There won’t be any earth-shattering debates on the House or Senate floor this week.
The legislative work this time of year is in committee, and if outward signs of progress seem incremental, that’s because lawmakers will be diving deep into the details.
After weeks of testimony from Shumlin administration officials and stakeholders (and weeks more to go), lawmakers are beginning to review key legislation that will become the topic of more open debate on the floor of the House and Senate later in the session.
Now that the Budget Adjustment Act, H.82, is out of the way, the House Appropriations Committee will begin work in earnest on the Shumlin administration’s fiscal year 2016 budget proposal. Each day this week, department commissioners in the sprawling Agency of Human Services are scheduled to testify about how they plan to cut $29.5 million from anticipated growth in services.
Senate Appropriations, which has already heard testimony on the Budget Adjustment Act, will discuss its version of the bill.
Lawmakers are anxious to get H.82 out of the way in anticipation of drawn-out deliberations on Gov. Peter Shumlin’s proposal, which solves a $94 million budget gap, but does not address an additional $18.6 million shortfall in state revenues.
Rep. Dave Sharpe, D-Bristol, is expected to introduce an education reform bill on Thursday that will include many of the elements of the so-called “renovation” plan that a working group proposed in December. The legislation will likely form the basis of the House attempt to restructure the education finance system.
Education issues will also be taken up by House Government Operations this week. On Thursday the committee will hold a hearing on labor relations in Vermont schools. Representatives from the Vermont NEA and the school boards association are scheduled to testify.
The water quality and fee bills are working their way through House Fish and Wildlife. Stakeholders, namely environmentalists and farmers, will testify about the sweeping legislation which would require farms to adopt agricultural practices that limit the amount of phosphorus polluting Lake Champlain.
The Senate Finance Committee is taking a hard look at education spending and health care issues this week. Today the committee will take up a proposal that would make participation in the state’s exchange voluntary. Lawrence Miller, the chief of Health Care Reform, representatives from MVP Healthcare and BlueCross BlueShield are scheduled to testify.
New child protection legislation will continue to wend its way through the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. S.9 would make it a crime for caregivers not to report abuse or neglect of a child. The provision holding caregivers if he or she “knows or reasonably should have known” that a child was at risk of bodily injury, sex abuse or drug crime is too broad, opponents have said.
