“The federal government is no longer a partner with us,” Big Hartman, executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, told the House Appropriations Committee earlier this month. “And, there’s more need than ever.”
Hartman was asking legislators to help keep the commission’s current operations whole for the upcoming 2027 fiscal year, which starts in July. For that period, the commission does not expect to receive funding it’s relied on in the past from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support investigations into alleged housing discrimination, which make up about half its work overall. The amount of that funding varies, but could be around $90,000, Hartman explained.
At the same time, Hartman said, Gov. Phil Scott’s proposed 2027 budget would require the panel to absorb much of that loss by reducing staff costs. But with only nine employees who already struggle to respond to growing numbers of complaints, they said, it’s hard to see how the panel would achieve those savings without laying someone off or cutting services. The commission also investigates discrimination complaints by state employees, among other functions.
The governor’s proposal amounts to $27,000 less, overall, for the commission’s work in the upcoming fiscal year than lawmakers approved for 2026.
“It’s really difficult to envision how we could serve the Vermonters that are seeking our services, accomplish our mission, meet the needs of this moment with even less money than we have this year,” Hartman told House Approps.
In addition to putting up about $65,000 to replace the governor’s proposed staffing savings, Hartman is asking legislators to fund three new positions for their office — a policy director, investigating attorney and a paralegal — for a total ask that’s about $430,000 higher than Scott proposed.
It’s one of many asks the House panel is now starting to consider and must figure out how to prioritize. The committee will move into the budget-building phase of its work after next week’s break for Town Meeting Day. Legislators have long warned that this year’s budget, under pressure from waning federal support across many policy areas, will be tough to balance.
For its part, the Human Rights Commission has a bit of a leg up. The House General and Housing Committee listed the commission’s funding proposal as a “highest priority” to be included in this year’s budget bill in a memo to House Approps late last week. Every year, policy committees send budget writers their opinions on the governor’s recommendations, as well as requests for funding from lobbyists and advocacy organizations.
Requests also come from state agencies, legislators themselves and members of the public. Not to mention, there’s more financial pressure to come from the costs associated with legislation that lawmakers want to pass this year.
House Approps started poring over a spreadsheet of all the requests it’s received so far that aren’t accounted for in the governor’s recommended budget on Friday. Right now, that amount stands at about $195 million. But Rep. Robin Scheu, D-Middlebury, the panel’s chair, said the final tally could be closer to $300 million.
Compared to previous years, “People didn’t really cut back,” she told her colleagues Friday.
Scheu said after the hearing that the panel needs to spend more time combing through existing state spending to look for places where money could be moved around before she could say, with any specificity, how much she is comfortable spending above the governor’s request. It is certainly nowhere near $300 million, or even half of that, she said.
Scheu gestured at a copy of the spreadsheet on the table.
“Last year, I said, if you make it off this spreadsheet, it’s like getting into Harvard,” she said. “This year, it’s going to be, you got into Harvard — and you landed on the Moon.”
— Shaun Robinson
In the know
Officials plan to limit visitors to a single point of entry every day that legislators are in session starting as soon as next month, Agatha Kessler, the Statehouse’s Sergeant-at-Arms, said Friday.
As it stands — and has long been the case — anyone can enter the Statehouse through several different, unguarded doors. But since the start of this year’s legislative session, officials have been restricting access to a door in the rear of the building one day per week, in its loading dock, while allowing broader access on other days.
That restricted access has also come with security screening. In a small vestibule just inside the loading area door, officials set up an X-ray machine to scan bags and officers wave a metal detecting wand up and down each person’s body.
Even bags of takeout food can be subject to a quick look inside.
Kessler said the beefed up screening could start as soon as the second week in March, when legislators return from their Town Meeting Day break, but emphasized that wasn’t set in stone.
“It is very likely to happen this session,” she said. “That would be my goal.”
Read more about the planned change here.
— Shaun Robinson and Ethan Weinstein
The Senate Finance Committee heard testimony from Cristobal Young, a sociology professor at Cornell University, on tax-related migration Friday. Young’s 2017 book, “The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight,” sought to unpack errors in the commonly held theory that high earners are likely to flee areas that raise top-bracket taxes.
Young’s presentation came in the context of efforts from state lawmakers in both chambers to levy higher taxes on the wealthiest Vermonters. Rep. Teddy Waszazak, D-Barre City, introduced three bills on the subject last month, and Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Chittenden Central, recently sponsored a bill, S.282, along similar lines.
“The question comes up … do tax increases cause people with wealth to perhaps move?” said committee chair Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, in her introduction of Young.
Essentially, Young argued, national data show that the impact of high-earner tax hikes on migration patterns is too small to be relevant in state policy conversations. Studies comparing movement between state border counties, as well as estimating the fraction of wealthy people who moved for tax reasons in particular, bore out this thesis, he said.
“Every state wants more rich people, but they’re not very mobile,” Young said. “A smart strategy for states is focusing on attracting and retaining people at the beginning of their career.”
Several lawmakers questioned whether Young’s data constitute a fully appropriate model for considering Vermont’s particular economic situation.
“I would be interested to dive deeper,” said Sen. Thomas Chittenden, D-Chittenden Southeast.
— Theo Wells-Spackman
Juggling jurisdiction
House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Martin LaLonde, D-South Burlington, started a Friday committee meeting with a rare instruction for the committee. “We’re going to really try to stick to our lane,” he said.
Lawmakers in the committee began taking testimony on a bill, H.772, that would make sweeping changes to the tenant eviction process. The bill originated in the House General and Housing Committee, in which lawmakers “spent many weeks trying to find compromises,” LaLonde said.
LaLonde tried to wrangle committee members and get them to focus on how the bill’s provisions might relate to civil court procedure. But committee members couldn’t help but ask about other matters.
The most recent form of the bill says that eviction notices to tenants can be hand delivered by sheriffs. Rep. Ian Goodnow, D-Brattleboro, asked why only sheriffs could deliver the message.
Later on, the committee was reviewing a section of the bill regarding when a tenant’s property can be thrown out after they are court ordered to leave an apartment.
“As you know, I’m not a lawyer, right?” said Rep. Ken Goslant, R-Northfield. “But this whole document screams, screams judicial.”
“It kind of overlaps some, but there are certain decisions they’re making after weeks of testimony that don’t have anything to do with the court process,” LaLonde said from the head of the table. With crossover about two weeks away, lawmakers will have to try to sit on their hands.
— Charlotte Oliver
Catch you later
With legislators heading back to their hometowns for next week’s Town Meeting Day recess, your favorite Statehouse newsletter will also be taking a beat. After today’s edition, Final Reading will return on Tuesday, March 10, when the House and Senate gavel back into action and the rubber hits the road before crossover.
Until then, enjoy those Town Meeting Day pies — and keep an eye on VTDigger.org for coverage of local results from across the state.
— Shaun Robinson
