DOVER- In a special meeting Monday morning, school board members fired a shot that resonated around the state. The board issued a letter protesting the Vermont Department of Education’s decision to hold several policy discussions, which are likely to include school consolidation, behind closed doors. Before the end of the week, the letter and Dover board members had made the rounds of the state’s news media, and Townshend’s school board had also signed on in support.

The department of education’s meetings were prompted by the passage of the “Challenges for Change” law, passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Jim Douglas on February 25. The law is a cost-cutting measure developed by the Legislature with the help of a public policy consulting group called Public Strategies Group. Unlike typical budget cutting plans, Challenges for Change not only gives government departments specific budget reduction figures, it specifies a desired outcome.

“Another key element is that we don’t just have targets, we have requirements for the collection of data to prove the outcomes we’re proposing are actually achieved,” says Representative Ann Manwaring. “It’s a real shift in what the state is purchasing with its public dollars.”

For the education department, the legislation specifies $17 million in statewide spending reductions for fiscal year 2011, and an additional reduction of $40 million for fiscal year 2012. At the same time, the department must improve student learning, improve special education results, improve graduation rates, increase the number of students attending post-secondary institutions, and reduce the cost of administration. To achieve the goals, the department of education has put together a “challenges design team,” a group of education professionals and board members from around the state.

Although nothing in the law requires the consolidation of schools, school districts, or supervisory unions, Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca, has said consolidation is likely to be part of the department’s recommendation to the Legislature.

Dover board members say those discussions shouldn’t happen outside of public scrutiny, citing the Vermont Open Meeting Law, and the right of Vermonters to attend meetings of public agencies.

“This amounts to a 15% cut in education costs,” says Dover School Board member Laura Sibilia. “If you look at what their charge says, it sounds like consolidation to us, and if you’re making recommendations that are going to be that transformative at the end of the legislative session, it should be in open session.”

In their letter to the education commissioner, Dover board members also requested that the department of education provide “copies of all documents, data, minutes, and recordings considered or otherwise utilized during the education challenges design team meetings.”

But the department of education and design team members have defended their decision to hold the closed-door meetings. Bill Talbot, the department’s chief financial officer and a member of the design team, says the Vermont Attorney General’s office has ruled that work meetings within the state’s various departments don’t fall under the Open Meeting Law. He says the team’s work will not result in any change in policy or budget. “We’re just making recommendations to the Legislature,” he says. “I can’t imagine any scenario under which the Legislature would not hold public hearings before making any changes – they are an open process.”

Talbot says the meetings are brainstorming sessions, and team members need to be free to speak their minds and offer ideas for discussion that might be controversial in order to ensure a thorough examination of the issues. “We aren’t doing anything different than other departments are doing,” Talbot says. “The difference is, they walk down the hall and get a few people out of their offices and meet in a conference room. Ours is different because we have 280 school districts, and they control the school budget, not us. We had to bring in people from outside the department.”

At a legislative committee meeting on Wednesday, however, Windham County Senator Jeanette White made the argument that it was the same difference Talbot cited that made it crucial to ensure the team’s meetings are open to the public. While the recommendations made by other departments may change how they deliver services, she said, the recommendations made by the education challenges team would affect how every school district delivers services.

A source who spoke with Vilaseca at the Capitol Wednesday evening, said he will likely open the process to the public although, he said, not because of Dover’s letter of protest.