The Legislature has already passed its first bill of the year. S.172 essentially carries over the pandemic-era Town Meeting Day practices of 2021 another year. It will temporarily allow towns to hold votes via Australian ballot or to postpone in-person meetings until warmer weather allows for outdoor gatherings.
The Senate approved the measure earlier this week. By Friday morning, the House had suspended its rules a number of times to fast-track the bill through its Government Operations Committee and back onto the floor — all before lunchtime. The House concurred with the Senate bill with no amendments via voice vote.
“Given our current surge in Covid-19 cases, this is an important step to support safe meetings,” House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said in a statement.
Legislative leaders had said the bill was a top priority that they wanted to wrap up within the first two weeks of the session. Some towns face procedural deadlines for warning municipal votes as early as late January.
The bill now heads to Gov. Phil Scott, who is expected to sign it. But asked about the measure, the governor’s press secretary, Jason Maulucci, also took the opportunity to press lawmakers about expanding universal mail-in ballots to municipal elections on a permanent basis. (The Legislature passed a law in 2021 requiring universal mail-in ballots for general elections.)
“If we are serious about increasing voter accessibility and participation, the governor believes local and primary elections must be treated the same way as general elections,” he wrote in an email to VTDigger.
— Lola Duffort and Sarah Mearhoff
IN THE KNOW
Also on lawmakers’ front burner is the state’s once-a-decade reapportionment bill, as legislators race to meet the Secretary of State’s April 1 deadline to finalize the state’s new boundaries for House and Senate districts.
Before them is a question they face every 10 years: Should Vermont stick with its traditional mix of multimember and single-member districts, or switch to an all-single-member map?
Lawmakers are working in a shorter time frame than ever to draw the lines, crunched for time because of the U.S. Census Bureau’s monthslong delay in getting states the population data necessary to redistrict. The House Government Operations Committee did pump the brakes on the bill, though, on Friday, delaying a committee vote on one of two map options until Tuesday amid rising concerns from Republicans over the speed of the process.
But the clock is ticking. In a lawmaking process unique to any other in the state, the legislative maps require not one, but two full House votes: once to pass a draft, then another for the final.
You can read more about the redistricting process here.
— Sarah Mearhoff
In 2019, Black people were six times more likely to be jailed than white people in Vermont, even though they made up just 1.4% of the population. They were also more likely to be locked up for felony property and drug offenses.
The Justice Center of the Council of State Governments presented its latest findings to Vermont lawmakers on Thursday — two and a half years after the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization began working with the state to address its biggest criminal justice problems.
Among the Justice Center’s key findings was that Black people were 14 times more likely to be charged in felony drug cases. And Black people who were sent to prison on felony drug cases often were charged with cocaine sale or possession.
— Tiffany Tan
A few details about Vermont’s new Montreal “office” emerged this week.
Gov. Phil Scott announced in November the selection of the Montreal and Toronto firm CIDEP as Vermont’s trade representative in Canada.
“We are also continuing our work to attract new businesses from Canada with the help of our new business recruitment office in Montreal,” Scott said in his State of the State address Wednesday.
CIDEP is expected to generate leads on companies interested in a U.S. foothold for defense or aerospace contracts, Joan Goldstein, Vermont commissioner of economic development, told the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Thursday.
Goldstein said the decision by iSun, a Canadian solar technology company, to open a Burlington office in 2018 started with a contact in Montreal. She said that, rather than waiting for queries to come in, the administration wants to be more proactive in contacting Canadian companies.
Brett Long, deputy commissioner for business support, told VTDigger Vermont has signed a two-year, $300,000 contract with CIDEP.
— Fred Thys
Leaders of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals criticized the Scott administration’s plan to address Vermont’s nursing shortage by training new nurses, saying it ignores the reasons nurses leave the profession in the first place.
The joint proposal, unveiled Monday by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Republican Gov. Phil Scott and state Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, would increase nurse educator salaries with the goal of attracting more of them. The idea is to increase the number of training slots for new nurses so that more of them enter the workforce.
Union president Deb Snell, whose organization represents some 2,000 University of Vermont Medical Center nurses, said the increased reliance on travel nurses –— who are often paid two to three times as much as a full-time nurse — is a source of discontent that’s pushing people to leave the field.
“Policymakers must keep in mind that health care workers aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet. We are people who deserve dignity and fairness as we put our lives on the line to keep our communities safe,” she wrote in an opinion piece distributed to Vermont news outlets this week.
Jason Maulucci, Scott’s press secretary, said the governor shares the union’s frustrations on the pay gap and has talked to Sanders about possible ways to address it through federal legislation against price-gouging.
