The Vermont Senate passed the Global Warming Solutions Act (H.688) this afternoon (6/26/2020) with minor amendments. The legislature adjourned this evening until August 25th after passing $1B in Coronavirus Relief Funding provided by the federal CARES Act to help Vermonters and the Vermont economy respond to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislature will reconvene on August 25th to complete the FY21 budget with updated financial data. I predict that the House will concur with the Senate's amendments and send the bill to the Governor. The GWSA will form the foundation of Vermont's response to the other existential crisis of climate change. Thanks to the many citizens, including students, who kept the pressure on last year by rallying, testifying and persisting at the statehouse to drive the message home that action is necessary. This is a beginning, not the end of the action we must take to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and mitigate the effects of climate change that we are already experiencing.
https://www.mikeyantachka.com/…/legislative-report-2202020-…
GOOD NEWS! THE VERMONT SENATE PASSED THE GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTIONS ACT
Legislative Report 6/25/2020 -The House Appropriates $1 Billion of Coronavirus Relief Funds
Ever since Vermont received $1.25 billion in Coronavirus
Relief Funds (CRF) as a result of the federal CARES Act, Governor Scott and the
Legislature have been trying to decide how to allocate those funds to relieve
the economic distress caused by the “stay home, stay safe” response to the
virus. More than $90M was used almost immediately to help unemployed Vermonters
and small Violating the
guidelines would put Vermont at risk of having to return the money to the U.S.
Treasury next year. To be eligible for
CRF, the spending must: 1) be necessary expenses incurred due to the COVID-19
emergency; 2) not have been accounted for in the budget most recently approved
before March 27, 2020; and 3) be incurred between March 1 and December 30,
2020.
Over the three-month period since the emergency went into
effect, House committees, with stakeholder input, have been looking for
eligible avenues within their areas of jurisdiction that would help all aspects
of the Vermont economy, including individuals, businesses, non-profits, and those
in need of social services.
With the goal that no Vermonter or Vermont community should
be left behind because of COVID-19 impacts, several bills were passed during
the last two months of the session that allocated $1.04B of CRF money to help
Vermont and its citizens get back on their feet. The appropriations include:
- $356M to stabilize our health
care system, including $257M for provider stabilization, as well as
funding for mental health, childcare, senior services, and suicide prevention;
- $196M for assistance to
businesses, including restart grants, marketing and tourism, public
safety, and the Arts;
- $170M for pandemic frontline
workers, including $20M for hazard pay;
- $91M for housing
assistance including eviction and foreclosure prevention and homelessness
assistance;
- $73M for higher education;
- $50M for Pre-K education;
- $43M for broadband
connectivity assistance both for residential affordability and network
expansion, E-911 system expenses, and to cover utility accounts that were
90+ days in arrears due to the pandemic;
- $35M for agriculture and
forestry relief;
- $16M for the judicial
system; and
- $13M for municipalities.
This is the largest emergency recovery program ever passed
by the Vermont legislature and reflects an enormous amount of work by the members
of the House and Senate, our legislative staff, the administration, and the
Joint Fiscal Office. While there still may be some changes as agreement on the
details of the bills by the House and Senate are negotiated, we expect to
finish our work by the end of this week and recess for the month of July. We will be back together in August to
complete the final three-quarters of the FY21 budget.
The Word in the House 6/5/2020 - House Passes Major Bills in Prolonged Session
As the lockdown of the Vermont economy continues to ease,
the legislature has continued its work remotely via video-conferencing. Meeting as an All-House Caucus each week on
Tuesday, briefings are provided to all members on bills that will be coming up
for a vote in the Wednesday and Friday floor sessions. Members hear the reports of the committees that
prepared the bills with an opportunity to ask questions and make comments. Those
bills are then debated during the floor sessions, amendments are considered,
and votes are taken. During a normal
session, this process is open to anyone who comes to the statehouse or who might
tune into VPR’s live stream of the proceedings. Our virtual sessions, however,
open up the proceedings to anyone with an internet-capable device at https://legislature.vermont.gov/. There
you can find the links to the House or Senate sessions as well as to scheduled committee
meetings that take place during the week. Click on the Announcements link to
find the times for the proceedings.
