Legislative Report 5/16/2022 - Legislative session comes to a productive end

 

The last couple of weeks of a legislative session are marked by a frenzy of movement as bills pass back and forth between the House and Senate with proposals of amendment and further proposals of amendment. When agreement can’t be reached through the amendment process, conference committees are appointed to work out a compromise acceptable to both chambers.  This year the processes worked smoothly, and agreements were able to be reached on most of the key bills.  But there were a few disappointments.

 

The governor used his veto pen liberally. An earlier veto of a housing bill resulted in going back to the drawing board to remove or adjust provisions he objected to. Another was the ban on firearms in hospitals which contained a provision to close the “Charleston loophole,” which allowed a firearm to be purchased if a federal background check didn’t complete in 3 days.  Senate bill S.30 required a completed background check, regardless of how long it took, for a sale to be legal, which the governor felt was unacceptable.  A compromise was reached to permit a sale after 7 business days if the background check didn’t complete, and the governor signed the bill.

 

After a summer of negotiations involving legislators, representatives from the teachers’ and state employees’ unions, the State Treasurer and the Commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation, a pension bill was passed with the agreement of all parties to the negotiations.  The bill, S.286, passed with unanimous support in the House and Senate. Because the bill didn’t include allowing defined contribution plans (401(k)-type plans) for new employees, a last-minute demand of the governor, he vetoed it. The consensus is that including that option would undercut the sustainability of the pension system and bring us back to square one.  For the first time in Vermont history, the veto was overridden by unanimous roll-call votes in the House and Senate.

 

Two more vetoes, one on a Burlington charter change that required a just cause for evictions and another on the Clean Heat Standard bill, H.715, which my committee worked on, were upheld by a one vote margin.  With 100 votes required to override, both override efforts failed on a 99 – 51 vote, very disappointing on both counts. The governor objected to the Clean Heat Standard bill after it was passed by the House because the costs are unknown, and there would be no chance for the legislature to weigh in after the Public Utility Commission designed the program.  With that objection in mind the Senate amended the bill to require legislative review and approval of the program before it could start. He vetoed the bill anyway.

 

Vetoes aside, the session was very productive because of the huge influx of federal ARPA and infrastructure bill money.  Bolstered by strong state revenues, many programs were enacted using one-time federal money to help low- and middle-income Vermonters, children, students, and workers who have been struggling in the COVID-impacted economy. These appropriations included $95M for broadband; $70M for housing, including $20M for the “missing middle” and manufactured housing; $26M for mental health, developmental disability services, and home health care; $138M for workforce development including nursing education, skilled trades and worker re-training;  $35M for the Vermont state college system; $50M for IT systems modernization; $215M for climate initiatives including weatherization, municipal energy resilience, advanced electrical metering, and EV incentives; $104M for clean water initiatives including municipal water and wastewater systems; and many other services for a total budget of $8.3 billion.  In his closing remarks to the House just prior to our adjournment on Thursday evening of May 12, Governor Scott praised the legislature for its work for the people and the economy of Vermont.

As always, I welcome your emails (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com) or phone calls (802-233-5238).

Legislative Report 7/2/2021 - General Assembly overrides vetoes

 When the Legislature adjourned in May, it allowed for a brief return to consider any legislation Governor Scott might have vetoed.  When the governor vetoed his third bill of this session, he tied Governor Howard Dean’s record as the Vermont governor with the most vetoes during his tenure: 21. The veto session also provided an opportunity to finalize action on a bill that got stranded by adjournment. The House convened for the veto session on June 23, and the Senate met on June 24 and 25.

The three bills vetoed during the 2021 legislative session include:

·       S.107, an act relating to confidential information concerning the initial arrest and charge of a juvenile

·       H.177, an act relating to the approval of an amendment to the charter of the city of Montpelier, and

·       H.227, an act relating to the approval of an amendment to the charter of the city of Winooski.

S.107 raises the age from 18 to 20 for exempting from public access records related to the arrest and charging of juveniles. The exemption does not pertain to the "Big 12" major crimes. The rationale for raising the age was to conform to the legislation enacted three years ago to treat young adults ages 18 to 20 as juveniles in Family Court rather than as adults for minor crimes. The goal was rehabilitation rather than incarceration. The issue of whether the identity of a young adult should be public arose in part as a result of an automobile accident on Route 7 in Charlotte that resulted in the death of two Ferrisburgh residents when a vehicle driven by a young person crossed into oncoming traffic and hit the couple’s vehicle head-on. The state police released the young person’s name, but was criticized by the Chittenden County States Attorney for doing so.  Governor Scott’s veto message disagreed with the provisions in S.107 because he feels the 2018 legislation has not had the predicted positive results and has exposed 18 to 20 year-olds to manipulation by criminal elements because of their more lenient treatment.  The Senate declined to attempt an override of this veto during the veto session.

