Vermont’s county courthouses are a funny thing. The state judicial branch runs the court system, hosting trials and hearings in buildings across the state. But county courts aren’t state buildings — county governments own and are supposed to maintain the facilities. In a pinch, though, the counties, via the judicial branch, ask the Legislature to fork up funds.
This year, the state’s Capital Bill includes about $4 million for county courthouse projects in Essex, Lamoille and Windsor counties. The bulk of that money — more than $3.6 million — will fund renovations at the courthouse in tiny Essex County. The rest would pay for generators at two courthouses.
The appropriation requests caught the attention of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee, which heard Wednesday from the leader of the Vermont Association of County Judges. The association represents the elected officials that oversee county budgets and help with family and civil court cases.
“Is there a feeling, do you think, ‘Well, the state will bail us out?’” Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, the committee’s chair, asked Orange County Assistant Judge Joyce McKeeman.
McKeeman rejected the idea, but she did indicate some of her prior colleagues may have been a little, well, frugal.
“For decades, the two assistant judges in Essex County were very, very conservative fiscal stewards and did not want to raise the money that they could have raised to keep that building in good repair,” she said. The county’s new assistant judges are “trying to make up for decades of neglect, really,” she added.
County governments have limited power in Vermont, but they maintain authority to levy property taxes, which are typically incorporated into municipal tax rates. They also have the power to deposit money in capital reserve funds — accounts meant to handle large-scale building maintenance.
But not every county prepares for the worst, and McKeeman worried climate change could lead to more frequent damage like what occurred in previous years’ floods. Committee members questioned whether they should require counties to better plan for future capital expenditures.
“My concern is judges wanting to be fiscally prudent so to speak but going to the extreme of not really being prudent, but being cheap,” Rep. James Gregoire, R-Fairfield, said. “The chickens come home to roost some time, and we can’t afford to pay for those chickens.”
But McKeeman didn’t want lawmakers to get the wrong idea about assistant judges’ budgeting.
“The situation in Essex really was extreme,” she said.
— Ethan Weinstein
In the know
House Democrats filled the Cedar Creek Room alongside the associations that represent superintendents, school boards and principals to celebrate their education governance and finance reform package.
“This week, the House will vote on one of the most important bills in recent history,” Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said at the press conference. “This is the best chance we’ve had in a generation to make the system stronger, fair and more stable. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity.”
Yesterday, House Republicans held a press conference of their own, chastising their colleagues for not creating new, consolidated school district maps this legislative session.
— Ethan Weinstein
Rep. Troy Headrick, I-Burlington, is urging his colleagues to advance a bill that would, among other measures, establish a task force to “review the validity” of the state’s past recognition of four groups as Abenaki tribes — and determine whether any should be rescinded. Headrick presented H.362 to the House General and Housing Committee Wednesday morning, though the committee didn’t immediately take any action on the bill.
The legislation comes as leaders of Odanak and W8linak First Nations, two Abenaki communities centered in Quebec, have maintained for years that many members of Vemront’s state-recognized tribes are not Indigenous, and instead, are appropriating Abenaki identity. Those assertions, which are backed by scholars in Vermont and Canada, were the subject of a contentious presentation Headrick organized featuring some of those researchers, as well as Odanak and W8linak band members, at the Statehouse earlier this year.
“We have harm that we have to repair that was caused by the state,” Headrick told the committee.
Headrick’s bill would also revise the state’s standards used to review applications for tribal recognition, including new language requiring “input from federally or internationally recognized Indigenous communities,” which would include Odanak and W8linak.
— Shaun Robinson
A war of words
Following a federal directive that schools ban “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion-related programs, the Vermont Agency of Education last week asked school districts to submit certifications of compliance with a federal nondiscrimination requirement, called Title VI. On Monday, following a public outcry, Education Secretary Zoie Saunders walked back that request.
The fallout continued Wednesday.
“There’s fear that Vermont might change how diversity, equity and inclusion policy is implemented in our school system. The reality is that we’ve been asked to verify we comply with existing federal civil rights laws,” Gov. Phil Scott said in a press release, adding that Attorney General Charity Clark, a Democrat, agrees with that interpretation.
“Still, without acknowledging the facts, or how my Administration was handling the matter, some activists stoked more fear and anxiety throughout our education system,” Scott’s statement continued. “My office heard from hundreds of parents and educators – all of whom had been given inaccurate information or worse, misled.”
Later in the afternoon, ACLU Vermont responded with a statement of its own.
“The Trump administration’s goal here is no secret: it has openly announced its intention to brazenly weaponize Title VI as leverage to coerce schools into abandoning speech, ideas, and practices the administration does not like through an interpretation of the statute that prohibits DEI,” James Lyall, the organization’s executive director, said in the release.
“This attempt to certify ‘compliance’ with Title VI is not, as the Governor suggests, ‘business as usual’—as our neighboring states have recognized, it is a cynical attempt to gain leverage over schools and teachers. We urge the Governor to follow their lead and reject this attempt to undermine our laws and values,” Lyall said.
—Ethan Weinstein
