[T]he Vermont House gave preliminary approval Monday to a 173-page bill designed to create jobs, train Vermonters to do them and help more young people afford to buy homes.
The House version of an economic development bill, which was approved in a voice vote, is an expansion of the version of S.138 that the Senate first stripped down to the bone, put back together and unanimously approved.
Among its many additions, the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development loosened the state’s licensed lender laws, added a $5,000 first-time homebuyer credit and made a $500,000 appropriation for the Department of Tourism and Marketing to expand promotion of the state to businesses.
First-time homebuyers would receive the $5,000 credit to help make a downpayment on a home and would pay the money back once they sell their house. The total payout would be capped at $125,000 per year and $625,000 every five years, according to the bill.
The homebuyer money and the Department of Tourism appropriation would come from the Enterprise Fund, according to Rep. Heidi Scheuerman, R-Stowe, and does not increase taxes.
“We are becoming a place clearly where innovators can innovate and entrepreneurs can succeed here, and we want to tell that story,” Scheuermann said. “We want to tell that we’re not only a good place to recreate but that we are a good place to invest and start a business and grow jobs.”
The bill would also change the state’s licensed lender laws so that investors could loan up to $250,000 to entrepreneurs without having to be licensed through the Department of Financial Regulation. The current limit is $75,000.
Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-West Dover, said she hopes labor and employment sections of the bill would create more jobs, train and recruit more workers and thereby “ratchet up” wages across the state.
“Where I come from, we have less than half of the population (that) derives their annual earnings out of working,” Sibilia said. She said the proposed “enhanced” Vermont Employment Growth Incentive is an important tool toward putting people to work.
The tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee agreed with provisions that would loosen some of the rules on VEGI, but would also place stricter guidelines on the wage threshold, which has been a point of contention in both chambers.
Currently, the threshold for companies using VEGI assistance to create jobs is 160 percent of minimum wage, or $14.64. The Shumlin administration originally sought to lower that to the Joint Fiscal Office’s livable wage of $13 per hour. The Senate Finance Committee reached a compromise to lower it to 140 percent of minimum wage in places with higher-than-average unemployment rates.
The House Ways and Means Committee passed an amendment on a voice vote that would only allow regions with unemployment rates that are at least 0.5 percentage points above the statewide average to use the lower wage standard.
That means the wage in those high-unemployment areas would still be 140 percent of minimum wage, but there would be a $13 floor so the state would not be giving incentives to companies that create jobs paying $12.81 per hour this year.
The House Committee on Ways and Means declined to increase the research and development tax credit from 27 percent to 30 percent.
Rep. Sam Young, D-Glover, said on the House floor that the proposal was too expensive.
A final vote is scheduled for Tuesday, and the Senate can then either approve the changes or call for a committee of conference.
