[T]he budget has been signed. Next year’s tax rates have been set. The transportation and capital bills have been approved in both chambers.
The only thing standing between Vermont’s Legislature and adjournment after three days of an extended session are the items on the top of the Democrats’ economic agenda: increasing the state’s minimum wage and creating a paid family leave insurance program.
The paid leave program has stalled in the upper chamber as Senate leadership seeks to convince the House to move on a minimum wage bill that it can accept. It appears that paid leave won’t move until there’s a deal on minimum wage. And despite much talk of compromise from Gov. Phil Scott this session, it’s unclear if he’ll sign anything if and when it gets to his desk.
Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint, D-Windham, said she is in communication with House Majority Leader Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, as they try to make a deal that gets both the paid family leave proposal and minimum wage passed by both chambers.
“It’s incremental movement from where we were a few days ago,” she said Wednesday afternoon. “They had their position, we had ours. Lines of communication are open, that’s what I got.”
The House wants to tie the increase to economic performance, with some members worried that a recession combined with rising wages could hurt businesses. The Senate is determined to move faster toward $15 through predictable annual steps, regardless of economic events.
The Senate sent a scaled-back proposal to the House on Tuesday, which would have raised the minimum wage to $12.50 by 2021, rather than $15 by 2024. The House commerce committee roundly rejected the plan, but didn’t vote on it.
Balint said this difference between the two chambers is “a big hurdle” but that they’re “still talking.”
Members of the Working Vermonters caucus said they would be content with the Senate’s $12.50 by 2021 if it included an amendment reinstating a number of studies to be done on the effect on farmers, restaurants, and Medicaid workers.
However, caucus members said it has been told by House leadership that it doesn’t have the vote count to pass the $12.50 by 2021 proposal.
Sen. Chris Pearson, P/D-Chittenden, told the caucus that lawmakers had two options: send Gov. Phil Scott “the best bill,” which he could veto and they can’t override, or send the governor something that he may be able to support.
“Maybe he would veto that,” Pearson said of the Senate’s two-year proposal. “If he vetoes that, we can’t override, right, we’ve kind of all come to that conclusion.”
The House Appropriations Committee crafted an amendment last week that ties the minimum wage to the consumer price index, multiplying the rate of inflation each year by 2.25 to set that year’s minimum wage. It also included a cap on inflation at 5.5% and a pause button if both general fund revenues and sales tax receipts dropped by 2% in the same year.
Members of the workers caucus discussed whether a similar but more aggressive version of that configuration might be a suitable compromise. The new calculus would multiply inflation by 2.4, potentially reaching a livable wage by 2026.
While moderate members of the House prefer an increase tied to the minimum wage, Scott has not said that he would support either configuration. His chief of staff, Jason Gibbs, has said the governor would block a bill that was similar to the one he vetoed last year, which would have hit $15 by 2024.
Kate Logan, who has been following the minimum wage negotiations as the legislative liaison for the Raise The Wage Coalition, said she and other advocacy groups could support both the two-year Senate plan and accelerated House proposal.
“The way that we feel about them is that they’re both wins,” she said. “And we don’t have a preference between one or the other. It seems fruitless to have a preference when what we want is a bill that’s passed.”
Logan, who is also director of programming and policy for Rights & Democracy, said the Senate plan was simpler and more politically savvy. “Also, you know, it just kind of says, ‘OK, let’s see who’s the governor in 2021 and let’s come back to this later,’” she said. “I just kind of think that’s great.”
If the House and Senate can agree on a path forward for minimum wage, the Senate is expected to take a final vote on paid leave. But it’s unclear whether senators would add back personal illness insurance, which was stripped out in the Senate economic development committee.
Ashley Moore, a leading advocate for paid leave as the state director of Main Street Alliance, said the organization would not support the bill unless that piece was returned.
“We think it’s a fundamental part of the program and we’d be leaving a lot of Vermonters behind without it,” Moore said.
“It’s tough to know if there’s time left,” she said of a deal that’s included the full paid leave program. “I think that it’s been very clear that working Vermonters would benefit from both of these issues and I think we’re doing a disservice to Vermonters by linking the fate of both of the issues.”
Reporters Kit Norton and Xander Landen discuss the tensions over paid leave and minimum wage in this week’s Deeper Dig podcast:
