A Short Letter

Rep. Janet Ancel, chair of the House Committee on Education, has a record (or non-record) to hide on.  Yet she's out in front blasting away at Governor Douglas and Tax Commissioner Pelham in this letter-to-the-editor.

It was a long letter.  It touted the accomplishments of the legislature in addressing health care costs and energy costs.  But what about HER committee's accomplishments?  If it's ever written, it will be a short letter!

Comments

[G. Cross]

So Curt, I assume you agree with Representative Ancel when she states: "Vermonters deserve something more than tired and divisive rhetoric about excessive spending and cost containment when the subject is public education. They deserve vision and leadership."

You only differ on who should be responsible. You obviously think the "vision and leadership" should be the exclusive domain of the Chairperson of the House Education Committee. Some of us not only think it should start in the Governor's office, we sense it only happens if it does start in the Governor's office. This is why many find the move to eliminate the Board of Education and to create an Agency of Education as the mechanism to ensure that future Governors do not abdicate this major responsibility.

[Curtis Hier]

So, George, does that mean if she lets the Agency of Education bill die in her committee, we can then characterize Ancel as a do-nothing failure?

I'm guessing, by the way, that it must have infuriated you when Symington replaced a man of your experience and knowledge with someone who knows absolutely nothing about public education.

[G. Cross]

To tell the truth I was delighted to be followed by a lady who has served as Tax Commissioner and other important state positions, as well as, being an attorney. Furthermore, I had had the opportunity to work with Janet in her previous jobs and always found her to be bright, articulate and well versed in her work. She was always helpful to me and to many other legislators, I am sure. BTW, she also ran for election and won! Try it, Curt, you might win.

[Misrepresented in Calais]

George -

Tax Commissioner? Yes, Rep. Ancel held that job once. Let's see now, what did Ms. Ancel accomplish? Read through just a few of these news snippets and you'll understand my lack of confidence in Ms. Ancel's ability to deal with the challenges facing our education system.

Burlington Free Press - 4/18/01

Robert Mount of Burlington received an unexpected response Monday night when he tried to calculate his Vermont taxes on the state's Web site.

Someone else's tax return popped up on his screen instead.

Mount wasn't alone. Reports of inadvertent peeps into strangers' tax information, including Social Security numbers, prompted the state to shut the site down late Monday night, the eve of the tax-filing deadline.

All of a sudden I had somebody else's information,'' said Mount, who happens to do Internet security work for Network Performance in South Burlington.

The problem has been fixed and should not happen again, Tax Commissioner Janet Ancel said.

Burlington Free Press - 6/29/01

Sam Hemmingway Column

Forget the stuff about how late the state Department of Taxes was in sending out refunds and depositing income tax payment checks this year.
There's another, far messier situation brewing that might ultimately dwarf everything else that's gone wrong at the department recently.

At issue are an untold number of computerized ``adjustment letters'' the department has sent out to taxpayers claiming errors were made on their tax return.

In cases of overpayment, a check was enclosed more often, an underpayment was indicated and additional money was demanded.

The problem: Until the matter was flagged earlier this month, almost every letter sent out was erroneous, the result of new optical scanners that dropped digits or just failed to read key numerical data on some tax returns.

It's a problem, probably the most significant one of all that the department has,'' state Auditor of Accounts Elizabeth Ready said this week. ``The number of error letters was extensive, and some of them involved very big amounts of money.''

State Tax Commissioner Janet Ancel was believe it or not on vacation this week and did not respond to an interview request.

Burlington Free Press - 7/1/01

State Auditor Elizabeth Ready said Thursday an independent "SWAT team" of tax experts is needed to fix problems inside the state Tax Department.

In a letter asking Gov. Howard Dean to appoint such a team, Ready said the outside experts were urgently needed at the department before its problems went from bad to worse.

"This would mean at a minimum identifying the problems and re-establishing proper controls and procedures over the state's tax receipts," she said in her letter to Dean, obtained through a request by The Burlington Free Press. "The situation is very serious."

Burlington Free Press - 7/21/01

The Tax Department did not sufficiently test its new $13 million computer system for processing tax returns, especially two scanners, the state auditor has concluded in a preliminary review.

The state's alleged faults, combined with the inherent glitches in a complicated new computer system, might help explain what went wrong in a project that gave a black eye to the Tax Department's credibility.

Before this year, the state had entered information from each personal income tax return by hand into its computer database, although the scanners had been used for several years to read tax returns from businesses.

The scanners allow the state to collect and store much more information from each form.

Tax Commissioner Janet Ancel has acknowledged that the scanners, and the software used to guide them, were the primary cause of a rash of problems that later developed, including delayed personal income tax refunds, but she has said most of the glitches were to be expected in any new computer operation.

Burlington Free Press - 12/19/01

Message to those who think the state Tax Department cleaned up the mess created this summer by problems with its new computer system: Grab a mop.

Just last Wednesday, state Auditor Elizabeth Ready met with Sean Campbell, the state Finance and Management commissioner, to discuss the department's problems.

The meeting did not go well.

She told him her office remains so uncomfortable with how the department handled the public's money that she cannot put her seal of approval on Vermont's financial statement for fiscal 2001.

[Curtis Hier]

Tax Commissioner, attorney, bright, articulate? Big deal. People like that are all over the place. Heck, I've got a sister who meets those requirements.

The difference is that Ancel cares more about the NEA than she does about pregnant teens. That's why she killed the amendment giving them choice of schools.

I suppose Ancel could have run your school district too, George? No need for school administrator licenses, right?

[G. Cross]

Misrepresented,

One can string together a set of uncomplimentary opinion pieces about anyone who serves in state government or any political office. This is what we will be subjected to forever given the easy access to old information via the internet. I find it interesting that those who claim to have all the "right" answers seldom subject themselves to the election process. I have grown to appreciate those who do serve even when I disagree with their positions.

[G. Cross]

Funny, you should ask Curt, I am not sure school administrators at the central office level do in fact need licensure. Surprise.

[Curtis Hier]

"One can string together a set of uncomplimentary opinion pieces about anyone who serves in state government or any political office."

I don't recall any such pieces about Tax Commissioner Errecart. There were some people that didn't like her collecting rooms and meals taxes from bagel shops, but that was about it for controversy.

"Funny, you should ask Curt, I am not sure school administrators at the central office level do in fact need licensure. Surprise."

I am quite surprised that you don't know the licensure requirements for superintendents. For one thing, they have to have taught for at least three years. And they need a master's degree.

[G. Cross]

Curt, it is a poor sentence on my part. I do know the licensure rules, I simply am not sure that there should be any license needed for the position. Unfortunately, holding a license does not mean one is qualified. (Also true of teachers, by-the-way.) Therefore, maybe we should trust school boards to make good decisions about who to hire for the CEO job.

[Curtis Hier]

Remember I was for teacher preparation deregulation? But in the case of Ancel, the lack of experience and knowledge didn't work out well because Joel Cooke was licking his chops like a wolf looking at a lamb.