Your next trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles could be even more expensive.
An amendment to this year’s transportation bill, H.479, would increase most of the fees that the DMV charges — for driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations and license plates, among others — by almost 20%. A typical one-year car registration, for example, would go up from $74 to $89.
Most lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee, which proposed the amendment, and the House Transportation Committee, which reviewed it Tuesday morning, voted in favor of the fee increases. But the proposal has drawn opposition from Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s administration, and from all seven of the Republican members across those two committees.
Rep. Carl Demrow, a Corinth Democrat on Ways and Means, told the transportation committee that the goal of the fee increases was twofold: to keep pace with high inflation, and to generate additional revenue for the state’s transportation fund. The Joint Fiscal Office estimated that the additional revenue would total about $21 million annually.
Between the 2024 and 2026 fiscal years, lawmakers will need to come up with an additional $79 million to access federal grants that the state needs, Chris Rupe, a Joint Fiscal Office analyst, told the Ways and Means Committee last week. Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Brattleboro, the committee chair, told her colleagues that she thinks higher DMV fees would be a good way to help fill that gap.
The amount of the fee increases — 19.8%, to be exact — matches the amount that the federal government estimates personal spending on goods and services increased between July 2016 and December 2022, Rupe said. Almost none of the DMV’s fees have gone up since 2016.
House Ways and Means “is looking to make folks who are using these services at the DMV pay a little bit more of their share,” Demrow told the transportation committee Tuesday.
The agency’s new fees would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
But the state’s commissioner of finance and management, Adam Greshin, said in an interview late last week that he does not think the fee increase is necessary. Fees charged by the state Agency of Transportation have increased “far faster than inflation” in recent decades, he said. Moreover, Greshin said he thinks the administration’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year already sets aside enough money for future fiscal years.
At a time when households are feeling the effects of inflation themselves, “why are we asking Vermonters to dig into their pocketbooks and pay higher fees?” the commissioner said. “This is a fee increase on virtually every Vermonter who drives … I mean, this is a big deal.”
Some House Republicans on the transportation committee said Tuesday that they were, essentially, pretty salty over how the committee had been presented a significant fiscal change to its most important bill of the session near the end of the bill’s journey through the House, saying that they felt left out of the conversation.
“Talk about lack of transparency on the part of this Legislature,” Rep. Pattie McCoy, R-Poultney, bemoaned after a straw poll vote Tuesday morning. “I’m just extremely disappointed.”
H.479, with its amendments, is slated to be discussed on the House floor Wednesday.
— Shaun Robinson (with a Lola Duffort assist)
IN THE KNOW
There may be trouble on the horizon, but for now, the state’s tax receipts continue to surpass expectations.
Revenue collections for February have been compiled, and for the fifth month in a row, both the General Fund and the Transportation Fund ended with revenue above target, per the Agency of Administration. The Education Fund bounced back from its prior month miss to surpass that month’s target by $1.3 million. Across all three funds, receipts in February were a combined $203.6 million — 15.4%, above monthly expectations.
The biggest surpluses were in the General Fund, where revenues collected in February totaled $128.1 million — $25.6 million or 25% above the monthly cash flow revenue target. That’s mostly thanks to corporate income taxes and net interest earnings.
— Lola Duffort
ON THE MOVE
House lawmakers voted to advance H.31, a bill that would establish a group to study potential health and environmental impacts of pesticides and other treatments for aquatic nuisances. If it receives final approval on Wednesday, it will head to the Senate.
The bill grew out of controversy about a proposal to treat an invasive weed in Lake Bomoseen with herbicide. Anglers and locals protested, concerned that fish populations could be negatively impacted by the disappearance of the weed and that it could have unintended human health consequences.
“Using chemicals in lakes is controversial. It probably should be controversial,” Rep. Seth Bongartz, D-Manchester, told lawmakers as he spoke about the bill on the House floor. “It’s fair to say that, as a society, we have learned the hard way to be more and more leery of chemicals.”
The original bill proposed a moratorium on any chemical use in lakes until a study had been completed. Lawmakers nixed that section of the bill, in part because it would have impacted ongoing efforts to treat nuisances in other lakes, such as a pending treatment to reduce cyanobacteria in Lake Carmi. On Tuesday, Rep. Jarrod Sammis, R-Castleton, proposed an amendment to apply the moratorium only to Lake Bomoseen, but it failed 24-120.
— Emma Cotton
The House also gave preliminary approval to H.158, a bill revising the state’s bottle redemption law. It passed by a vote of 115-29 and is up for final approval Wednesday.
Among other things, the bill would require plastic water bottles to be redeemed, something not contemplated when the original Bottle Bill was passed in 1973.
“Who would have thought in 1973 that we would be purchasing water in plastic bottles?” asked Rep. Kristi Morris, D-Springfield, as he walked colleagues through the bill.
