Last Friday Craig Bolio, Vermont’s tax commissioner, arrived in the House Committee on Ways and Means with a big idea.
What if, he mused, we paid for next year’s looming increase in public school spending over time? What if we, the state of Vermont, loaned some money to ourselves, and paid off the loan with property taxes?
The idea, which Bolio called a “deferred payable,” was the product of a recent “lightbulb moment,” he told VTDigger on Friday. Because committee members had shown interest, he said a team planned to hash out the details over the weekend.
And many details there were: What pot of money could the state use? What effect would it have on credit ratings?
Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, the committee chair, expressed surprise at the eleventh-hour idea, but acknowledged a degree of interest, so long as the administration could come up with something concrete.
Sadly, we may never know what Bolio had in mind
On Monday, State Treasurer Mike Pieciak dumped cold water on the proposal — which Kornheiser compared to a “payday loan.”
In testimony before Ways and Means, Pieciak said he’d spent the weekend working on the idea and speaking to the state’s financial advisers, who warned the plan had “fundamental issues” and would create a new “structural imbalance” in Vermont’s finances.
The organizations that determine Vermont’s credit rating, he said, would not be fans.
“Without a strong plan on the backend to reduce costs in the ensuing years, that would be even more concerning” for rating agencies, he said.
“We all wanted to keep an open mind on it,” Pieciak added, “but it was pretty clear that wouldn’t be something that I could support, or that the rating agencies would look favorably on.”
“I’m going to summarize that incredible nuance as a ‘hard no,’” Kornheiser said to the treasurer’s amusement.
In an email Tuesday, Bolio said he was “working with the Treasurer’s office to get a better understanding of their advisers’ perspective on the proposal.”
His idea could’ve wound up in the annual yield bill, which house lawmakers are attempting to use as a vehicle for education funding changes.
Originally, a vote on the legislation was scheduled for last Friday. Then, the vote was pushed to Tuesday. But when Tuesday arrived, Kornheiser announced abruptly that the vote would be pushed back again.
As it stands, the bill would bring back excess spending thresholds for school budgets starting next year, limiting budget increases for the highest spending districts to the rate of inflation. Any further spending would incur a financial penalty for district homestead taxpayers.
The bill would also set in motion a task force to figure out how Vermont could move to a funding system that provided districts with a set amount of money per student, allowing local voters to approve higher spending as desired but at a steeper cost to local property owners.
But with the continued delays, who knows what might wind up in the legislation. The associations representing school leaders, staff and school board members have voiced staunch opposition to some of the changes in the bill that they say will make it harder for schools to pass budgets.
Lawmakers seemed confused Tuesday afternoon, at which point a vote had already been pushed back twice that day.
A “potential vote” is now scheduled for Wednesday.
— Ethan Weinstein
In the know
Many Vermont prosecutors are handling more cases at a time than their bosses think is reasonable, data from the state’s judiciary shows. And without more state resources, those officials said, prosecutors could resign — or could have to turn cases away.
Ian Sullivan is the Rutland County state’s attorney. According to new data shared with VTDigger, each of the eight attorneys in his office is prosecuting an average of 397 cases at a given time — far from an acceptable workload, he said in an interview.
The Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs wants its county prosecutors to handle no more than 300 cases at a time. To be more in line with national standards, they should really be handling closer to 200, John Campbell, the department’s executive director, said in an interview. But he noted that the latter may not be a realistic goal.
As of March, many counties were far from those targets. In Lamoille County, the two state prosecutors were each juggling an average of 531 cases. The average caseload was 451 in Windham County, and 389 in Franklin County, judiciary data shows.
Only five counties’ state’s attorneys offices have an average workload per prosecutor below 300 cases, according to the data — and just one county, Grand Isle, is below 275 cases.
— Shaun Robinson
For weeks, health care providers have been telling lawmakers horror stories about dealing with insurance companies.
On an everyday basis, the overwhelming burden of time, effort and paperwork needed to make sure insurers will cover procedures and medication for patients is driving people out of an already short-staffed industry, providers say.
Lawmakers are considering a bill, H.766, which they hope will streamline providers’ interactions with insurers and give clinicians more bandwidth to see patients — a critical goal amid a chronic shortage of primary care providers and months-long wait times for specialists.
“This bill says, we trust clinicians to provide clinical care,” Rep. Alyssa Black, D-Essex, a primary sponsor of the bill, said in an interview. “Payers pay. Clinicians treat. That’s all.”
But insurance companies say the legislation could raise premiums for Vermonters across the state — at a time when health care costs are already skyrocketing.
— Peter D’Auria
On the move
On Tuesday, Gov. Phil Scott signed H.554 approving a charter for South Hero.
The Grand Isle County town of about 1,650, with a budget of under $2 million, has been trying to create a charter for two years.
In March 2022, residents voted 389-209 to approve a 1% local option tax on meals and alcohol sales. When it headed to the Legislature, local officials learned that state law required that the change be made in the town’s charter.
But like many towns in Vermont, South Hero did not have a charter, so it kicked off that process. Last August, voters approved the charter proposal, 380-220.
Now that the charter is approved, the town will be able to implement the local option tax at the beginning of the coming fiscal year on July 1.
— Auditi Guha
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Data dispatch
A newly public report on the state of manufactured homes shows how Vermont is bucking national trends in mobile home parks: Vermont’s parks are smaller compared to those in much of the United States.
Nearly two-thirds of manufactured home parks in the state are “small parks” with less than 26 lots, according to the report. Only two parks have more than 200 lots — in contrast to Florida, Texas and California, which have parks with more than 1,000 units.
Lawmakers are looking at S.310, a bill that would loosen Act 250 restrictions on park development below a certain size. The percentage of Vermonters living in manufactured home parks has dropped in the past decade, while the average age of parks, and the homes within them, is creeping up.
— Erin Petenko
What we're reading
Stamford officials say ‘no’ to flood-related federal buyout program, VTDigger
State will build secure juvenile facility in Vergennes, Seven Days
After a rough start, Vermont ski resorts glide into the end of the season, Vermont Public
