Legislative Update, March 22, 2014

Legislative Update 

Rep. Anne Donahue

March 22, 2014

 

The House version of the state budget for fiscal year 2015, the tax proposals to pay for it, and the education tax rate are all due out for votes at the end of this week before heading to the Senate for its review.

It appears that the Ways and Means Committee will be proposing tax increases in the realm of $4 million, less than the governor’s $14 million proposal and thus turning down some of his budget proposals.

One item that is likely to not make the cut is the reimbursement to families that were billed for repayment for our processing errors for Food Stamps. Our Human Services Committee bill making the state responsible was presented to the Appropriations Committee last week, and it ended up low on the Committee’s wish list.

The Pay Act, which came out of committee on a 6-5 vote Friday, supports the 4.2 percent COLA and step increases for state employees negotiated by the administration.

Addressing Poverty

My committee succeeded with a bill that may prove to be the most significant action in years in helping families out of poverty.

The bill was attempting to address the obstacle for families on public assistance when they start earning wages. Different benefits – child care, housing, and so forth – drop off more quickly than the income one begins to earn. It’s called the benefits cliff. It punishes work.

By not counting initial wages earned against Reach Up income limits, we can help get over that hump. The bill will increase that “earnings disregard” from the first $200 to $300 of income, and from 25 percent to 50 percent of wages earned. It will also allow savings up to $5,000 before becoming ineligible for assistance, instead of $2,000.

These two measures are recognized nationally as optimal ways to help families succeed in getting off of public support. So the public policy for doing this has always been sound, but the cost to do it climbs well above $1 million.

A young, business-minded representative from Bellows Falls, Matt Treiber, set out this year to find a way to do it from within the existing resources in the Reach Up program, and he discovered that a shift of less than $20 per month from the cash assistance grant would pay for the proposed work incentives in the bill.

He worked to convince his Democratic colleagues that the benefit of the change outweighed the burden of the reduction in the basic grants. Friday, the House voted 141-4 in support.

Medical Consent by Proxy

If you have not completed an advance directive and have a car accident or stroke and end up in a coma, who makes medical decisions for you?

A court can appoint a guardian, but Vermont law provides no other “proxy” consent. Hospitals muddle along with policies that do not have backing in statute. Worse yet, Medicare has started warning providers that it will not accept a proxy that is not authorized under state law for admission to hospice care, and could stop paying in situations where the patient cannot consent for themselves.

I presented a committee bill last week that creates a legal proxy (family member or known close friend) and requires decisions that reflect what the patient would have wanted, if known, and it passed the House easily.

Unfortunately, two other parts of the bill I introduced were not addressed. Under current Vermont law, consent for a “do not resuscitate” order can come from an agent, a guardian, or an “other individual” who signs. No definition of who that must be; no requirement on how that decision is made.

My committee decided we did not have time this year to correct this. I was able to convince the others to extend rather than eliminate a “due date” for addressing it for two more years, so that a reminder of the need stays in place.

The final part of my bill sought to clarify that an agent or guardian may not consent to a physician-prescribed lethal medication for end of life. This protection was one of those stripped in last minute changes to the physician aid-in-dying bill last spring. On a straw poll, 7-4, the committee chose to not act on that part of my bill.

Police and Tasers

Last year, I introduced a bill to require statewide standards and training for the use of electronic control devices by police (typically known by the brand name Taser.) I think they are a vital tool to avoid the use of lethal force, but they are sometimes mistaken as being a non-lethal alternative.

Deaths have resulted, including one in Vermont two years ago. The victim in that case had called for help with a mental health crisis.

The issue of distinguishing symptoms of mental illness with intentionally disobeying police orders is intertwined with potential Taser misuse. One of the standards in the bill requires that, when safe to do so, police attempt to de-escalate a crisis before using a Taser.

Verbal de-escalation in a mental health crisis is a learned skill. In 2006, funding was provided to develop new training for police for these interventions, and since then, it has become a component of training for all new recruits. I am a member of the ongoing Attorney General’s Task Force on this training.

Thirty-two percent of officers in the state have still never taken the course.  I proposed a floor amendment to require that all police receive it within the next three years. (According to the 2014 report, 8 of Northfield’s 10 officers and 11 of Berlin’s 12 officers have completed this training.)

Both the bill and my amendment passed easily.

More on Police

An issue that has irked Northfield for years will finally get some serious review from a committee appointed to study state and local police coverage this summer. The issue is taxpayer inequity when some towns rely on state police coverage, while others pay for local police.

Earlier this year I heard a compelling example from a constituent. Tourists from England heading for Stowe slid off I-89 into a snowbank in the middle of a bitterly cold night.

State police were not available, and Northfield police spent several hours bringing the family to warm shelter and arranging assistance with the car. They later received a letter of gratitude from the tourists they rescued.

A heart-warming story, but it didn’t occur in Northfield.

