Every day, it seems, lawmakers are faced with ever-more-pressing questions about the state of our world and what, if anything, can be done about it. Recently, some have been looking back to their school days — like, high school science days — to ponder one that is especially deep:
Where, exactly, is the center of the Earth?
It turns out, the center isn’t quite where we thought it was, Dan Martin, a regional advisor for the U.S. National Geodetic Survey, told the House Government Operations Committee late last week.
Martin’s agency defines and manages the national system of coordinates — you know, latitude and longitude — that tell us where we are and help us find our way, basically, anywhere else.
Modern technology has pegged the center of the Earth about 2 meters from the point that has long been used, nationwide, as the origin for coordinate measurements, Martin said. That, combined with the movement of tectonic plates and human development, has prompted the feds to develop an updated set of coordinate data for the first time in several decades.
Cue S.154, a bill that would align Vermont’s state-level measurement system — called the “Vermont State Plane Coordinate System” — with the newly-revised federal standard, better known by its elegant title, the “North American Terrestrial Reference Frame of 2022.”
Some states have already approved similar legislation, with others marking bills up this year, according to Martin. S.154 passed the full Senate unanimously late last month and cleared the House government operations panel Tuesday afternoon.
The bill consists largely of technical changes to existing laws and, as such, has faced little to no opposition. But it’s drawn interest this month from lawmakers, prompting them to contemplate the ways we humans try to make sense of our world.
“We’re all moving … We’re all existing in, you know, sort of human timescales,” said Rep. Mike McCarthy, D-St. Albans, who chairs the government operations committee, on Friday. “Nothing is ever just where you think it is on a map. And maps need to change.”
To that point, the new federal measurements won’t have everyone tearing up their property lines, Martin explained. What will change, he said, are the coordinates that get assigned to a given location. The feds expect to roll out their new dataset at some point in 2025.
Seemingly the only hiccup for the bill — “An act relating to the Vermont State Plane Coordinate System” — came when it was referred to the Senate Transportation Committee. Sen. Andrew Perchlik, D/P-Washington, told McCarthy’s panel Friday that he suspects this was a mistake — and that it should have gone to Senate Gov Ops instead.
“The joke is that it’s because it had the word ‘plane’ in it, and maybe the Secretary didn’t read the bill and just thought, we deal with airports,” Perchlik said.
McCarthy was happy to entertain the theory, adding that he appreciates “any chance to rip on our Senate colleagues.”
— Shaun Robinson
In the know
In their weekly joint discussion of education finance, members of the House ways and means and education committees turned their attention to the roughly two-thirds of Vermont homeowners who pay property taxes at least in part based on their income.
At issue was the “lag” in Vermont’s property tax credit system, and what it might mean amid this year’s unprecedented rise in projected education spending.
Vermonters whose household income in 2023 was less than $128,000 are eligible for a property tax credit, the calculation of which can take into account both the value of their home and their income.
But the credit works on a delay. For example, when people receive their fiscal year 2025 tax bill, they will receive a property tax credit based on the property tax rates, property values, and income from the previous year. So if any of those three variables changes substantially — as is expected to happen this year, with property tax rates and property values projected to surge — a household must wait a year to receive a property tax credit that reflects that change.
Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Brattleboro, the chair of Ways and Means, acknowledged that there might be “short term” ways to address the lag that might be “different” than longer term solutions.
On Tuesday, legislators considered two short term methods. The first would be increasing the property tax credits the state doles out by a set percentage, for example, 10%. To fund the change, homestead and non-homestead tax rates would increase, unless lawmakers added a new revenue stream to the education fund.
The second strategy to provide tax relief would be to hold the average bill change of all homestead property tax payers to some specified percentage increase (prior to the Common Level of Appraisal adjustment). Without adding new revenue to the education fund, that decision would shift a disproportionate amount of the tax burden to non-homestead property tax payers.
Ways and Means members did not explicitly signal which — if any — option might receive further consideration.
Both methods “don’t solve the real problem,” Rep. Chris Mattos, R-Milton said, the “almost 15% increase in spending. We’re just tryin’ to shuffle around the money that pays for it.”
— Ethan Weinstein
As word got out last week that Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand Isle, had returned to the Vermont Statehouse, a steady stream of friends and colleagues ducked into the first-floor committee room he has occupied for the better part of four decades. They told familiar jokes, dispensed hugs and wished him well.
“It’s like home,” Mazza said with a laugh. “Like home.”
Until last month, the dean of the Vermont Senate had rarely missed a day — or a vote — since he joined the body in 1985. But a series of health problems have conspired to keep him out of the building for much of this year’s legislative session.
— Paul Heintz
Visit our 2024 Bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following.
Field notes
Seven months after the July floods that pummeled much of the state, Barre City leaders still shudder to recall the mud.
While many central Vermont communities had mud- and dust-covered streets after the flood, Barre officials told Senate lawmakers on a field trip last week they believed their city held the record as the muddiest in the state.
“Montpelier got higher water. We got mud,” Barre City Manager Nick Storellicastro said. “The cleanup for the businesses and the houses was very labor intensive.”
— Erin Petenko
On the hill
In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Vermont’s two U.S. senators voted against a $95 billion spending package slated to dispense billions of dollars in aid to foreign allies, including Israel and Ukraine.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., cited Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas, in which more than 28,000 Palestinians have been killed, as the reason for their opposition. The Senate handily passed the bill with bipartisan support in a 70-29 vote. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., was the only other Democratic caucus member to vote ‘no.’
— Sarah Mearhoff
Tick tock
The countdown begins! Crossover Day has been scheduled for Friday, March 15, according to a memo from the Senate. So-called money bills get a little more time to marinate in committee; their deadline is Friday, March 22.
For those of you not already celebrating Crossover Day as the good ‘n proper holiday that it is, that means both Senate and House bills must be passed out of their committee of origin by that day, or they wither in bill purgatory. And this year, the deadline is for real: It’s the second year of the biennium, so bills don’t get a second shot next legislative session (unless they go back to square one and are introduced all over again, of course).
Now, the perennial caveat: The world under the Golden Dome works in strange and mysterious ways, and some may say that rules were made to be broken. If the Legislature has the will to make a bill happen past Crossover Day, there are levers to pull (Strike-all amendments! Vehicle bills! Hell, throw that bad boy in the budget!). In the wise words of rockstar Lenny Kravitz: “Baby, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
Corrections section
In Friday’s newsletter, I misidentified one of the three types of mushrooms being cultivated by Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun. She is growing shitake mushrooms, not portobello. “I’m not sure if Portobello do well in a home cultivating setting. But my shitakes are thriving,” she wrote to me Friday night, attaching a photo for evidence. I regret the error.
— Sarah Mearhoff
What we’re reading
‘A perfect mess’: school construction needs may fall by the wayside in a chaotic budget year, VTDigger
Frustration mounts over delayed vote on Vermont’s fair and impartial policing policy, VTDigger
