MONTPELIER- Legislators are set to take another look at state education financing this year.

At a Democratic caucus meeting this week, House Speaker Shap Smith announced he was appointing a committee to work with Governor Jim Douglas’ office in studying education financing issues. Local legislators Ann Manwaring, D-Wilmington, and Rick Hube, R-Londonderry, both opponents of Act 68, have been tapped to serve on the committee.

The move represents a marked change in the level of cooperation between the Legislature and the governor’s office. In previous years, lawmakers complained that the administration wouldn’t engage in discussions on key issues. Manwaring says the speaker has a reputation as a negotiator. “He’s ready to come to the table and do things in a collegial way,” she says of Smith. “This is the Legislature’s willingess to get out there and engage in conversation about how we might change education funding in Vermont.” The House committee will work with members of the Senate as well as the governor’s office.

Manwaring says the committee’s goals and charge aren’t clear yet. Although local officials are applauding the action, state officials aren’t indicating that the state property tax system itself is a concern. Instead, they point to increases in spending on the local level. Last week, tax commissioner Tom Pelham called for the repeal of Act 68, citing an “unsustainable” rate of growth in education spending. Among the proposals in his inauguration speech last month, Governor Douglas called on lawmakers to scrap Act 68, and for a freeze in per-pupil spending. In his annual budget address last month, Governor Douglas said the state’s student population was dropping at the same time spending was rising. “The truth we must all accept is that we can no longer afford the level of (education) services we have come to enjoy,” the governor said in his address.

“There has been a huge pushback all over the state against the governor’s proposals,” Manwaring says, “from receiving and sending towns.”