Study up! The Senate voted on Tuesday morning to water down most of a bill aimed at making state contracts more transparent, opting to order a study after Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, made a case for further scrutiny from the floor.
The bill, S.96, as passed 5-1 by the Senate Government Operations Committee, would have required the disclosure of more details about state contracts and grants for services with private entities worth $25,000 or more, including how a contractor’s pay would compare to state employees’ pay for the same work.
The bill would also have doubled the cost savings — from 10% to 20% — that those private contracts would have to demonstrate over hiring public employees for a given project.
If the state works with a private contractor, “it should be because of new and innovative solutions that will save money — and not because workers are being paid less, or having their benefits cut, at the expense of the quality of service,” said Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Chittenden Central, one of the bill’s sponsors, when reporting the bill.
But Kitchel, who chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, urged senators to hit the brakes instead.
She presented an amendment, backed unanimously by her committee, that would task the administration with merely studying the feasibility of most of the proposals recommended by Senate Gov Ops. The deadline — next February.
The appropriations chair said that, while she supports the spirit of the bill, she was worried about the burden that new disclosure requirements could put on social service nonprofits, noting her experience as a volunteer on the board of a designated agency.
Kitchel said her committee was concerned, too, that the Joint Fiscal Office could not estimate the bill’s impacts on state finances — yet found that they could be substantial.
During a brief recess that followed, members of Senate Gov Ops gathered in a tight huddle near the desk of its chair Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison, who then rose to speak.
Kitchel “is always a wealth of history about state government,” Hardy said, adding that she would support the change, though not all of her Gov Ops colleagues felt the same.
S.96 “was a priority for most of the members of the committee,” Hardy said, adding that she hopes that the meat of the bill could be passed in a future legislative session.
Then Senators adopted the appropriations amendment on a nearly unanimous voice vote, before advancing the bill.
— Shaun Robinson
On the move
After granting preliminary approval to S.96, the Senate did the same for another labor-related measure on Tuesday: Proposal 3. The proposed constitutional amendment would add a right for workers to organize and collectively bargain among Vermont’s founding principles.
All 29 senators who were present for the vote approved Prop 3 on a roll call.
The proposal’s journey is far from over, though. It must still get the green light from a majority of House members this year — and then must get approved again, by both chambers, in the next biennium. After that, it would go to a statewide vote — expected in 2026 — for final approval.
— Shaun Robinson
Bolstering protections for tenants has been mostly absent from the housing conversation in Montpelier this year, with lawmakers focused on lowering barriers to housing development and addressing Vermont’s homelessness crisis.
But that changed on Tuesday afternoon, when House Progressives put forward an amendment to a housing spending bill that would have placed a temporary pause on “no cause” evictions statewide.
The amendment came as a growing list of communities have approved “just cause” eviction protections in recent years, which prohibit evictions for “no cause.” (Landlords would still be able to evict a tenant because they haven’t paid rent, or they’ve broken state landlord-tenant law or the provisions of their lease.)
Those local charter changes need the greenlight from the legislature and the governor, and so far, none have cleared both hurdles. Progs said the amendment was meant to press the issue, but the attempt was met with strong pushback.
“We haven’t vetted those policies,” said Rep. Mike McCarthy, D-St. Albans City, who chairs the committee that is the first to review local charter changes. “We haven’t done that for a number of reasons that are both policy and also politics.”
McCarthy told VTDigger/Vermont Public in February he thinks the local charter changes are likely to meet (yet another) veto from Gov. Phil Scott, without enough votes for an override.
Supporters said that “just cause” policies haven’t been vetted because they’ve been stonewalled.
“We’re kind of repeatedly told that we have to wait until we develop a statewide policy,” said Rep. Troy Headrick, P/D-Burlington, on the floor. “But then we’re also repeatedly told how hard it is to develop a statewide policy. That leaves these four charter changes just kind of sitting there. And I don’t think that’s right.”
The amendment failed dramatically, with just 13 voting in favor and 119 against. Lawmakers instead amended the bill to include a summer study of eviction law.
— Carly Berlin
The House passed H.871, which would create a working group to hash out plans for restarting the state’s school construction aid program, including how a program should be funded, and how it should prioritize funding.
The bill would also create a facilities master plan grant program, which would help supervisory unions plan for their facilities’ future.
The chamber also advanced an amended version of H.874, a miscellaneous education bill. As it originally passed out of the House Education Committee, it included $1.9 million for Vermont’s competitive Community Schools grant program. That appropriation was reduced to $1 million, and the bill now creates a study to better understand the effectiveness of community schools.
Rep. Erin Brady, D-Williston, vice chair of the House Education Committee, told her colleagues on the floor that the community schools framework represents “a fundamental rethinking of how to deliver public education” in line with Vermont’s ”student-centered” approach to learning.
— Ethan Weinstein
Visit our 2024 Bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following.
In the know
Senators gathered in the Cedar Creek Room on Tuesday afternoon to tout their progress on their “number-one priority” for the legislative session, as described by Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central: flood recovery.
With five flood-focused bills having made it past the Senate thus far, Baruth said the upper chamber’s work on the issue “has begun to show very, very visible results.”
On Tuesday alone, senators moved two such bills — S.259, which would establish a climate “superfund” to pay for future natural disaster response, and S.310, which seeks to reform the state government’s response to future disasters — through their final stages of passage, sending them over to the House.
Also passed by the Senate and now under House review is S.213, which would establish new regulations for river, wetland and dam management which prioritize flood resiliency. Already signed into law are S.160, written to reimburse municipalities for lost state education property tax payments from flood-abated properties, and the Budget Adjustment Act, which included millions in flood recovery dollars.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Nearly a quarter of households sheltered through Vermont’s motel voucher program were set to depart on Monday, following another round of confusion for unhoused Vermonters who have sought shelter in state-subsidized motel rooms.
As of 1:30 p.m., around 360 households of nearly 1,600 in the program were set to check out, Department for Children and Families spokesperson Nya Pike wrote in an email in response to questions from VTDigger/Vermont Public.
— Carly Berlin
The post office is coming back to the capital city, according to the U.S. Postal Service, and the goal is to have it ready before summer.
On Friday afternoon, the Postal Service signed a lease agreement for a space in the City Center building on 89 Main St. in Montpelier. A grand opening date has not been set yet, according to Postal Service spokesperson Stephen Doherty.
— Juan Vega de Soto
What we’re reading
Utility seeks to surrender license to operate Green River Reservoir hydroelectric facility, VTDigger
Vermont College of Fine Arts announces “affiliation agreement” with CalArts, VTDigger
Vermont’s post-pandemic teacher shortage has gotten worse, Vermont Public