— Liora Engel-Smith
Deaths from opioid overdoses in Vermont increased for the second year in a row, the state Department of Health said this week.
During the first nine months of 2021, roughly 150 Vermonters died of overdoses that involved opioids, compared to 113 Vermonters the year before, a 33% increase.
In a meeting with House legislators on Wednesday, Deputy Health Commissioner Kelly Dougherty attributed the increase to isolation and stress from the coronavirus pandemic. Though rehab facilities and community organizations remained open throughout the pandemic, the lack of face-to-face support has pushed some Vermonters to return to using drugs, she said.
At 40 deaths per 100,000 residents, Lamoille County had the highest rate of fatal opioid overdoses in the state in the first nine months of 2021. The statewide average during that period was 24 deaths per 100,000.
The health department has stepped up its distribution of the overdose-reversal drug Narcan. Many of the state’s syringe exchange programs also moved to mobile outreach as the pandemic escalated, Dougherty told lawmakers.
— Liora Engel-Smith
THE LG’S OFFICE
Democratic Lt. Gov. Molly Gray — a candidate for Vermont’s sole U.S. House seat — sat down with VTDigger (virtually) this week to discuss the state’s priorities heading into 2022’s legislative session, and reflect on what she’s seen from her colleagues so far. Comments have been edited for clarity and length.
On addressing Vermont’s workforce needs:
“This is part of the reason I ran for lieutenant governor: We know we’ve had a demographic crisis, and now we’re feeling it in a palpable way. And to be specific, I think that our response to that crisis really needs to begin with, where do we have the greatest needs and shortages? And then how do we develop specific programs to address those needs? So, rather than, for example, investing in a program where we blanket encourage people to move to Vermont, we encourage people to move to Vermont to take specific jobs in specific sectors. And we’ve seen the benefits of this more localized regionalised approach in our communities. For example, we see the Central Vermont Medical Center within the hospital creating an on-the-job training program to support LPN degrees…. What I would like to see is that we are really targeting our approach to our workforce crisis around the needs that we have, and then looking at localizing regionalised approaches.”
On the interconnectivity of the top issues facing Vermonters:
“I think it’s important to acknowledge the interconnectivity of our workforce crisis, our housing crisis and our child care crisis. We’re not going to solve (any) of those crises alone, which is why addressing these as a package, I think, is really important. We’re not going to build housing without a workforce, without electricians and carpenters. We’re not going to provide more childcare without creating a model or childcare system that encourages people to go into early childhood education. This also means making sure that childcare providers have childcare; it means that our workforce has childcare. And it means that everybody has access to housing. So I hope that there’s a recognition of the interconnectivity, and that we can solve these together and to kind of bring ourselves out of a siloed approach.”
On what she wanted to hear more of from the Gov. Scott’s State of the State:
“We didn’t hear that come up (in the State of the State address), and especially during the pandemic, to not have paid family and medical leave continues to have a direct impact on the economic wellbeing of Vermont families. And we are paying for a lack of paid family and medical leave through unemployment claims for unemployment. And I believe that ultimately, there has to be a federal program to address that. But that doesn’t mean that here in Vermont, we can’t begin to take steps to enact a plan, even if it’s a plan that is a bridge, or is it bolstered by or extended with a federal plan over time.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
COVID CORNER
On Friday, Gov. Phil Scott announced a new “Tests for Tots” program, which is set to provide rapid antigen Covid-19 test kits to regulated child care providers. The program brings children younger than kindergarten — a group many parents said had been forgotten in the effort to get school-aged children tested — into the “test to stay” initiative.
The announcement said Tests for Tots will provide tests for children between the ages of two and five, as well as for child care program staff. Children under two are not approved for testing under Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
To participate in the program, child care providers will register for test kits and pick them up at locations throughout the state, according to the release.
— Jeralyn Darling
WHAT’S ON TAP
Monday, Jan. 10
3 p.m. — The Legislature is out Monday, but the Pension Benefits, Design, and Funding Task Force will meet remotely. The posted agenda is still empty, but maybe a long-awaited pension proposal will finally see the light of day? Stream it here.
Tuesday, Jan. 11
1 p.m. — House Committee on Health Care to finalize recommendations for FY2022 budget adjustments
WHAT WE’RE READING
Merrill Lynch to pay $4.5M settlement for role in EB-5 fraud (WCAX)
Schools Contend With Omicron Surge During First Week Back (Seven Days)
Changes are coming to Vermont’s program to pay people to move to the state (VTDigger)
WE’RE OUT!
Thanks for hanging with us this week! We’ll be back on Tuesday.
Correction: An earlier version incorrectly stated how long Vermont’s contract with CIDEP would be.
