The Scott administration has refused to submit a “fee bill” to the Vermont Legislature this year.
Traditionally every three years, the state updates Agency of Natural Resources fee amounts.
Scott has said before that he won’t permit any increases in taxes or fees.
“As I’ve stated repeatedly, I think voters need a break from taxes and fees,” Scott said. A fee bill for the agency could be submitted next year, he said.
Julie Moore, the secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, reiterated the governor’s stance. “ANR is not submitting a fee bill this year because the administration is committed to not raising fees or taxes,” Moore wrote in an email.
The agency relies on fees to support environmental enforcement. The decision not to raise fees comes at a time when federal funding for the agency is uncertain.
Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, said the decision to punt fee increases to another year is a calculated political move and sets up ordinary Vermonters for a nasty surprise in six years.
“It’s a bit puzzling to me, because one reason we’re on a three-year cycle for revising all fees is so we do modest increases to them, allowing them to keep up with inflation and the actual administrative expense levels experienced by the program,” Bray said.
“From a governance point of view, if you pass over adjusting your fees, they get further out of sync” with the cost of the programs the fees pay for, “and then the fees jump, and that’s upsetting for the people paying the fees,” he said.
“Quite frankly, to do that across the board is a political decision, and not a good-governance or a financial decision,” he said.
Fees ensure that people who use a state program help to pay their share of the cost, Bray said. Since inflation and staffing costs increase over time, fees need periodically to increase proportionally, he said. Otherwise, the programs end up being subsidized by Vermont taxpayers who don’t directly use the services, he said.
The governor’s decision not to carry out the ANR’s three-year fee update is “completely consistent” with Scott’s approach to the state’s water-pollution woes, Bray said.
The state is currently under multiple federal orders to reduce phosphorus pollution into public waters, and last summer the pollution led to closed beaches on Lake Champlain. Lake Carmi was closed for drinking water and recreation for months.
The cleanup is expected to cost Vermonters $1.2 billion over the next 20 years, and the Legislature last year directed Moore and several of Scott’s administrators to come up with a long-term funding method.
Moore and the other administrators refused, and said there’s no need for those funds until the middle of the next decade, even while acknowledging that the delay would likely cost Vermonters more in the end.
“It’s an attractive thing to go to voters and say you’re pledging no new fees and no new taxes,” Bray said. “But I don’t think it’s a wise pledge, from a good-governance point of view, because you have to budget for things that are going to experience inflation. What if there’s another Hurricane Irene? Are we going to stick to that pledge?”
