Editor’s Note: This article is by John Gregg of the Valley News, in which it was published Oct. 23, 2014.
WEST LEBANON, N.H. — Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne said Wednesday that Gov. Peter Shumlin has pursued a “reckless” single-payer health care policy while ignoring concerns about the jobs climate and property taxes.
He noted that Shumlin and the Democratically controlled Legislature had passed progressive legislation to move Vermont toward a single-payer system and to require the labeling of genetically modified food, but hadn’t addressed more pressing problems related to the economy.
Milne also noted that Census data released earlier this year revealed that 3,000 more Vermonters were living in poverty in 2013 compared to 2012, and that median household income had also dropped by 2 percent.
“I call it tone from the top,” Milne said during a meeting with Valley News editors, referring to the fact that Shumlin had devoted much of his most recent State of the State speech to the problems of opiate addiction, rather than more bread-and-butter issues. “We didn’t do anything affecting taxpayers, pocketbook issues.”
A Pomfret resident and owner of Milne Travel American Express, which has eight offices and 70 employees, Milne said he supports the Affordable Care Act but believes the Shumlin administration overreached in trying to establish Vermont Health Connect and its costly Web-based signups, which have failed to work, forcing the website to be shut down, at least temporarily.
Milne said Shumlin has spent too much time out of state and that his “marquee accomplishment,” health care reform, has turned into a “reckless experiment with our health care system which has still borne no tangible benefits, and we are almost $100 million into it.”
Milne also said that while his proposal to cap property taxes could create a $43 million budget hole the Legislature would need to address, his call for a cap drew attention to the problem of rising property taxes. Milne also warned that a decline in the upscale housing market in Vermont will have repercussions on grand lists, and property taxes for others throughout the state, and also said that the state’s high electricity costs deter business investment.
“Vermont treats big employers like IBM and out-of-state taxpayers that don’t vote, small employers sometimes, like cash cows, and we should be treating them like our best customers,” he said.
Shumlin has been working to encourage local school districts to consider consolidations or shared services with other schools, and Milne has unveiled his own plan. He wants to create about 15 “regional educational administrative districts” centered around regional technical schools in the state. While still enabling voters locally to decide the fate of their schools, Milne said he thinks the broader districts could help lower costs by reducing per pupil costs, primarily by staff cuts. Vermont has one of the country’s lowest teacher-student ratios, and Milne said, as an incentive for some consolidations, he would allow the regional districts to use the possible savings to subsidize college tuitions or technical training for graduates who attend public colleges in Vermont.
Such a program would encourage more young families, and job creators, to move to Vermont, he said.
“The biggest problem we have is our demographic trends. We are becoming much older, and that’s what we need to change,” Milne said.
A fifth-generation Vermonter, Milne said Vermont’s workforce has declined by 9,800 since Shumlin took office and on Wednesday proposed a corporate tax moratorium on new businesses created in the state, as well as a waiver of capital gains taxes for investments in Vermont businesses over the next three years.
“It’s designed to be a bridge, a shot in the arm more or less, to help us get some momentum going in the economy, while this school restructuring program … realizes it’s potential,” Milne said.
Milne said the election is a “referendum” on Shumlin’s two-term tenure, and said of his campaigning, “I’m enjoying it. I think I’ve got a shot.”
While he’s been endorsed by former Republican Vermont governor Jim Douglas, Milne has also been running a relatively low-key campaign, and said his two adult children, a daughter who is in law school and a son who is a financial manager, helped craft his education redistricting plan, which also relied on material from the Campaign for Vermont, a nonpartisan group founded by a former Wall Street executive who grew up in Vermont and has returned to the state.
Milne last week released a financial disclosure form, which showed he had income of $139,738 in 2013 and a net worth of about $2.6 million, including real estate.
He also has issued a promissory note of $950,000, but declined to say who holds the note, though he said it was not related to his investment in the proposed Quechee Highlands mixed-use development off Route 4.
“I have no problem telling you that it’s not anything that is a conflict of interest with being governor at all, I can guarantee that,” Milne said.
Milne said he has not been running his travel business day-to-day since he began campaigning and would keep it at “arms length” should he be elected, though he would not plan on selling the business.
Shumlin last month released his 2013 tax return, reporting $721,445 in gross income and total assets worth $10.3 million.
John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com or 603-727-3217.
