Editor’s note: This commentary is by state Sen. Bob Hartwell, a Democrat who represents the Bennington District in the Vermont Senate. He is not seeking re-election.
[O]ver the last two years in particular, the Democratic Party has become more ideological and, therefore, less effective and more poorly focused on the real issues. Because of this, there are several serious problems confronting Vermont which should have been addressed before now.
First, the continuing gamesmanship over health care has become a major distraction causing unnecessary anxiety for many Vermonters including employers who have received badly mixed signals in connection with the establishment of a single payer system. The poor rollout of Vermont Health Connect has distracted attention from other issues; the state would have been better served by implementation of the Affordable Care Act rather than undertaking a project which it appears it may not be able to afford. The Legislature must determine to put an end to the single payer scheme unless it can clearly show significant savings, particularly after an incredible expenditure in excess of $100 million to achieve access for Vermonters that still does not perform satisfactorily and, apparently, does not meet federal information security standards.
In addition, the failure of the Legislature to require a timely financing proposal from the administration has weakened the Legislature particularly given that the claim of executive privilege, long since waived, has more to do with the election than with information the public should have received long before now.
The Senate must lead to make an honest determination as whether or not the program, shrouded in unnecessary financial mystery, will work in an affordable fashion. This is at the heart of the oversight responsibility of the Legislature.
Second, inexcusably, the Legislature has done virtually nothing to control Vermont’s education finance system now out of control resulting in more than $100 million in new property taxes in the last four years alone and with little to show in return. Property taxes must be frozen by addressing a system with 40 percent more employees and more than 25 percent fewer students in the last 20 years making it the most extravagant in the country. There has been no proposal from the administration.
In a most unacceptable performance, the Senate Education Committee, despite two years to do so, did nothing on this vital issue; instead it produced silly legislation on “principal remediation,” an effort to stop the creation of independent schools and attempts to organize anything having to do with education. This performance was so bad that the Finance Committee took over trying to begin to address the real issue. If the Education Committee is to continue in this vein, its core functions must be assigned elsewhere. (The House Committee on Education worked on a proposal which the Senate committee failed to address.)
Third, Vermont’s intoxication with large scale renewable energy is showing the effects of the worst energy siting policy in the region; there is no permitting resulting in poorly placed projects destroying ridgelines, imposing unfairly on abutting properties, causing unnecessary litigation and lost property value. No other industry receives a pass on siting leaving neighbors, other property owners, municipalities and regional commissions with no avenue to manage siting and, therefore, no way protect themselves from industrial renewables; rather, having secured certificates of “public good” from the Public Service Board, routinely issued, developers, often on public assistance, have license to go wherever they want without regard to the consequences. This behavior is not permitted in Massachusetts and New York.
In addition, Vermont appears poised to adopt a renewable energy portfolio standard even as other states look to Vermont’s ridgelines to advance theirs. By creating a new RPS, Vermont will find itself engulfed in unnecessary projects potentially further compromised by FERC Order 1000 which could result in expensive, environmentally damaging and unnecessary transmission upgrades on a Vermont landscape already under severe pressure. Few legislators know enough about these threats.
The Legislature has defaulted badly in 2014 on energy siting, and the consequences will be severe given Vermont’s weak real estate market and the possible effect on tourism. The Senate had ample opportunity to pass sensible siting legislation in the last session and did not do so; it must change its attitude toward this issue if Vermont is to avoid a mass of debris scattered across the landscape without meaningful planning further damaging the beauty many of us have worked so hard over the years to preserve.
Fourth, Vermont continues to spend too much money. Vermont employs about the same number of state employees as New Hampshire, those in New Hampshire supporting two and a half times the population of Vermont. Vermont is more than 20 percent dependent on government aid to individuals; New Hampshire is about 10 percent dependent. Each year we hear about Reach Up but each year the program demands more money. Each year we have heard about the Department for Children and Families, which should have been separated from the Agency of Human Services long before now. The Agency of Human Services is too large for a state the size of Vermont and too large to handle the sensitive responsibilities of DCF. (This initiative should have come from the administration; the Legislature must act. The shabby termination of the Secretary of Human Services, Doug Racine, this summer accomplishes nothing.)
