Hurry up and wait
Last week, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, told reporters that she thought lawmakers could finish up their work for the year this Friday. That proved not to be the reality, of course. Now, we’re set to be back under the Golden Dome on Tuesday, if not all next week.
There’s still plenty left for lawmakers to do before adjournment. Here’s where things stand.
In the Senate, at least, Tuesday may be one of the most-watched floor sessions of the year. That’s because senators could wind up debating, or even passing, H.955, this year’s education reform bill. Of course, anything senators sign off on will then need to go back to the House. And any predictions on timing are far from solid.
Senate and House leaders have been meeting behind closed doors this week with officials from Gov. Phil Scott’s administration to hash out a version of the bill that’s amenable to all three sides. That version is expected to take the form of an amendment, on the floor, to the existing version of H.955 that advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month.
VTDigger spotted the chairs of the Senate and House education committees, and a group of legislative economists, piling out of the Senate cloakroom Friday just before the morning’s floor session. Sadly, I’m not good enough at reading faces to offer much assessment of their mood.
But the ed bill is just one of the session’s major pieces of legislation still not complete.
Both this year’s budget bill, H.951, and the property tax rate-setting “yield bill,” H.949, are still yet to be finalized by joint House and Senate conference committees. Those bills are linked to each other and to the education policy debate. That’s because H.951 is set to appropriate a pot of money to “buy down” the upcoming fiscal year’s projected property tax rate increase. The amount and timeframe of that plan, though, still haven’t been agreed to by both chambers.
This year’s miscellaneous tax bill, H.933, also still needs sign-off from its conference committee. That bill is expected to include language that would lower the amount of tax revenue from motor vehicle sales directed to the state’s Education Fund and increase the amount going to the Transportation Fund.
At the start of the session, Gov. Scott proposed over the rest of the decade gradually directing all of that tax revenue to the Transportation Fund, in an effort to reduce a projected funding shortfall for roads, bridges and other projects. But in the versions of H.933 that the House and Senate each passed, lawmakers opted against entirely eliminating the use of those dollars for education.
Some legislators were wary of cutting off the Ed Fund from a revenue source when they’re also weighing serious changes to how the state funds and governs its public schools in H.955.
If all these bill numbers are starting to blend together, you’re beginning to see how convoluted these last few days of the session could be. And Scott has threatened to veto anything tied to H.955 — most notably, the budget — if the ed bill doesn’t get to his desk in a form he likes.
“These bills are all linked based on their impact on our education reform discussions. The Governor wants to be up front: this means any, or all, of these bills could initially be vetoed to ensure we have all the levers we need to address education transformation,” wrote Sarah Clark, Scott’s secretary of administration, in a letter to House and Senate leaders on Tuesday.
Even this year’s transportation funding and policy bill, H.944 — which is also still sitting in conference committee without final agreement — could get the red pen, Clark said.
In the know
A deal between Republican Gov. Phil Scott and Democratic leadership on the year’s massive education funding and governance reform bill appeared close Friday after a week of secret meetings.
Both Democratic and Republican legislative leaders described a compromise on the closely watched bill that could be made public as early as Friday night.
“We have been working around the clock with the governor’s office to find a path forward to get him a bill that he will sign or let become law,” Ashley Moore, chief of staff to the Senate president pro tempore, said Friday. “And I feel optimistic about where we are now.”
Lawmakers and Scott have sparred all year about what should be included in the state’s effort to reimagine school district governance and funding. Whether to force school districts to merge became a key sticking point, with Scott saying he would veto a bill that didn’t include forced district consolidation.
As lawmakers, their staff and administration officials began to discuss the deal Friday, it became clear the compromise broadly would not include forced consolidation.
Most people with direct knowledge of the negotiations declined to discuss details of the plan, which will take the form of a roughly 30-page amendment to H.955.
But some did say more. Read the full story here.
— Ethan Weinstein
The Senate voted 26-2 on Friday to confirm Jon Murad as commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections, effective through February 2027. Murad, the former Burlington police chief, was first tapped to lead the state’s prison system by Gov. Scott in an interim capacity last July, then nominated him in a permanent capacity in February.
The two senators voting against Murad’s confirmation were Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden Southeast, and Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Chittenden Central.
— Shaun Robinson
On the move
Two House committees on Friday signed off on a proposed change to Stowe’s charter that would allow the Lamoille County town to double its local option taxes on sales, rooms, meals and alcohol to 2%. The bill, H.954, passed the Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee on a 7-4 vote Friday morning. That afternoon it cleared the House Ways and Means Committee, 11-0, though with a change to where the additional tax revenue would go.
Stowe’s bill still needs approval from the full House, then would go to the Senate for further consideration. Charter changes aren’t subject to the “crossover” deadlines that apply to other bills, so there is a path forward for the proposal, albeit narrow, before adjournment.
— Shaun Robinson
Department of clarifications
Yesterday’s Final Reading mischaracterized the type of projects that could be funded by an annual fee charged to data center companies in H.727. The fee would support projects that reduce fossil fuel usage.
