Editor’s note: Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist.
[A]ll good things must come to an end, they say. All not-so-good things, too.
And so it is that the 2018 session of the Vermont State Legislature is about to come to an end, good thing or not.
The end is not imminent. But last week, it began to take shape. It wasn’t that all things were falling into place. But they were assembling, looking for places into which to fall. The key players – Gov. Phil Scott, the legislative leaders and key committee chairs, lobbyists for causes great and petty – began to figure out what they needed (or at least really wanted) and what they could give up in exchange for something they needed.
Perhaps the most significant move in that direction came from Scott, who on Thursday indicated he might be willing to give up his insistence that the Legislature find a way to cut $40 million from school spending. The governor said he would agree to use “one-time money” to cover this year’s spending gap if lawmakers agreed to hold down school spending in the future.
Specifics were sparse, as they often are with governors. Scott identified neither the source of his “one-time money,” nor exactly how schools should cut costs. So it was not clear whether the Republican governor and the Democratic-dominated Legislature would work out a deal.
In making his offer, the governor was acknowledging that it was too late to force local districts to redo budgets that had already been approved by their voters. “We may not be able to book immediate savings, because I’m not asking again for the schools to go back and do anything with their budgets,” he said.
But without those savings or getting the $40 million from somewhere, the statewide school property tax rate would go up, breaking Scott’s pledge to avoid any and all tax or fee increases. Using the “one-time money” allows him to stay true to his promise without forcing draconian cuts in some local school budgets.
Beyond that, Scott was signaling that he wanted to work out a deal, meaning he would rather not veto the budget bill. If he and lawmakers agree on a budget bill, the Legislature can schedule an orderly closing by sometime in the second week of May.
If not … well, last year they couldn’t agree on the budget, he vetoed the bill, and what ensued could gently be described as a mess for all involved. The Legislature had to reconvene in June and haggle with Scott over (what else?) school spending for several days, only to come to an agreement that didn’t much alter the status quo and didn’t enhance anybody’s reputation.
No surprise that the governor seems reluctant to go through that again.
The budget is not the only bill Scott might veto. Throughout last week, much of the Statehouse chatter concerned other potential vetoes. Among the top prospects:
- Minimum wage and mandatory paid family leave bills;
- A school tax measure that would cut property taxes but increase the income tax;
- A water quality plan that would be financed by a fee, even if the fee wouldn’t be collected for another year or two.
But vetoing any of them would have no impact on when the session could end. Nor did his veto of a bill imposing stronger regulations on the use and sale of some toxic chemicals (a veto overridden by the Senate Thursday but likely to be sustained by the House this week).
The Legislature doesn’t have to pass any of those laws. It just has to pass a budget. Everything else – marijuana and minimum wages, guns and family leave, school governance and primary health care – is optional. They may be important. But the Legislature can deal with them or not as it chooses. What it must do is approve the Big Bill (as it is dubbed) “An act relating to making appropriations for the support of government.”
But the governor is under the same obligation. He can veto all that other stuff without suffering any consequences other than some political blowback. He has to sign a budget bill, preferably before the fiscal year begins (July 1), or state government can’t function.
The big challenge these next two weeks, then, will be working out a budget bill using Scott’s new-found flexibility to fill the gap between what the schools are going to spend and how much the statewide school property tax is expected to raise. One minor hurdle will be the distaste (or alleged distaste) all public officials have (or say they have) for using “one-time money,” government jargon for a chunk of revenue that won’t reappear in future years. In proper “good government” circles, one-time money is decried as irresponsibly papering over structural fiscal flaws.
Until it is needed, whereupon it is re-dubbed a necessary compromise. One reason the state budget is in the pickle it’s in is that last year it papered over its school spending gap with one-time money. Why not do it again?
Then of course that $40 million has to be found.
Also a minor hurdle. Some (maybe all?) of the state’s $28 million share of the tobacco settlement (the “Master Settlement Agreement”) could be used. And accounting is a creative art. Shifting some obligations and assets from one category to another could provide at least the theoretical appearance of $15 million or $20 million. Close enough for government work even if all the actual cash never appears.
As for finding Scott’s “savings over the next few years,” no one really knows how to do that. In January, the administration sent 18 cost-cutting ideas to the Legislature, but most of them were vague or borderline meaningless. For instance, the law could impose a $17,000-per-student spending maximum. It could. But what was a district supposed to cut if spending exceeded those limits?
Another idea would require schools statewide to reduce their staff-to-student ratios, a feat that could be accomplished, said the governor’s office, through “attrition.”
Perhaps it could and perhaps it should. But the governor’s office provided no actual data to illustrate how it would work or what the impact on the schools would be. Probably some schools could cut staff without degrading educational quality. Probably some could not.
If Scott and the lawmakers can work out a deal based on his latest suggestion, all these vexing problems can be put off for another day and the Legislature can adjourn before Mother’s Day. No wonder office-holders love “one-time money.”