Vermont’s state government could be on its way to further adoption of artificial intelligence.
Through an executive order, Gov. Phil Scott created the Vermont Artificial Intelligence Economic Taskforce on Monday. And first on its agenda, the body must present up to five recommendations within 90 days for how state government could adopt AI to better serve the public. The group will also work to educate state leaders on how they could apply AI to their work.
Neale Lunderville, who’s worked alongside both Republican and Democratic governors and now serves as president and CEO of Vermont Gas, will chair the body. Membership will include the secretaries of the Vermont Agency of Digital Services and Agency of Commerce and Community Development, as well as leaders from a variety of economic sectors.
In an interview, Lunderville said he believes AI could give Vermont’s small businesses and rural communities a leg up — but only if the state acts fast and responsibly.
“We need to really understand (AI) before we can make smart decisions about it,” he said, nodding to people’s understandable fears about the rapidly expanding tech.
Given AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT that prove powerful “off the shelf,” Lunderville said the technology could be a leveler for small companies. For example, he pointed to small manufacturers using AI to draft requests for proposals, which could cut a 20-hour process down to five hours.
Given his experience holding multiple Cabinet-level positions in Vermont, Lunderville said he could imagine a variety of ways state government might benefit from AI tools, though he declined to provide specifics, saying he didn’t want to get ahead of the task force.
In an email, the Agency of Digital Services cited its ChatVT tool and an invoice processing tool as two examples of successful AI adoption. But a little bit of Statehouse eavesdropping this year has offered some further insight into how AI is in use by state staff. One state communications worker said they use AI to help draft internal staff messages. A high-up state official discussed with a colleague using it to round up and summarize international news.
Lunderville did say that on the municipal level, where volunteer selectboards and part-time clerks handle a town’s business, AI could do some of the “low-value work.”
“We’ll see better government that way,” he added.
In his personal life, Lunderville said, he’s created a dozen AI “apps or agents” using easily accessible tools. One of those crawls news stories and municipal websites for updates on new housing development across the state.
In addition to informing state government’s operations, the new task force will prioritize three topics: economic acceleration, small business competitiveness and community resilience.
Disclosure: Neale Lunderville is a former trustee of the Vermont Journalism Trust, VTDigger’s parent organization.
In the know
Gov. Scott vetoed a bill that would create a nine-person committee tasked with developing and overseeing “sister state” relationships between Vermont and foreign governments. Scott said in a letter to lawmakers Monday that he rejected the bill, H.674, because he determined one of its provisions violates the Vermont Constitution.
The legislation would give the “sister state” committee sole power, by majority vote, to terminate a partnership with other governments. But Scott said that under the state constitution, only he has the authority to “transact business with officers of government.”
“I understand the value of these partnerships and could support a bill provided it removes the termination provision while keeping the remaining sections,” he said.
The veto is Scott’s third of the session. One of those, however, had to do only with a minor drafting error.
— Shaun Robinson
Friday saw the latest development in the convoluted legal struggle over Scott’s return-to-office mandate for state employees.
On April 1, the Vermont Labor Relations Board ordered the state to “rescind” the mandate, prompting officials in the administration to appeal the matter to the Vermont Supreme Court. Attorneys for the state submitted a new motion to the court Friday asking for a pause on the April order while their appeal is pending.
The move was expected: The administration asked the state Supreme Court for a similar measure last month but was told to first seek a pause from the labor board itself. The board largely rejected that request earlier this month, and state lawyers have redoubled their petitions for immediate help from the high court. Implementing the board’s April directive, they said, would cause “irreparable harm to the state and the public interest.”
Scott has expressed both anger at the labor board’s decision and concern about the cost of its requirements, which include offering reinstatement to employees who left his administration due to the return-to-office policy and reimbursing staff for any financial losses incurred due to his mandate. For its part, leadership at the Vermont State Employees’ Association called the labor board order a “stunning victory” for union members and has accused Scott of attempting to delay its effects.
— Theo Wells-Spackman
Lawmakers were considering a bill Friday on the Senate floor that would create harsher punishments for animal cruelty — including sex with an animal — when Sen. Steve Heffernan, R-Addison, asked, “In these crazy times, what happens if the individual identifies as an animal having intercourse with an animal?”
Then, Heffernan said he was concerned that if Vermont amended its Constitution to state that people have equal rights under the law regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation, that amendment could offer protections for people who “identify as a dog” and have sex with a dog.
Senate Democrats condemned Heffernan’s comments in a press release Monday, saying Heffernan “used the Vermont Senate floor to compare transgender people to animals, repeatedly and deliberately, with an explicit warning (that) Proposal 4, Vermont’s equal protection amendment measure, was to blame.”
Heffernan, in an interview Tuesday, said Democrats misunderstood his statements. He wasn’t talking about transgender people but rather people who identify as an animal, instead of as a person.
“It’s the left trying to say ‘He’s transphobic,’” Heffernan said.
Heffernan said he is not transphobic. He said he’s not sure he would support the equal rights amendment, though, given his concerns about people who “use it for the extreme.” He said he considers it “extreme” to have sex with an animal, and he doesn’t want those people to be protected under the law.
Heffernan previously left the Senate chamber during the vote on the constitutional amendment when it was considered in March, citing his upset stomach. On Tuesday, Heffernan declined to say how he would vote on the proposed amendment if he was present for the vote.
— Charlotte Oliver
On the trail
On Tuesday, Rep. Ashley Bartley, R-Fairfax, announced her candidacy for the Chittenden-North district Senate seat, a post currently held by Sen. Chris Mattos, R-Chittenden North, who plans to step down at the end of this session.
Bartley will be running for the seat against Irene Wrenner, a Democrat who previously held the seat before losing it to Mattos.
Bartley’s commitment to expanding housing is what sets her apart, she said in a Tuesday press conference.
“For years, we’ve thrown money at the housing crisis without fully addressing the policies that make it harder, slower, and more expensive to build homes in the first place,” she said. “If we truly want affordability, we must continue serious conversations around permitting reform, responsible growth, and cutting unnecessary barriers that prevent housing from being built.”
— Olivia Gieger
