MONTPELIER — To date, there have been 490 bills introduced and referred to committees. My assigned committee, Energy and Digital Infrastructure, has had a total of 29 bills referred to it. Of those, only two have made it out of committee for meeting the crossover deadline. The rest of the bills may or may not be taken up for discussion. Whether they are or not is up to the chair of the committee. The Clean Heat Standard repeal has not been acted on. There have been versions of this introduced in other bills. The Public Utilities Commission does not support this as it is written. They recommend repealing or rewriting to better serve the people of Vermont. There does not appear to be any interest in repealing or discussing this topic. I am still urging this to be repealed.
The Military and Survivor state income tax exemption bill, H.43 and the companion bill from the Senate, S.17 are still on the wall in the committees. Even though there is strong support for this (75 people in the House and 21 in the Senate), the chair of the Ways and Means refuses to take it off the wall to vote on. Another bill was introduced, H.483-An act relating to the expansion of existing income tax credits. This bill is coming up for a vote in the House on Tuesday, March 25. A member of the House (Rep. Lipsky) has prepared an amendment to this bill which is the wording from H.43/S.17. Please reach out to the House of Representatives and the Senate to show your support for this bill if you are so inclined. I will be supporting this bill.
The Budget Adjustment Act (BAA), H.141, was vetoed by the governor. The language of the BAA was used in drafting another bill, H.489, introduced by the Committee on Appropriations. The BAA is an accounting “true up” of the current year budget. This is routine from year to year. But it is not meant as a vehicle for adding in spending or changing policy. I will continue to not support these bills.
Education spending and reform is still one of the highest priorities. There is still a long way to go. I have heard there has been progress with school district mapping but, I have not seen or heard discussion of what it will actually look like. All of this is far from being at a place where it would be voted on. As more information becomes available, I will pass it along.
We are more than half way through this year’s Legislative session and there have only been 39 bills passed by the House of Representatives. Most of the people I speak with in the House are feeling like there is a serious lack of movement of bills. I would very much agree. We need to do better for the people of Vermont. Hopefully this will change shortly.
P.S.- As of today, March 25, the bill for the Military retirement and Survivor benefit tax exemption was not taken up for a vote. Prior to it being voted on and the amendment being introduced, the bill was pulled back by the committee on Ways and Means. I encourage all to keep contacting the legislature to move this bill forward.
This first appeared in the Hardwick Front Porch Forum, March 26. Michael Southworth represents the Caledonia-2 district, including Hardwick, Walden and parts of Stannard, in the Vermont House.