In recent weeks, the House has passed several major bills to keep the state on an even keel
during the uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Supplemental Budget
Adjustment (SBA) bill will take us through the rest of the 2020 fiscal year
which ends on June 30th. With the deferral of the income tax filing
deadline to July 15th as well as certain other tax payments,
revenues expected in this fiscal year will not be received until the first
quarter of FY21 and are anticipated to be lower than was expected in January. The SBA bill adjusts spending but also allows
borrowing from funds controlled by the State Treasurer until the deferred
revenues are received. It sets a date
certain for repayment of those loans with interest. The SBA bill is now under
consideration by the Senate.
At the same time, the House has been working on the “Skinny
Budget” bill for the first quarter of FY21. The plan is to map out the first
quarter, see where we are with respect to the economy, federal assistance and
revenues at the end of August and then reconvene to create a budget for the
rest of the fiscal year. The major components of the budget consist of the
Capital Bill (H.955), the Transportation Bill (H.942), and the Yield Bill (H.959).
These will be folded into the Appropriations Bill that defines the budget. The Capital Bill addresses the spending needed
to administer and maintain state properties and infrastructure including correctional
facilities, office buildings, state parks, etc. The Transportation Bill does
the same for the Vermont Agency of Transportation and includes roads and
bridges, aid to municipalities, rail, mass transit, etc. The Yield Bill sets education
tax rates based on the budgets approved by school districts in March. However, some districts have not yet voted on
school budgets, and less money is expected from the sales and use tax, which
goes entirely into the Education Fund. Those reasons and the uncertainty of federal
education assistance due to the pandemic led the Ways & Means Committee to
set the property tax rates at the same level as was expected prior to the
pandemic in order to provide municipalities firm numbers to work with for local
tax rates. Legislation later this summer
will adjust these expectations as necessary. The bill also allows towns to
borrow money for the education tax payments due the state with the interest
covered by federal CARES Act money. All these bills will require passage by the
Senate.
Legislative Report 5/28/2020 - Ensuring Our Right to Vote
Note: This article was also published as a Word in the House article in The Citizen.
Our United States Constitution guarantees American citizens
many rights, most notably those contained in the first ten amendments, the Bill
of Rights. The right of every eligible citizen to vote is fundamental to our
democracy and ensures that our other rights are protected by holding government
accountable. While originally reserved only for free male citizens of age 21 or
older, the right to vote was extended over time by subsequent amendments to
freed male slaves, women, and citizens of age 18 and older. In fact, this year is the 100th
anniversary of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote.
After the Civil War and up until the 1960s African Americans’
right to vote was suppressed by southern states through the use of poll taxes
and literacy tests. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated those measures in those
states and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination, and any changes to their
voting laws required federal oversight (preclearance). However, in 2013 a
divided Supreme Court struck down the preclearance clause of the act. This allowed
a wave of measures enacted by many conservative states to make it harder to
vote or skewed the vote by redrawing districts, a practice known as gerrymandering.
Requiring voter IDs, reducing the number
of polling places in minority-heavy districts, and mass purges of names from
voter lists have all eroded this fundamental element of our democracy.
On the other hand, many states, including Vermont, have made
it easier for eligible citizens to vote. Five states conduct all elections by
mail: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah. Vermont allows people to
register to vote right up to voting day.
We maintain a statewide voter database to reduce duplication of
registration. We allow absentee and early voting to begin 45 days before the
election. Several weeks ago, in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic,
Wisconsin voters had to risk their health by standing in line to vote in person
because the Wisconsin Supreme Court would not allow absentee voting without a
valid excuse. Subsequently, a University of Wisconsin study found a “statistically
and economically significant association” between in-person voting and the
spread of COVID-19 after the election.