The bill also would increase the handling fee that redemption centers are paid from 4 cents to 5 cents a container, and would include wine bottles for the first time. A 15-cent deposit would be charged for wine bottles, just as spirits are already charged. Nips, bottles of spirits of less than 50 ml, would continue to be exempt.
The bill shifts responsibility for redemption and recycling to manufacturers.
— Fred Thys
The Senate advanced a sweeping ban on flavored tobacco by voice vote on Tuesday over the objections of those who said the measure was unlikely to work as intended.
“As a high school teacher, I saw the devastating effects of flavored tobaccos and vaping,” Sen. Martine Gulick, D-Chittenden Central, said while introducing the bill.
Flavors in e-cigarettes such as candy banana and vanilla custard expose children and teenagers to high concentrations of nicotine and make them particularly susceptible to early addiction, she said.
There was some skepticism on both sides of the aisle that the ban would stop youth vaping and smoking, particularly given that the Legislature only recently raised the age to purchase tobacco products to 21.
Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, said as a former smoker himself, he understood the severity of the impacts. But evidence from Massachusetts, where a ban has been in place since 2020, suggests that those who want to purchase flavored products will go to the internet or nearby states.
Sen. Bobby Starr, D-Orleans, and Sen. Russ Ingalls, R-Essex, pointed to the loss of revenue to small convenience store owners, as well as state coffers — around $5.6 million in tax revenue, according to the Joint Fiscal Office.
Ban advocates say those losses would be outweighed by the amount that would be saved annually from a reduction in smoking and the cost of related health complications.
The bill is up for final approval Wednesday.
— Kristen Fountain
The Senate on Tuesday offered preliminary approval to S.4, a wide-ranging bill which was pared back from its original form in response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that dramatically altered constitutionality tests for gun laws.
Beginning early in the legislative session, legal experts told senators that the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen precedent, decided in October, would throw new gun legislation into question. The case established a new legal test, which gun control measures would have to pass in order to be ruled constitutional: whether a given law was in line with the nation’s “historical tradition.”
Senators proceeded with several of S.4’s provisions that would bring Vermont state law in line with federal prohibitions on tampering with serial numbers and straw purchasing. But they stripped one major provision, which would have barred Vermonters under 21 years old from possessing semi-automatic firearms.
“There was no prohibition on youth possessing firearms back in the 1790s, which, unfortunately, was part of that Bruen decision,” Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, said on the floor Tuesday.
Senators approved the bill’s second reading by a 28-2 vote. It faces one more floor vote before it heads to the House for consideration.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Also given preliminary approval by the Senate on Tuesday was S.17, a bill that would make sweeping reforms to Vermont’s sheriff’s departments in response to a wave of allegations of wrongdoing across the state in recent months.
“The problem with sheriffs is not a case of a few bad apples,” Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison, said on the floor. “It’s a systemic problem that must be addressed with systemic solutions.”
Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, questioned Hardy on one provision of the bill requiring sheriffs to report their work hours and location on a regular basis. The section was added in response to a 2022 incident in which the Bennington County sheriff was found to be living out of state.
Brock asked, are other state employees required to provide similarly detailed time cards? What about elected officials?
Hardy pointed to the Senate itself: “We require that we are present for votes and we are accountable for being here for taking votes.”
Brock retorted that he found the section to be “unduly punitive.”
“It seems to be unduly punitive regarding a specific office, regarding a specific problem that happened with a specific officeholder in the past,” Brock said. “And what that officeholder did, allegedly, is very well known to voters, to whom that officer is responsible.”
The bill passed on its second reading, 23-7, and faces one more Senate vote before heading to the House.
— Sarah Mearhoff
The Senate also gave initial approval to a bill to strengthen school safety procedures Tuesday morning.
S.138 would require stronger safety procedures in schools, including mandates to lock exterior doors and conduct regular drills.
The bill ran into brief opposition earlier this month, when a coalition of social justice organizations came out against a requirement to create “threat assessment teams,” including law enforcement officials, who would monitor potential dangers in schools.
That provision was stripped from the bill, and the legislation didn’t encounter opposition on the floor Tuesday.
But in emotional remarks before the vote, Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison, spoke of the mental and emotional strain that active shooter drills take on children.
“It’s a tragedy that faces our country more than any other country in the world,” Hardy said, referencing a school shooting Monday in Nashville, Tennessee. “And for kids to have to grow up in this world, in our country, in our state, and have to bear the burden of the problems that we as adults have caused, is tragic.”
— Peter D’Auria
WHAT WE’RE READING
A chapel, 2 ex-governors and a lawsuit over ‘cancel culture’ (VTDigger)
Upstate New York shootout leads to attempted murder indictment against off-duty Vermont deputy (VTDigger)
Vermont House weighs ‘guardrails’ on state retirees’ health benefits (VTDigger)
New child tax credit offers financial support to families with young children (VTDigger)
Several Vermont judges and all Supreme Court justices get more bench time (VTDigger)
Underground in an old cheese cave, this Vermont brewer makes one-of-a-kind beer (Vermont Public)