Vermont’s Democratic state Legislature has twice sent a paid family and medical leave bill to Republican Gov. Phil Scott just to see it vetoed. This year, despite being buttressed by a historic supermajority in the House, Democrats say they will not even get the measure to his desk.
Vermont House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, is admitting defeat for now. Senate leaders have made clear since before the session began that they believe an overhaul of the state’s child care system, not a paid leave program, should take precedence. And a week ago, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, stated plainly in an interview with Vermont Public that a House-passed bill that would enact one of the most robust paid leave programs in the country did not have the votes to pass the Senate.
As recently as last week, House lawmakers were attempting to press their case, arguing that the 12 weeks of leave Vermonters could access to care for themselves or a loved one was well worth the 0.55% payroll tax contemplated in legislation.
But Krowinski, one of paid leave’s chief champions at the Statehouse, now says that there will not be an end-of-session showdown on this topic.
“With the Senate, we don’t agree on the funding source. We don’t agree on how it’s administered. We don’t agree on who’s covered with it,” Krowinski told VTDigger in an interview Thursday. “And so at this time, I think it’s best that we continue to work on this over the summer and fall and come back to it in January.”
Neither will the House hold the Senate’s child care bill hostage. The lower chamber is currently in possession of S.56, which would inject around $120 million a year into child care subsidies. Krowinski promised to bring it to the floor next week.
The child care bill, as passed out of the Senate, also included a parental leave benefit. But Krowinski said she would hold firm to the House’s position that this provision be stripped and that a comprehensive package be reintroduced next year. According to Baruth, the Senate is fine with setting parental leave aside for now.
“We will agree to that,” he said Thursday.
The Senate has long been lukewarm about paid leave. So to improve the policy’s chances of passing in the upper chamber in the second year of the biennium, Krowinski said she is planning to take her case to the public.
“What I’m hearing is that there is a strong interest in really ramping up a grassroots campaign over the summer and fall to knock on doors across the state, to hold town halls, to do some more education about this,” she said.
Baruth did not exactly invite a public pressure campaign upon the Senate. But he freely acknowledged that the campaign waged by champions of child care reform had a “big effect on legislators and voters.”
“Given where the votes are on our side (on paid leave) it would take a strong campaign in the offseason,” he said. “I understand that the House is going to take that up, and we’ll see what happens with it.”
Michelle Fay, executive director of Voices for Vermont’s Children, the multi-issue advocacy group that pushed for paid leave this session, said that “getting this policy right matters” and that the group supported the decision to return to the matter next year.
“Good policy is worth fighting for, and Vermont’s working families and unpaid caregivers are counting on us,” she said. “Our coalition is committed to educating and organizing around this critical bill, and we will be back next session with a strong and active voice in Montpelier.”
But if paid leave advocates must seek to emulate the successful push for child care funding, there’s one thing they’ll likely need a lot more of: cash.
Let’s Grow Kids, the deep-pocketed advocacy group that championed child care at the Statehouse, has spent at least $195,000 on advertising alone this session, according to disclosures filed with the Secretary of State’s Office. It also paid lobbyists another $35,000.
Voices for Vermont’s Children has disclosed more than $13,000 in total lobbying expenditures this session (and not all of it on paid leave). Main Street Action, another paid leave lobbying group, reported another $9,450. Neither group spent anything on advertising, according to disclosures.
“I’ve mentioned this in a few settings, that our coalition does not have robust funding. And so it’s all of us who care about this issue, just kind of chipping in a little bit of our time,” Fay said. “And so we are trying to get more investment because it does seem like in the Senate, in order to get an issue before them, you have to have a pretty well-funded campaign.”
Meanwhile, a voluntary paid family and medical leave plan created by the Scott administration is moving forward. Benefits will begin for state employees starting July 1, and officials say that employers will be able to buy into the privately administered insurance pool in 2024. (All workers will be allowed to opt in by 2025, regardless of their employer’s participation.)
Democrats and advocates have panned the benefits as too meager and unlikely to be accessed by the low-income workers who need it most. Administration officials argue their approach achieves universal access at a much lower cost to the state.
“Importantly, the Governor’s approach does not rely on imposing new taxes or fees on already-overburdened Vermonters,” Jason Maulucci, the governor’s press secretary, said in an email Thursday. “And, unlike proposals contemplated in the Legislature this year, it also does not rely on the State creating an entirely new bureaucracy with over 60 new employees, adding millions of dollars in new I.T. infrastructure, or the ongoing operating expenses associated with both.”