We don’t know at this time whether COVID-19 will still be widespread
at the time of the primary election in August and the general election in November.
Vermont has been relatively successful in suppressing the spread of the
virus. As the restrictions on social
participation are relaxed, we hope that we will not see a second wave of infections. However, we can’t take that for granted. We should be preparing now for both elections
to be held primarily by mail. House bill H.681, which passed both the House and
Senate and was signed into law by Governor Scott, gives the Secretary of State
temporary authority to change the way we hold elections during the COVID-19
emergency.
Secretary of State Jim Condos in consultation with Governor
Scott is exploring options for the primary and general elections. This will
certainly include an expansion of Vermont’s existing early and absentee voting
system. It’s a safe and secure process that allows any registered voter to cast
a ballot by mail and is the method recommended for Charlotte’s budget and
trails vote on June 23rd. (You can vote now!) The polls will still be
open on election day in some safe, modified way for people who prefer to vote
in person.
As individuals we can prepare now for whatever form future
elections take. The first step is to visit the “My Voter Page” (https://mvp.vermont.gov/) of the Secretary
of State’s website. You’ll see two green buttons where you can register to vote
or confirm that you’re registered to vote. If you know you’re registered to
vote, but the site says you’re not, then check with our Town Clerk. I was unable to find my record and called the
Town Clerk’s office. I learned that my birth date was set to 1/1/1900 in the
database, which was easily corrected. Then I was able to confirm my registration on
the website. You can also verify that your
address is correct, which is important if ballots will be mailed. Finally, you
can always ask for a mail-in ballot by calling our Town Clerk.
Vermont has a better record of voter turnout than most
states, ranking 11th in 2018 with a 56% showing. Absentee ballots
accounted for about 30% of votes cast in both the 2016 and 2018 general
elections. Vermonters take their commitment to democracy seriously. We will not let even a pandemic get between
us and that commitment.
Legislative Report 5/14/2020 - Navigating the Unemployment System Jungle
We are now two months into the societal shutdown caused by
the COVID-19 pandemic, but it honestly feels much longer. It’s seems hard to remember when we nonchalantly
shook hands, greeted others with hugs and pats on the back, and could see the
faces of folks we encountered in a grocery store. It isn’t bad enough that the
pandemic economy shutdown has caused unprecedented job losses, but help for many
of those who lost jobs or their businesses or had their hours cut back has been
tangled up in a jungle of bureaucracy compounded by a 50-year old, antiquated
computer system. Because of the success of
Vermont’s response to the pandemic in flattening the curve and avoiding an
overwhelmed health care system, Governor Scott is gradually “opening the spigot,”
as he puts it, to allow some businesses to reopen while maintaining proper
hygienic measures.
However, the problems with unemployment assistance continue
to plague many Vermonters who are having trouble obtaining the benefits they
are owed and are running out of money. There
are several reasons for this situation that amounted to a perfect storm for the
Vermont Department of Labor (VDOL). (It should be noted that most other states
are having similar issues.) Take the age
of the computer system that handles unemployment claims. It is running on a mainframe computer that
was state of the art in the 1970s but is woefully outdated now. It is programmed in a language called COBOL. Programmers
familiar with COBOL are long-retired or about to retire. Large scale updates to the software are not
feasible or practical. Two attempts over
the last decade to replace the system, both of which were part of a consortium of
several states to share the cost of development, have not been successful.
So, now we’re stuck with an inadequate system that was
working fine when there were 200 to 400 applications per week but can’t handle the
87,000 that were generated en masse since mid-March. The 65 regular VDOL
employees who input and process claims were overwhelmed. Calling into the department became virtually
impossible. Since the initial flood of claims, 200 additional personnel were
hired, including a call center firm called Maximus. At the same time, the federal CARES Act
allowed self-employed persons, who don’t qualify under the regular system
because they don’t contribute to the unemployment insurance (UI) fund, to sign
up for benefits. As a result, a new, unfamiliar Pandemic Unemployment
Assistance (PUA) system had to be set up alongside the UI system to handle an
additional 17,000 claims. To complicate
things further the relaxed rules for claiming unemployment were relaxed were
not reflected in the programming which caused some applicants to be incorrectly
disqualified.
