When Vermont lawmakers convened for the 2024 legislative session in Montpelier on Wednesday, one topic quickly emerged as their top priority for the next four months: responding to last year’s catastrophic floods and mitigating future ones.
From the moment the gavel fell, signaling the start of the session, lawmakers sent the clear message that fallout from the flooding will touch nearly every area of policy this year — from state budgeting, to housing development, to climate change mitigation, to future disaster preparation and more.
And part of that work, according to legislative leaders, will include helping Vermonters who are still reeling nearly six months after the initial flood hit.
“This year, we’ve weathered multiple catastrophic floods that forced people from their homes, destroyed businesses, and left in its wake over a billion dollars in losses,” House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said in her opening floor speech of the session. “Vermonters are remarkably resilient in the face of adversity, but they are counting on us to take bold action.”
With 2024 being the second half of the Legislature’s two-year biennium, lawmakers were largely able to hit the ground running on Wednesday. Indeed, this week’s committee schedules are packed with wall-to-wall hearings on the floods.
Talk of the floods reached its highest, and most personal, pitch at a noon rally on the Statehouse steps. Flanked by central Vermont House members who have released a sweeping flood response omnibus bill, impacted residents of Montpelier, Barre, Plainfield and more made it clear that they have not been made whole since July.
Mary Zentara, a teacher and single mother living in Montpelier, stood before the Statehouse and gestured toward her city’s downtown. With a glimmer of optimism, she said the capital city “has begun to rebuild on many levels, and that is just wonderful.”
But roughly a half mile away at her State Street home, Zentara said she and others like her are “stuck in limbo.”
“My home is destroyed on the inside. I don’t have electricity, water, heat. The house is down to studs on the first floor. I don’t have a kitchen. I don’t have a bathroom. The floor is down to dirt in most of the kitchen,” Zentara said.
“And (we) are just waiting and wondering what will become of our homes,” she went on. “So I am urging the Legislature, our governor, to allocate money to supporting us community members of our beloved Montpelier, and I’m urging the governor to have this money allocated in the budget.”
The Budget Adjustment Act, typically completed in the first half of the legislative session, will be lawmakers first, and fastest, opportunity to address the flooding damages statewide.
But by the close of legislative session in May, lawmakers must pass the state’s fiscal year 2025 budget — nicknamed “the big bill” — which will offer a more complete financial plan for the state. While Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has warned that he anticipates this year’s budget to be lean, Democratic state lawmakers have painted a less bleak fiscal picture for the state.
At the noon rally, Rep. Conor Casey, D-Montpelier, described slinging couches out of his constituents’ wet basements in July, and consoling neighbors who lost everything. “We did the best we could,” he said of this summer’s volunteer efforts, “but we need more from our state.”
He then made a direct plea to Scott, who is set to present his budget proposal to lawmakers later this month: “Gov. Scott, a budget is a reflection of your values.”
“Of course it’s expensive, but the cost of inaction is going to cost so much more down the line,” Casey said. “Let’s be clear, we’re fighting for our very existence here.”
Correction: An earlier version of a photo caption in this story misspelled the first name of the co-owner of Montpelier’s Onion River Outdoors.
