[F]or years, a single man — Otto Trautz, an assistant judge in the Washington County superior court — was the only person keeping track of Vermont’s boards and commissions. He logged them in a giant binder, an initiative that Seven Days called a “painstaking passion project.”
But in 2018, Trautz turned his binder over to the state. It is now kept by the Sunset Advisory Commission, a group tasked with sifting through every state-run board and panel in Vermont by the end of 2022.
In the commission’s first year, it eliminated seven boards. The panel, co-chaired by Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, and Rep. John Gannon, D-Wilmington, was back in action Wednesday to tackle bureaucratic bloat.
The only board to fall on the first day: the Vermont Racing Commission, tasked with regulating betting on horse races, which haven’t happened in Vermont this millennium.
But the meeting was mostly focused on reviewing uncontroversial boards, White noted; all of them either served a clear purpose or hadn’t operated for years.
The committee chose to uphold boards dedicated to libraries, state revenue forecasts, and sending delegates to a national law conference.
They also chose to maintain the Racial Equity Advisory Panel, a new board that recently named New York City health department official Xusana Davis as its executive director. Davis stepped in to say hello to the committee, which unanimously voiced support for both the panel and Davis’ appointment.
“We have 620,000 people in Vermont, and there are probably 620,000 different opinions about what this position or this panel should be doing,” White said. “So it’s going to be imperative that you as a panel, and she as the director, are very clear about what it is — it’s not to give more diversity in our state workforce. It’s to really look at our systems and how they impact people who aren’t of the majority culture.”
The committee also decided to allow the Office of Professional Regulation to continue overseeing the state’s professional boards, which regulate licensing for occupations including medicine, engineering, and architecture. It was a time-saving decision for the committee. Had it declined OPR’s request, it would have had to review each board individually.
The only committee of the day that did not receive the Sunset Advisory’s approval was the Vermont Racing Commission, which oversaw betting on Vermont horse races. According to committee members, the commission was repealed because Vermont has not held horse races for decades.
“It hasn’t been meeting. It hasn’t been active. And for those reasons, the statute should probably be updated accordingly,” a representative for the racing commission told the Sunset Advisory Commission.
The chair of the racing commission was Harlan Sylvester, a money manager with a reputation as one of Vermont’s most powerful political fundraisers and strategists.
In addition to reviewing individual boards, the committee used the meeting to make plans for the coming year. Committee members went over what boards they hope to tackle in the near future, a list that included committees from the Agency of Education and the Agency of Human Services.
White and Susan Zeller, chief performance officer at the Agency of Administration, both agreed that one goal is to rethink the oversight of technology — a topic currently dispersed across the state government.
“We talk about technology, broadband, cellular communication,” Zeller said. “You’ve got it in Public Service, you’ve got it in Public Safety … It’s a mishmash, who’s responsible for this piece and that piece.”
Next time, the committee plans to discuss boards from the Agency of Education. But long term, committee members said their goal is to streamline boards so the government isn’t presiding over — and funding — superfluous organizations.
“What our mission is, at the Sunset Advisory Commission is that we review every state board and commission … and try to determine whether they should continue to operate, whether they should be eliminated, or whether any of their powers or duties should be modified,” Gannon said.