Every one of the 180 members of the Vermont House and Senate
have heard from constituents who are rightly frustrated at their inability to navigate
the jungle that is currently the state’s unemployment system. After hearing from constituents for weeks, the
House created a spreadsheet to allow legislators to record the complaints and
situations of their constituents for referral to a special Labor Department
team. In addition, 24 legislators have volunteered
to assist in connecting claimants on that list to appropriate department
employees. The Labor Department has also taken steps to reverse negative
eligibility codes received by many applicants. As of May 10th, 54,000 of the 61,000
UI claimants determined to be eligible have been paid, and 8,600 of the 17,000
PUA claimants have received payment. Both the administration and the
legislature know that more must be done, and we are working cooperatively to
achieve that for our constituents. Be
well, stay safe, and persist.
I welcome your emails (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com) or phone
calls (802-233-5238).
Legislative Report 4/30/2020 - The Legislature Continues Its Work Remotely
The daffodils and hyacinths are finally blooming in the
yard, the ground isn’t quite as soggy as it was last week, and May is upon us. Ironically,
unemployment is at depression-level highs around the world as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Here in Vermont, the infection and hospitalization levels have
been well-controlled as a result of steps taken early by Governor Scott under
the direction of Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine and State Epidemiologist Patsy
Kelso. The curve has been flattened,
allowing some easing of restrictions on outdoor work like landscaping and
construction if social distancing and hygienic guidelines are observed. And the
difficulty many Vermonters who tried to apply for unemployment benefits experienced
should now be easing with additional personnel staffing the Department of
Labor. Anyone still having a problem should contact me to see if I can help.
The legislature finally met in session using Zoom to approve
the change to House Rules allowing us to vote remotely and to pass several key
bills related to the health crisis. The change of rules required a 3/4 majority
approval to take effect, and the vote was unanimous by the 147 legislators in
attendance. With that approval, the House took up four bills pertaining to
changes in the law for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency. These bills provide for the administration of
the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program which relates directly to
independent contractors and others who are self-employed, permit remote
execution of a will and notarization of documents without having to be in
direct contact with other people, and provide our State Treasurer with tools to
proactively manage State and local cash flow needs. We expect to hold more
floor sessions in the weeks ahead. You can watch recordings of House meetings,
and live floor sessions, by following our legislative page on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC1w34Iyg1vB_HT6dt_4eMA
This is an unusual session for many reasons, not the least of
which is the uncertainty of the financial future. The economic fallout will certainly reduce
revenues coming into the state from income and corporate taxes, sales and use taxes,
and transportation fuel taxes. Since all sales and use taxes now go into the
Education Fund, there will be less money to support the school budgets that
have been passed. There is also a lot of uncertainty about what aid the federal
government will provide to the states. As
the legislature adapts to all this uncertainty, we will work to pass an interim
budget that will get Vermont through the first quarter of the next fiscal year
(FY21). The plan is to adjourn in late May or early June and return in August
to pass a more complete budget for FY21.
In the meantime, the proposed closure of three Vermont State
College campuses last week surprised everyone and created an immediate
backlash. While the legislature in recent years provided less funding for the VSC
system than requested, its costs have mounted, and the current crisis has
exacerbated the deficit, The backlash by
students, faculty, the public, the Governor and legislators caused the proposal
to be withdrawn. The legislative leadership of the House and Senate have
committed to taking a serious look at VSC configuration as well as funding. VSC
must provide an affordable and accessible opportunity for post-secondary
students across Vermont to get a college degree.
* This meeting notice was published prior to May 1.
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