A question: How much does it cost, for the year, to run the Statehouse?
The answer, by at least one measure: just shy of $25 million.
That’s the amount the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office is recommending lawmakers appropriate for Statehouse operations for the 2026 fiscal year, which starts in July. It would be about a 9% increase over the roughly $22 million lawmakers doled out for those purposes for the current (2025) fiscal year.
That includes funding to pay legislators and run the offices that support their work, including Legislative Operations (think: committee assistants), Legislative Counsel, Human Resources, Information Technology and the Joint Fiscal Office itself. It also funds the House Clerk and Senate Secretary’s offices, in addition to the Sergeant-at-Arms and the Capitol Police.
Scott Moore, who manages legislative finances for JFO, presented the 2026 spending plan to the House Appropriations Committee Friday morning. The provisions will ultimately be included, in some form or another, in the “big bill” that funds state government overall.
Moore said the projected spending increase largely accounts for the roughly 6.5% raises legislators and their staff were given ahead of this year’s legislative session. The raises are linked to legislation approved last year that lays out how much certain state employees are paid.
(That’s unrelated to legislators’ unsuccessful attempts over the last biennium to increase their own pay, specifically, which would have resulted in far greater salary increases.)
Other reasons for the 2026 budget increase, Moore said, are the rising costs of health care as well as a bump in the rates at which legislators can receive reimbursements for some expenses that’s tied to increases in similar reimbursement rates used by the federal government.
The budget would not, Moore noted, create any new positions supporting the Legislature.
Friday morning’s discussion brought the leaders of different Statehouse offices, such as JFO head Catherine Benham and Sergeant-at-Arms Agatha Kessler, into the House Appropriations Committee room. Seemingly moved by the Valentine’s Day spirit, Middlebury Democratic Rep. Robin Scheu, the committee chair, was eager to share some love.
“We really appreciate all the work that you do. Obviously, we couldn’t do our work without you,” she told Benham, Kessler and the others.
Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden, the committee’s vice chair, then chimed in — “they probably appreciate working with us, too,” he said.
“Well, some of us,” Scheu replied, drawing laughs around the table. “Some of us.”
— Shaun Robinson
In the know
The Vermont Supreme Court Friday dismissed a suit filed by two senators over Gov. Phil Scott’s appointment of Zoie Saunders as interim education secretary, calling the case “moot.”
In the decision penned by Justice William Cohen, the court stated that because Scott reappointed Saunders again in November while the Legislature was out of session, “this latter appointment superseded the earlier appointment and is plainly consistent” with state law.
Friday’s ruling likely ends the nearly year-long fight over Saunders’ position as Vermont’s top education official. This legislative session, she has played a key role in developing Scott’s education reform package, the year’s most high-profile legislation.
Chief Justice Paul Reiber, in a concurring opinion, said the court had chosen “restraint.” The principles of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances,” he argued, sometimes require a branch of government not to act.
“Responsible execution of that power means, at times, we have nothing to say,” Reiber wrote.
— Ethan Weinstein
Just hours after Brooke Rollins was sworn in as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C. Thursday, in Vermont, Richard Amore received a 7:30 p.m. email from his human resources office saying he was terminated effective immediately. Amore had served as the head of economic development for USDA’s Rural Development team for just four months.
“We’re a staff of about 30, we’ve lost 5, all probationary employees,” Amore said, speaking about the Rural Development office, adding that some have been very recently hired. “It breaks my heart what happened yesterday. I’m committed to the rural communities and you’re taking away the resources, the funding,” he added.
Amore’s team is not alone. Several thousand so called probationary employees at USDA regional offices across the country also were suddenly laid off, including within the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the National Forest Service.
It was just the latest of several actions that President Donald Trump has taken since starting his second term that have roiled parts of the state’s workforce. Last week’s temporary freeze on federal funding has been resolved for some of those affected, while others continue to await payment. And the end to all activity by the U.S. Agency for International Development, also called USAID, has left local contractors and volunteers reeling.
Read more about the impacts of White House action on Vermonters here.
— Klara Bauters
Heart attack
Montpelier’s famed Valentine’s Day phantom struck again Friday, and Statehouse lovers (or at least, lovers at the Statehouse) were greeted with a giant row of hearts along the columns at the front of the building. Happy V-Day to all — and stay warm out there this weekend!
— Shaun Robinson