“I am paying for Northfield police to provide service on the interstate and for state police to provide services to other towns,” the constituent wrote. “The transfer of Northfield property and income taxes to the communities that receive state police services at bargain costs should cease.” 

If the bill passes the Senate, this issue would be one of several that the study committee would review in order to propose legislative options next year.

Health Care Reform

I attended my first meeting as a new member of the Advisory Committee to the Green Mountain Care Board this past week. We were asked for recommendations on how the Board should meet its responsibility to review financial sustainability into the future before a single payer health system may be launched.

The seriousness with which the Board is taking its many obligations is gratifying to see. On the philosophical level, I continue to believe that in its broad strokes, our plans for reforming the system are the right direction to go to create more equitable payment for health care. I also believe that an attempt to do it as a single, small state will prove to not be feasible, and that we stand to lose a great deal in the course of trying.

I am honored to have been asked to contribute to the decision making process of the Green Mountain Care Board.

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Please be in touch about issues that concern you, or if you have questions about the topics in this column. You can reach me at 485-6431, at counterp@tds.net, or via message at the state house at 828-2228. You can review earlier updates on my blog at http://representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legislative Update, March 9, 2014

Legislative Update

Rep. Anne Donahue

March 9, 2014

 

The budget will become the big focus in the House as we move through March. Thus far, the governor’s budget, with its $88 million increase, is not selling well, in that it relies on a $14 million increase in taxes on health insurance claims.

The Ways and Means Committee, which has responsibility for revenues, hasn’t accepted this tax or an alternative yet. At the same time, the Appropriations Committee is desperate for that money to be found in order to balance the budget, as it sees little flexibility in budget pressures.

The $88 million would be a five percent increase over last year, and there is an irony to that, since the governor challenged local school boards around the state to hold down their budgets to a much lower growth rate.

The Republican caucus is pressing to hold the growth to three percent, or $54 million.

A full 35 percent of our $5.3 billion state budget comes from federal dollars. Last week, the Joint Fiscal Office published its annual “Fiscal Facts” booklet, which is a fascinating summary of almost any budget question you might have. You can access it directly at www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo.

I went through it to put together a few highlights for poster boards for town meeting, so I’ll share several of the things that caught my eye here.

Where Does the Tax Revenue Come From?

For the state budget (this doesn’t count local government funding or the local share of school budgets), the largest pot is the income tax, raising $738 million, followed by the non-homestead property tax, at $598 million.

The homestead property tax raises another $596 million, but $154 million of that is returned through income sensitivity rebates, so the net is $442. There is also $6.2 million returned in renter rebates. About another $45 million is excluded from the pool of property tax revenue as a result of the current use program, which reduces rates for property that is kept undeveloped.

Sales and use taxes raise $367 million and rooms and meals taxes raise $145 million. Gas and diesel taxes raise $98 million, the purchase and use tax, $96 million, and motor vehicle fees, $80 million. Other revenue sources are smaller and include the $23 million raised by the lottery.

That ranks us nationally as 20^th in state income taxes, 8^th in total state and local taxes, and 5^th in state and local property taxes (2011 data.)

Where Does It Get Spent?

The big pieces of the pie are really big, while the rest of state government functions are minute in comparison. Some funds are restricted (property tax and the lottery to education, and the gas tax and motor vehicle fees to transportation, for example), but there is some crossover.

On the top of the list is education, at $1.68 billion last year, or 32 percent of the whole. Next is all state-funded health care, 20 percent, followed closely by human services, for another 20 percent, at just over $1 billion each.

The transportation budget is 11.6 percent, $612 million.

Protection to persons and property (the courts, state regulators, and state police) receives 5.4 percent ($247 million); the corrections system takes up three percent ($152 million), and the other shares are all two percent or less: (natural resources, higher education, general government, labor, commerce and community development and debt service).

We are 9^th, nationally, in government spending per capita.

Who Pays for It?

Everyone chips in to an equal degree on everything we buy, to the extent that we buy more or fewer things. Property tax is a function of the amount of property one owns, unless, for those making under $80,000, some of it comes back as a rebate.

The big range comes in how the income tax is distributed, which is broken down in detail in the Fiscal Facts booklet.

Several facts struck me the most from this data. First is that 31 percent of Vermont wage earners make less than $20,000 per year. (Many benefit from the earned income refund, so on average, those in this group receive $23 each per year).

Second is that the three percent of Vermonters with the highest earnings – those making $200,000 per year or more -- pay almost 42 percent of all income tax revenue. (Our 520 individual millionaires contribute 16 percent of income taxes.)

If you drop down to the next grouping, and include all those who earn more than $100,000 per year, it adds up to 13 percent of all those filing, but they pay 68 percent of the state income tax.

The lowest 59 percent of wage earners contribute a bit less than two percent of the total raised. This reflects our progressive income tax structure, but also our low average earnings, since that 59 percent reflect incomes of less than $50,000 per return.