The House, on the other hand, met for one day to take up three items of business.  The first item was to send to the Senate S.79, a bill passed on the last day of the session, but which ran out of time to be sent to the Senate before they adjourned. S.79 created a registry for contractors, another registry for rental units throughout the state, and allowed landlords dealing with problem tenants to initiate eviction proceedings despite the emergency moratorium on evictions. This bill was subsequently passed by the Senate when they met and was sent to the governor, who vetoed it this past Friday as veto #22.

The two bills dealing with the charter changes, H.177 and H.227, were considered next. Both of these bills would allow non-citizens who are legal residents of the cities of Montpelier and Winooski to vote in local elections. The charter amendments were passed overwhelmingly at each city’s Town Meeting election. Governor Scott’s objection was that “Allowing a highly variable town-by-town approach to municipal voting creates inconsistency in election policy as well as separate and unequal classes of residents eligible to vote in local elections.” The House voted to override both vetoes by identical 103 to 47 votes.  Municipal charters allow towns and cities, with the consent of the legislature, to customize their policies on various issues. The Vermont League of Cities and Towns supported the veto overrides, stating that “until the legislature enables all municipalities to vote to allow non-citizen residents voting rights in local elections, the charter process is the only means municipalities have to achieve this goal.” Following the House action, the Senate concurred in overriding the vetoes by identical 20 to 10 votes on both bills.

This will be my last regular Legislative Report for this session, although I may pen an article occasionally to report on out-of-session work.  There will be opportunities for in-person meetings between now and January. As always, I welcome your emails (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com) or phone calls (802-233-5238).

Legislative Report 6/24/2017 - Veto Session Summary

This report was written jointly by Vermont House Members, Jessica Brumsted, Bill Lippert, Terry Macaig, Jim McCullough, Kate Webb, and Mike Yantachka

The legislature met last week in a veto session to address the statewide budget and education property tax bills.  Although these bills are essential to fund state government and our schools, the Governor believed that the legislature had foregone an opportunity to garner savings resulting from statewide changes in health insurance coverage for school employees and vetoed them. The veto forced the legislature to go back into session to avoid a government shutdown.

By the time Senators and Representatives returned to the statehouse on June 21st, much negotiating had already taken place with the Speaker of the House Mitzi Johnson, Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe, and  Governor Scott's representatives.  After negotiations stalled, Governor Scott joined the negotiations on the last day prior to the veto session. An agreement was reached and a new bill combining the budget and property tax language passed on a voice vote in both the House and the Senate. While no one was particularly happy with the result, no one felt essential values had been compromised.

So what does this mean? First, the statewide property tax rate for residential property tax payers will decrease by 2 cents as passed in May, while the nonresidential rate will remain at last year’s rate of $1.535.  Second, a greater share of the statewide sales tax will be used to offset the cost of education. Only minor technical changes were made to the budget which had originally passed the House and Senate with a single dissenting vote. This was the easy part.  

The challenge came in addressing the issue of health insurance for school employees. Democratic leadership believed that savings were already built into the new plans, and these savings were best accounted for at the local level.  In contrast, the Governor believed that more savings could be obtained if these policies were negotiated at the state rather than local level, identifying savings if all schools negotiated an 80-20 premium split with teachers paying $400 per person toward out-of-pocket costs.

The compromise reached by Democratic leaders and the Governor retains bargaining for the health insurance contracts at the local level, but withholds $13 million from schools for FY 18, thereby requiring schools to reduce spending accordingly, preferably through negotiations over health insurance benefits.  It requires each school district to achieve savings in health insurance in the amount that would have been saved in FY18 if Scott's 80/20 benefit plan had been implemented.  The savings will be measured by comparing the cost of the current insurance plans against the new plans that will start on January 1, 2018.  For districts that do not achieve those savings, the difference between the target costs and the actual costs will be deducted from state Education Fund payments to the district.  To ease the effect on property taxes, 65% of the deduction will be applied to FY18 payments and 35% to FY19 payments.  At the time of this writing, we do not have information on how the Champlain Valley School district will be affected.

