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Senate Democrats met Tuesday evening for a remarkably candid � and public � airing of ambivalence, anger, and anxiety about legislation they had scheduled for a floor vote on Wednesday morning.

“I can’t ever remember feeling as bad about a vote as I do on this one,� Sen. Ann Cummings, the Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee, told her colleagues after voting to advance the education reform bill Thursday. “But it will move us forward.�

Statewide, Vermont has already invested $37.5 million into PCB testing and remediation, and just a little over $3 million is left. More than half of all schools that fall under the state's mandate haven't even been tested yet.

Negotiations stretched well into the night. The Vermont-NEA announced that a deal had been reached in a short statement released just after midnight.

If the two sides don’t settle before next Wednesday, it would be the first teachers� strike in Vermont in nearly a decade. Burlington teachers went on strike for four days in 2017.

Buying down the rate, as this use of one-time money is called, is generally considered bad policy � on both sides of the aisle � because it risks creating a tax spike in the following year. But lawmakers say voters sent them a clear message in November: tax relief, now.

Simply taxing second homes at a higher rate is not so simple, in part because Vermont currently has no system for categorizing vacation homes. But lawmakers are trying to change that � with the House's sweeping education reform bill.

Labor negotiations are souring in Rutland City schools, where the school board has just rejected the recommendations of an independent fact-finder's report. Board members argue the report was flawed � and unaffordable for taxpayers. The union says the district's teachers are among the lowest-paid in the region.

The college has shared little about the students in question, their immigration status, or their circumstances. But officials have suggested these events fit a pattern evident in a nationwide crackdown on foreign students.

Vermont’s reply is not quite as defiant as the response issued by New York, which bluntly refused to provide any certification. But the legal analysis included in Vermont’s letter to federal officials echoes what several blue states have used in their replies to the Trump administration’s directive.