At least 181 Vermonters died of opioid-related overdoses last year, according to data from the Vermont Department of Health. The final, total number may be even higher, as the department has yet to release the data from December 2021.
This is the highest number of fatal overdoses the state has ever recorded in a single year.
“I would like to ask the body to take a moment to pause and reflect on the significance of that number — 181 Vermonters. Enough that, if they were alive with us today, could sit and fill every House and Senate seat of this chamber,” Rep. Dane Whitman, D-Bennington, said on the floor.
The House gave preliminary approval Thursday to a multipronged bill meant to address the overdose crisis. The bill, H.728, funds counseling for justice-involved Vermonters and recovery support during EMS response to an overdose. The bill also designates $450,000 to provide mobile medication treatment, such as methadone, for opioid use disorder.
Methadone is currently only available at eight “hub” locations around the state, Whitman said.
The original draft of the bill from the House Human Services Committee also sought to make it easier for providers to prescribe these medications, by removing the prior authorization requirement for Medicaid patients.
Some providers who testified before the committee said that the prior authorization process can discourage people from entering treatment, either due to delays or because insurance limits choice of prescriptions.
“I find myself tailoring my prescribing practices to what my patients can access the easiest and quickest — and this often doesn’t align with what the best plan is or what is evidence-based,” one Howard Center provider wrote in testimony to the committee.
But the prior authorization proposal was scuttled when House Appropriations saw the price tag.
Analysis by the Joint Fiscal Office found that changing the prior authorization process would cost the state between $17 million and $35 million, primarily because more people would use non-preferred (aka, more expensive) medications. They estimated the bulk of the cost would come from one prescription, Sublocade, which costs more than $20,000 per person, per year.
The bill also commissions a task force (classic) to explore the feasibility and potential liabilities of overdose prevention sites — places where people can use drugs without fear of arrest and with medical supervision to intervene if they overdose.
Overdose prevention sites have gotten some support in Vermont before. In 2017, Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George rallied a commission of law enforcement and health professionals who endorsed the idea. But former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan threatened to prosecute and seize the assets of anyone who tried to open such a facility.
Since then, New York City has authorized the first two above-ground safe injection sites in the United States, which opened late last year. The facilities also provide clean needles and referrals to recovery services. In the first three weeks of operation, the facilities’ staff averted 59 overdoses, according to the city’s health department.
The House approved the bill by voice vote and it will proceed to third reading.
— Riley Robinson
IN THE KNOW
A Joint Assembly of the Legislature threw very little shade on the six judges up for retention for six more years on the bench.
All six judges were overwhelmingly approved by lawmakers in secret balloting Thursday with no debate or questions and only very little comment.
This was as harsh as the criticism got:
Rep. Butch Shaw, R-Pittsford, told his fellow lawmakers that the retention committee heard from a person reporting a “negative experience” with one of the judges, John Pacht, in a criminal case.
“Judge Pacht did comment that he may have been a little too abrupt in his interactions with the witness,” Shaw said. “He then stated he is extremely dedicated to improve on this presumed fault and considers this a point of personal improvement.”
That “negative experience” didn’t seem to hurt Pacht’s standing among the lawmakers, who approved his retention for another six years on a vote 155-0.
— Alan Keays
ON THE MOVE
A Senate committee moved forward Thursday with a plan to keep paying people who move to Vermont, another plan to reimburse employers who keep employees on the payroll when they are home because of Covid but have run out of sick leave or other paid leave, and a raise in unemployment benefits.
The Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs unanimously approved H.159.
The bill would reimburse moving expenses for people who move to Vermont up to $5,000 — and up to $7,500 if they move to parts of Vermont with high unemployment or low wages. Reimbursable relocation expenses would include moving costs, closing costs for a primary residence, a rental security deposit and one month’s rent payment.
Senators decided to spend $6 million for the program.
Senators also decided to spend $16.5 million in federal funds for a Covid relief program for employers. Employers would be reimbursed for paying employees who stay home because of Covid. Businesses could apply for grants for up to 67 percent of an employee’s hourly wage up to $27.50 an hour for a maximum of 80 hours and $2,200 per employee.
The bill also adds $25 a week to unemployment benefits. The money would come from a special fund so as not to use money from the unemployment trust fund, which the U.S. Department of Labor ruled last year was not allowed. So the extra unemployment money would use $8 million from other federal funds Vermont has received. People who are unemployed on or after July 1 would benefit.
— Fred Thys
The Senate is set to take up H.722, the Legislature’s reapportionment bill setting both House and Senate districts for the next 10 years, on Friday. Senators are on a tight schedule, needing to pass the bill in their chamber, then send it back to the House to concur with their Senate map, before it heads to Gov. Phil Scott, then Secretary of State Jim Condos. Condos set an April 1 deadline for lawmakers to finish the job.
— Sarah Mearhoff
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
With less than five months to go until the primary, the congressional campaign of state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, is looking for a new manager. Gowri Buddiga, who has been leading Ram Hinsdale’s bid for Vermont’s lone U.S. House seat, is heading back to Virginia to care for her father, per the campaign.
Arshad Hasan, a longtime friend of Ram Hinsdale’s, has jumped into the mix on a consulting basis while the campaign finds a permanent replacement. Hasan is well known in Vermont political circles — for six years, he was head of Democracy for America, the PAC founded by former Democratic Gov. Howard Dean.
— Lola Duffort
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH
On the menu for Friday is chicken piccata. Mama Mia!
MARCH MADNESS
Carolyn Wesley, chief of staff for Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, really wants you to know that she championed the Statehouse bracket this week for the NCAA basketball tournament. She’s been eagerly awaiting her Final Reading shoutout while she’s on top.
“I was the queen of sports this week. I want it documented,” she told me this afternoon.
Asked if she had a strategy in choosing her teams this year, she said she invested time into researching, with a little help from the nerds over at FiveThirtyEight (they do more than political analysis, who knew?).
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT WE’RE READING
Vermont hasn’t lost a single prisoner to COVID-19. But at what cost? (Seven Days)
Did a Vermont mail-in voting law doom a nearly $23 million school budget? (VTDigger)
What’s next for Burlington’s effort to regulate short-term rentals? (VTDigger)