A House committee has gutted a bill that was supposed to be about stopping robocalls, replacing all the language in the bill to use it instead as a vehicle to promote economic and workforce development.
It’s not clear what, if anything, the Legislature will do now to protect Vermonters from robocalls.
“It’s dead,” Rep. Michael Marcotte, R-Coventry, chair of the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development, told VTDigger on Wednesday, though he allowed that the proposal might be revived in some other bill.
Marcotte said his committee needed a vehicle to expedite workforce development, which is contained in H.703, a bill the House sent to the Senate weeks ago but that the Senate is still taking testimony on.
The same was true of economic development, he said, which is contained in H.159, a bill the Senate sent over only last week and which is still in the House Committee on Ways and Means. Marcotte said it could take time to get out of that committee.
“It took so long for H.159 to get to us,” Marcotte said.
Marcotte said it was important to get House votes quickly on those initiatives as the legislative session rushes to a close.
The House commerce committee has gotten rid of the proposal to pay people to move to Vermont that the Senate had supported as well as money to market Vermont to people who might want to move here.
“We don’t see it as being appropriate or that it gets us a good return on the investment,” Marcotte told VTDigger.
In testimony Wednesday, Joan Goldstein, the state commissioner of economic development, pushed back on the deletions in a lengthy exchange with Marcotte.
“We all know we’ve got a worker shortage,” she said. “What is the plan? How do we get new people to come in? Employers need new people right now.”
Marcotte replied that the program is not a top reason people cite for moving to Vermont.
Goldstein argued that marketing is necessary to bring people to the state. She said the University of Vermont Medical Center has referred prospective medical providers to this program in an attempt to attract them.
“Without it, we just stagnate,” she said. “My plea is: Help us. We need people to fill these jobs.”
The House commerce committee moved the money for the program that pays people to move to Vermont, $10.2 million, to the capital investment program, which provides grants to businesses and nonprofits for projects that will encourage investment and create jobs in each region of Vermont.
The Senate has not appropriated any money for the grants.
Gov. Phil Scott asked for $50 million. Last year, the Legislature appropriated $10.5 million for the program, and the Department of Economic Development received 100 applications for $90 million in projects from child care facilities, performing arts venues, museums, restaurants and breweries.
“The budget as passed by both the House and the Senate all but eliminates the Governor’s recommendations for community economic revitalization initiatives,” Secretary of Administration Kristin Clouser wrote in a letter to members of the House and Senate conference committee on the budget on Wednesday.
She wrote that the governor’s budget invested $100 million of federal funds into small business and rural communities that was not reflected in the House’s bill and that the Senate restored only $15 million of his recommendations, declining to fund the $50 million capital investment grant program.
“That’s money taken directly away from our efforts to reverse the shrinking workforce and economic stagnation in our smaller communities,” Clouser wrote. “This is a pivotal time to make investments in the areas of the state that need it the most in order to provide sustainable long-term economic revitalization.”
The House bill could serve as a vehicle to address the governor’s concerns, according to the governor’s spokesperson, Jason Maulucci.
The House commerce committee also modified the Covid relief fund that businesses asked to help them keep employees on the payroll when they have to stay home because of Covid-19.
The Senate version of the fund would help businesses through 2022. The House version would help them from July 1 of this year to June 30, 2023.
Morgan Nichols, New England regional manager for the Main Street Alliance, said the business group and its members were thrilled by the bill’s advance.
“This moves us one step closer to ensuring that workers and small businesses have the financial security to be able to put health and safety first when a worker experiences loss of work for Covid-related reasons,” Nichols said.
Kevin Gaffney, deputy commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation, warned the House committee Wednesday that the governor does not support the use of federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act signed by President Joe Biden last year for programs that do not fund long-term economic development.
[See the latest status on key pieces of legislation using VTDigger’s 2022 Bill Tracker.]
The former robocall bill now includes all of the provisions for workforce development that the House had sent over to the Senate as H.703 weeks ago. It would appropriate $26.9 million to address “critical needs” in nursing and skilled trades and to provide training opportunities to young adult Vermonters who want to learn new skills.
The House committee removed $25 a week in extra unemployment compensation that the Senate had proposed.
“We feel the Legislature made a commitment to these folks,” said Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, chair of the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee.
The House committee also eliminated a raise in the minimum wage that the Senate had proposed, from the current $12.55 an hour to $13.75 as of Jan. 1 and to $15 as of 2024.
Without the increase, under current law, the minimum wage would go up only with the Consumer Price Index or by 5%, whichever is greater, every year.
“Businesses are having a hard time,” Marcotte said, arguing that, in many cases, businesses are paying more than the minimum wage for entry-level jobs anyway.
“That change is important to not render the annual increase people are entitled to meaningless,” Sirotkin said in defense of the increase the Senate passed.
“That’s what conference committees are for,” Sirotkin said of the House changes. He said he is trying to get the Senate bill into conference as quickly as possible.
The House committee voted out the changes Wednesday 10-0, with Rep. Kirk White, D/P Bethel, absent. The bill now heads to the House Ways and Means Committee.
