[B]RATTLEBORO – The Senate Judiciary Committee is pushing to improve the “clarity, fairness, predictability and consistency” of Vermont’s alimony laws.
And that’s drawing applause from alimony reform activists led by Brattleboro businessman Rick Fleming.
The group Vermont Alimony Reform is praising the committee’s bill, S.112, which calls for a seven-member task force to examine the alimony statute and make recommendations for changes.
The bill, which has been endorsed by the committee and is scheduled for Senate action Tuesday, seeks a more comprehensive review of the alimony statute than had been undertaken last year by a Supreme Court committee.
Fleming’s organization would have a direct role in that study.
“There’s momentum building, and we need to build on that,” he said.
Vermont Alimony Reform began lobbying the Legislature for changes last year, arguing that the alimony law is outdated and leads to unfair, inconsistent outcomes.
Fleming has been at the forefront of that effort, telling lawmakers that he’s been saddled with unmanageable alimony payments even as his business struggled and his income decreased. In 2013, the state Supreme Court ruled against Fleming’s effort to lower those payments.
Others, however, have urged caution. That viewpoint was summed up in a January report from the Vermont Judiciary.
The Supreme Court’s Family Division Oversight Committee recommended new alimony guidelines based on the length of a marriage and the difference between spouses’ income.
But that committee argued against adopting “rigid” rules that would curb judicial discretion. Such rules, it warned, “would be more likely to lead to unjust outcomes than no guidelines at all.”
The court committee’s suggested guidelines have been incorporated into two House bills, H.363 and H.414, introduced in February. Fleming said he appreciates those bills, but he believes they don’t go nearly far enough.
“What we don’t want to see happen is a piecemeal approach,” he said. “There needs to be a comprehensive look at the statute.”
That’s what Senate Judiciary is now proposing. The committee’s bill calls for a Spousal Support and Maintenance Task Force to examine the issue and report back to the Legislature by Jan. 15.
The task force would include legislators, judges and attorneys as well as a representative of Vermont Alimony Reform. The bill says task force members must consider public input; the recent Judiciary report on alimony reform; and Massachusetts’ alimony reform statute from 2011.
Vermont Alimony Reform has used the Massachusetts effort as a model. “They went through an 18-month process,” Fleming said. “And in the end, they had unanimous (legislative) support.”
Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, said a Feb. 21 public hearing on alimony reform helped convince her that the Supreme Court’s recommendations aren’t adequate to address the problem.
“We heard additional testimony, and we just decided as a committee that it wasn’t enough,” White said. “All (the Judiciary report) did was establish guidelines. We want the whole statute looked at.”
“Our alimony laws haven’t been revised (for decades),” White added. “Family structures have changed, the world has changed, and we just need to take a look at them. We do this periodically with other statutes.”
White noted that the Judiciary Committee last year endorsed the idea of an alimony task force, but the idea did not gain traction in the House. Fleming said his group has begun lobbying House Judiciary Committee members to support the concept.
