The
last two weeks of a legislative session are a whirlwind of activity.
Dozens of bills that have been worked on during the previous 16 weeks
of the session in both the House and the Senate reached final stages
of passage. Most traveled back and forth between the two bodies as
amendments were made to reflect the different concerns of the
responsible committees. Twenty-eight bills this year required a
conference committee made up of three representatives and three
senators to resolve disagreements in language that couldn't be
settled by amendments.
The budget is the final bill passed in a
session. Any bill that was still outstanding when the budget passed
would be dead. As the session ended just after midnight Sunday
morning, we managed to complete all of those bills as well as many
more. The bills included raising the minimum wage, providing paid
family leave, establishing toxic materials responsibility, protecting
sexual harassment victims, funding clean water efforts, setting
appliance efficiency standards, helping Vermont manufacturers improve
energy efficiency and productivity, providing free tuition for
National Guard members, several consumer protection and economic
development bills, and an income tax reform and education funding
bill as well as the budget.
Our
legislative agenda reflected in the bills we passed promote a caring
economy that makes Vermont more affordable for lower and middle
income families, protects all Vermonters from various social and
environmental impacts, and provides opportunities for economic
growth. While we did not adopt the Governor's proposal for using
one-time money to keep our education property taxes from increasing,
the funding changes made by the legislature will hold the residential
property tax rate increase to two cents in a sustainable way that
avoids the need to find one-time money again next year. One-time
money is just that. There’s no guarantee that it will be there next
year, which just defers a tax increase. Instead, this year's one-time
money will be used to pay for one-time expenses like fully funding
our reserves and paying down the teachers' retirement fund obligation
saving Vermont taxpayers $100M in future budgets. Our income tax
changes will return $30M in extra tax revenue generated by the
federal income tax changes back to Vermonters by lowering the income
tax rates for everyone. Overall state spending increased less than 1
percent, significantly lower than the rate of inflation. Here are links to the details of the tax changes and to the budget.
Unfortunately,
the Governor has stated that he plans to veto the budget as well as
several other bills that address affordability and the health and
welfare of Vermonters. The budget passed with a tri-partisan vote of
117 – 14. If he does carry out his veto promise, he will have to
call the legislature back into session. There have been plenty of
opportunities for the administration to engage with the legislature
to work out a compromise, but that didn't happen. Now we are faced
with the additional expense of an extended session.
Finally,
I would like to make a correction. It was called to my attention
that in my previous article about the minimum wage bill, I reference
some total wage numbers that seemed to be based on different
assumptions. The $15/hour total should have been $31,200 based on the
same 40 hours/week and 52 weeks/year used for $10.50/hour.
As always, I can be reached by phone
(802-233-5238) or by email (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com).