The bill also creates a nine-member commission that will study whether the state should implement a statewide teacher health insurance benefit, a provision that was included in the vetoed property tax bill.  This panel will “determine whether and how to establish a single statewide health benefit plan for all teachers, administrators, and other employees of supervisory unions and school districts.” 

The compromise also mandates that all school contracts, other than those districts that have already settled their school contracts, will expire in 2019 so lawmakers can implement the recommendations of the commission. Contracts negotiated by July 1, 2017, will remain in effect as negotiated.  Districts currently in impasse on health insurance negotiations are provided an opportunity to reopen negotiations.

Despite the frustration expressed by many legislators that the bill had flaws, we recognized the hard work that went into achieving this compromise.  Speaker Johnson, President Pro Tem Ashe and the Governor issued the following joint statement:
“We are pleased to announce we have reached an agreement in principle on an education savings proposal that will take an important step to make Vermont more affordable. If passed by the full legislative body, this proposal will help the state achieve significant savings in the education fund and lower property tax rates. The agreement reached upholds the principles each of us committed to during the legislative session, building on areas of agreement and our shared goal to improve the lives of Vermonters. Importantly, it ensures that we will have a budget that does not raise taxes and fees, including property tax rates.”

Before adjournment the House and Senate passed nearly identical resolutions strongly opposing the announced U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and recognizing Governor Phil Scott for enrolling Vermont in the US Climate Alliance.  We were all pleased to support this timely resolution.

Speaker of the House Mitzi Johnson on the 2017 Legislative Session

The June installment of the Chittenden County Democrats Show featured an interview with Speaker of the House Mitzi Johnson, who reflected on the 2017 legislative session so far. The legislature will gavel back into session next week for two days, June 21st and 22nd, for an override session on the Governor's budget veto. Host Bob Hooper and Speaker Johnson discussed several topics including the impasse between the legislature and Governor over teachers' health care benefits, the future of the Windsor prison, and potential impacts of proposed federal tax cuts. The interview can be seen here.

Legislative Report 6/11/2016 - The Veto-Override Session

When the Legislature adjourns at the end of the session it sets a date for a return, if needed, to consider any vetoes the Governor might make. The decision to consider overriding a veto is at the Legislature’s discretion. This year Governor Shumlin vetoed two bills, H.518, which added 4 members to the Clean Water Fund Board, and S.230, which provided a process for towns to obtain “substantial deference” for siting energy projects and tasked the Public Service Board to develop sound standards for large wind projects and use emergency rule making to set temporary standards in the interim. The governor had four reasons for vetoing S.230, based in part on legal opinions from the PSB and his staff regarding several parts of the bill:

• Emergency rule making is only used when there is imminent threat to public health or safety. The original intent of the language was to create an expedited rule making process, but it was never intended as a statement regarding a threat to public health or safety.
• The criteria specified for the temporary sound standards stated that they should be no higher than the lowest level in any existing Certificate of Public Good. We believed the Lowell standard of 30dba indoors and 45 dba outdoors to be the lowest level. However, a backyard 100 kw turbine in Vergennes has a sound level limit in its CPG that no larger turbine could ever meet, effectively creating a moratorium on all wind projects in Vermont.
• The CPG for each renewable energy project would need to be filed with the municipal clerk as part of the deed to the property. This would require municipalities as well as thousands of property owners with small solar to incur an unnecessary expense.
• Finally, $300,000 had originally been in the bill to be used to assist Regional Planning Commissions and towns to implement the planning process to get their "substantial deference" by the PSB for energy projects. This section was inadvertently left out of the final bill during negotiations between the House and Senate on the last day of the session.

 

Senator Chris Bray, Chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, quickly drafted a substitute bill that addressed the Governor’s objections.  This bill, S.260, kept the expedited rule-making process but disconnected it from the “emergency” standard. It also created two classes for wind projects - one below 500kw and one above - and made the “no higher than” requirement based on the lowest level set for each class. Third, it limited the requirement for recording the CPG with the deed to systems greater than 15 kw.  Finally, it restored the missing $300,000 for energy planning purposes. The Senate quickly passed S.260 on a bipartisan vote of 27 to 2. After a very long day and many failed attempts to suspend rules and take action, the bill passed on a voice vote in the House just after 9 PM.

 

I can be reached by phone (802-233-5238) or by email (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com).

Have a great summer!