The House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development will hold a public hearing on the Shumlin administration’s economic development proposals.
The committee will take testimony from the public on Thursday, April 23 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. regarding proposed changes to the Vermont Employment Growth Incentive, or VEGI.
House Commerce Chair Rep. Bill Botzow, D-Bennington, said Wednesday his committee has received several requests for a public hearing.
VEGI allows the Vermont Economic Progress Council to give cash incentives to companies that otherwise would not be able to create jobs in Vermont, or would only be able to do so in a “significantly less desirable way.”
The Shumlin administration has proposed changes to the VEGI program as part of S.138, and some provisions approved by the Senate would loosen rules in areas of the state with higher-than-average unemployment. The bill is now in House Commerce.
According to VEPC Executive Director Fred Kenney, who testified in front of House Ways and Means last week, “five or six” companies the state is in contact with “would not come to Vermont” without the changes that the Shumlin administration has proposed.
VTDigger submitted a formal public records request for a list of those companies on April 16. The Agency of Commerce and Community Development’s lawyer requested a new public records request on Wednesday and said “there is definitely no list of businesses” available.
One of the main changes to VEGI would give the Emergency Board the ability to raise the $1 million cap on VEGI’s incentives for qualifying companies that would create jobs in high-unemployment areas, according to Pat Moulton, secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development.
The current version of S.138 would also lower the wage threshold for qualifying for a VEGI award from 160 percent of minimum wage to 140 percent of minimum wage in areas where employment is above the state average, according to the latest version of the bill.
The administration told VTDigger this month that lowering the wage threshold helps bring jobs to rural areas. Kenney told House Ways and Means last week: “No offense, but we’d like to see more jobs outside of Chittenden County.”
Critics of the changes worry that Vermonters who end up making a lower wage than the current threshold would qualify for public assistance. Botzow said he would like to look at concerns that have been raised about lowering the VEGI threshold, among other things.
The Senate Finance Committee approved the lower threshold on April 10. The new wage threshold in S.138 would move from $14.64 to $12.81, a decrease from the administration’s original $13 per hour proposal.
The two-hour hearing on Thursday at 5 p.m. will be in Room 10, on the first floor of the Statehouse. Shirley Adams, whose email is Shirley@leg.state.vt.us, is the point of contact on the Legislature’s website.
