- $175 million worth of them over 15 years. Legislators objected to his plan to use money from a tobacco lawsuit settlement to pay for the scholarships and questioned whether they would really solve the stated problem of a dwindling supply of young people to fill jobs in Vermont.

In a compromise, lawmakers formed the Next Generation Commission, which last fall studied how to meet the goal. The commission broadened the discussion to include workforce training along with scholarships. The panel recommended dividing the money among scholarships, college loan repayments and workforce training, and increasing the allocation by $2 million each year through 2012.

This year, the House passed a bill that put money in all the areas the commission outlined, but shifted the emphasis toward more immediate workforce training programs.

Kupersmith said she wants to help Vermonters qualify for jobs that are going unfilled. "We're going to make training available to Vermonters so they can access existing jobs," she said. "There are thousands of jobs out there."

Julie Davis, executive director of Vermont HITEC, which runs programs to train people for specific jobs, said she was encouraged to see the conversation broaden to workforce training. "The debate about how to train the future workforce has been dramatically moved forward," she said. "It takes a lot of courage to stand up to educational interests."

When the legislation moved to the Senate, the Senate Economic Development and Education committees shifted some of the emphasis back toward higher education, but also embraced the idea of workforce training and put money toward technical education programs and equipment to help those who won't attend college.

"Technical education is the stepchild of education. Like Cinderella, this gives them a chance to go to the ball," Illuzzi said.

Pull of higher ed

Bob Clarke, president of the Vermont State Colleges, watched with dismay as the pot of money was divided up into smaller pieces. "It's been diluted," he said. "A little money here, a little money there."

Clarke argues that Vermont's spending on K-12 education ranks among the highest in the nation while its higher education is among the lowest. "We really need to focus our attention on higher ed," he said.

Douglas, whose original proposal was all about scholarships, supports the Next Generation Commission's recommendation of sharing the pot with other forms of job training, Administration Secretary Mike Smith said. He'd like, however, to see $5 million of the $12 million put toward scholarships, Smith said.

"We can negotiate," Smith said. "What's important to the governor is that the scholarships remain."

Don Vickers, president of the Vermont Student Assistance Corp., said the average debt of 2006 Vermont graduates was $33,000. "Student debt is extremely high, so scholarships are extremely important," he said.

UVM is also emphasizing higher education's role in helping with the state's long-term interests. "There are going to be dramatically different needs 25 years from now -- we're saying don't lose sight of how to prepare people for that," Babcock said.

UVM would like $1 million of the money to help those developing new technology at UVM to put their products on the market, a program that will create new jobs and set a company's roots in Vermont, Babcock said.

Even within the higher education community, though, there is disagreement about where the money should go. As it stands, the legislation puts the money in the hands of VSAC, a nonprofit organization that administers student loans and grants for Vermonters for use wherever they go college.

Clarke wants some of the money to go directly to the colleges, so they can use it to tailor their pitch in recruiting students. He'd also like to see the Vermont State Colleges receive workforce training money for those who attend non-degree programs.

His goal is to show legislators that Vermont State Colleges provide an education to a big chunk of Vermonters who are likely to stay in the state after graduation. Some 57 percent of Vermonters who attend college in the state go to Vermont State Colleges, and almost half of them are first-generation college students, he said. Eighty-three percent of last year's graduating class are working and living in Vermont, he said.

"Hopefully, they recognize we are the primary institutions serving Vermonters," he said.

Clarke hasn't won that argument yet, but he might have a receptive audience in Bartlett as her Senate Appropriations Committee considers the legislation this week. She said she thinks the scholarship money should be divided evenly among Vermont State Colleges, VSAC and UVM. That's how the Legislature divvied up $5 million in scholarships last year.

She also would scrap the money for technical education equipment. "That's not what this bill is about," she said.

Another thing Bartlett wants is to set a formula for how the money will be divided in future years -- "so you don't have a free-for-all every year."