Throwing money at problems does not solve problems, and the Senate must lead to bring spending under control by refusing to pass budgets that we all know are not balanced and will result in ever increasing and disruptive rescissions.
Throwing money at problems does not solve problems, and the Senate must lead to bring spending under control by refusing to pass budgets that we all know are not balanced and will result in ever increasing and disruptive rescissions. If the current trend of spending is not arrested in a state that can ill afford it, rescissions could reach into the hundreds of millions.
Fifth, indicative of Vermont’s apparent inability to address some obvious improvements in economic climate, is its failure to repeal the bottle bill which increases the cost of products, interferes with a highly effective zero sort system and results in the loss of hundreds of thousands of deposits while creating a very large carbon footprint; this law literally shoves business across 28 bridges into New Hampshire; it does not control litter because the litter problem has completely changed in 30 years. (New Hampshire without a deposit law creates less litter per capita than does Vermont while more than 70 percent of all beverage containers received at the Chittenden County Solid Waste district are deposit containers.) Rather than accept the claims of one so-called “research” group on this issue the Legislature should determine to make badly needed change to address the loss of business to other states. (By way of example, Massachusetts has repealed the liquor tax while Vermont persists with a ridiculous liquor bottle deposit which creates considerable air pollution. loses $200,000 per year and contributes to Vermont’s unfortunately well deserved reputation as the most expensive state in the region in which to shop.)
There are other problems but it is important to understand that the Senate needs to work as a team to correct serious problems rather than pursuing the interests of each committee with little understanding of the effect of those interests on the state as a whole. Poor performance such as allowing the state to “stay the course” on policies — even if mistaken, the appalling missteps on education finance combined with runaway property taxes, the demonization of other states, particularly New Hampshire, rather than learning from their successes, as well as those of other states, are contributing to Vermont’s relatively poor performance.
Vermont’s public sector appears to be growing faster than its private sector, a harbinger of economic malaise to come; its real estate market is easily the weakest in New England and one of the weakest in the country; its private sector employers are burdened with too high taxes and fees, some of them considering leaving but perhaps held back by real estate no one else will want. The current solution appears to be handing out money to companies to con them into staying in Vermont. Paying companies to stay in Vermont rather than creating a successful economy for all is a policy doomed to well deserved failure.
Income tax revenues are stagnant, a sign of weakness not caused by national trends, as claimed by some, but rather by policies internal to Vermont; the further suggestion that the weakness in real estate is caused by Vermont’s historically slow recoveries in previous recessions is also inaccurate. Again the problem is within Vermont; education spending and property taxes, not national trends or previous history, explain the problem. At the same time, Vermont’s rate of unemployment is increasing while the nation’s is dropping.
The consequences will be severe if these issues are not addressed very differently than they have been thus far. A state that has lost a third of its population aged 25 to 45 in 10 years along with what appears to be the lowest birth rate in the nation needs a very loud awakening. A Legislature that demonizes New Hampshire needs to understand how the state is stronger than Vermont. It is unlikely legislators have read “How Does New Hampshire Do It?” which is a publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; in the same vein, they should not be voting on energy policy unless they have spent some serious time at ISO New England the Independent Service Operator which determines which power plants will operate at any given time in New England, among other responsibilities.
The Senate has weakened itself in recent years; it was easy to stand up to a Republican administration; the real task is to stand up to a Democratic administration; the Legislature has failed to assert its equal status culminating in its shameful agreement to an increase in taxes in a Committee of Conference less than two days before adjournment putting that committee in a terrible position. The last-minute request for more money should have met with “No.”
Senate Democrats need to remember the collaboration of Vermonters following the Irene disaster and act together in the same fashion to address the real issues confronting Vermont. In addition, they need to continue with a Senate president with solid Senate experience not the challenger who thinks Vermonters have “been told” their taxes are high as if they cannot figure that out for themselves and not a person who misrepresents the opinions of others.
Demographics, excessive spending, poor policies such as the deposit law and inappropriate payments to keep businesses from moving, by way of examples, and runaway property taxes are closing in on Vermont. The Senate must determine to lead to regain the Legislature’s equal footing with the executive branch by focusing on the real financial issues and taking some very bold action to reverse some very troubling trends.