The Education Fund

The Education Fund is made up principally of all the state property tax revenues ($1.04 billion), a share of all sales taxes ($161 million), a contribution from the general fund ($296 million) and the lottery. It goes back to towns in the form of an equal amount per pupil, next year expected to be set at $9,382 each.

The rest that a town spends per pupil gets raised by the local share of the property tax. That is how a local school budget affects local property taxes. This year in Northfield, for example, the cost is $12,965 per student, so $3,583 will be raised by the local property tax share. Berlin has a $15,188 per student cost (including tuition to U-32.)

It is estimated that next year’s statewide average will be $14,050. Vermont is ranked fifth nationally by the census bureau on per pupil spending (most recent data 2011), and Governing magazine adjusts that to number 1 when regional cost differences are considered.

The devil is in the details of how the tax rate is determined. There is one rate statewide based on the total amount that needs to be raised as determined by the town budgets. However it is applied in each town differently based upon a calculation of local property values compared to all other towns (the infamous “common level of appraisal” factor.)

That’s what creates all the confusion and all of the risks of inequities… and would take an entire update to attempt to explain.

Back to the Future

The single largest general fund line item increase each year for the past several years has been in the overall administration of the health care system as it evolves from merely administering Medicaid to setting up the health care exchange to developing our state single-payer system.

It was $52 million in 2012; $92 million in 2013; $133 million in 2014; and budgeted at $152 million for 2015.

To get a relative sense of what $152 million means in what the state budget buys: the entire Agency of Natural Resources budget for 2015 is $99.5 million; Protection of Persons and Property, which includes the entire court system and state police, Secretary of State, insurance regulation and agriculture regulation, is budgeted at $302 million.

That may be why those watching the development of our new health care system financing plan question whether we can run it for less than private insurers do, or why they predict it will bring on the largest tax increase in the state’s history.

The assertion of billions in tax increases isn’t fair if its costs are offset by elimination of health care premiums but these questions – along with whether we can reduce health care cost increases – will be the devil in the health care details.

The administration has pushed back several deadlines for presenting the cost and financing, so this debate won’t begin until next year.

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The second half of the second year of this legislative biennium will soon become very chaotic, and only snippets can be covered in these updates. Keeping you informed is part of my job in serving you. Please feel free to get in touch with questions or input, particularly if you hear news reports of concern. You can reach me at 485-6431, or by email at counterp@tds.net. Rep. Patti Lewis’ number is 223-6319, and her email is pattijlewis@myfairpoint.net. You can leave messages for either of us with the Sergeant-at-Arms at 828-2228. This, and past updates, can be found at http://representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com

 

Legislative Update, February 22, 2014

Legislative Update

Rep. Anne Donahue

February 22, 2014

 

It was the calm before the storm, with almost no action on the House floor last week as committees worked to finish bills that will need to be in the Senate within the next several weeks if they are to have a change of passing this term. So I will focus this update on bills that my Human Services Committee is preparing to pass.

Smoking Bans

This bill as introduced had an extension of the workplace smoking ban to include “semi-enclosed” spaces. Semi-enclosed included anything with a roof and two sides. This part has been removed.

The rest has strong committee consensus. It creates a 25-foot no smoking area around state buildings to eliminate the “smoker gauntlet” the public sometimes faces to get inside, as well as to protect from smoke from entering windows and vents. It also places restrictions on child care facilities, on the grounds of the new state psychiatric hospital, and in all hotel/motel rooms, and enables state parks to create “smoke free” areas.

It does not touch the controversial subject of smoking inside a car with a child – controversial apparently because it is personal, instead of public, space. With what we know about the effects of second-hand today, I think that trapping a child inside a small, contained, smoke-filled area borders on child abuse. There may be an amendment on the House floor to add this to the bill for any child in a car seat, and I would welcome it.

Food Stamps

The state is being fined by the federal government because it far exceeded the error rate in processing food stamp applications for the past several years. The feds are also reclaiming the overpayments from those who received them unknowingly because of our errors. This bill will at least partially make those individuals whole. The challenge will be in coming up with almost a half million in state funds to pay for our errors.

Public Assistance

We have been working on a bill to address some of the financial barriers that result in families on the Reach Up program losing income if they begin working. This long-vexing problem is known as the “benefits cliff.” The bill is good public policy, but it is not an expenditure of tax revenue that I will be able to support unless funding can be found to be shifted from another program.

Developmental Disabilities

The longstanding way that funding for developmental services has been allocated by the administration has been to cut more people off altogether when there is less funding to go around. Currently, only about 20 percent of those who are eligible receive help, and the priority list keeps getting tighter. This bill looks at whether the legislature should have a greater policy role in determining how the resources are shared.

Substitute Medical Decisions

Vermont has a strong law on enforcement of advance directives, which enables someone to have an agent fulfil their wishes about treatment if they lose the ability to provide informed consent. Substitute consent can also occur through a guardianship. However, we are a minority state in having no other person authorized by law to provide consent if needed. (Message: fill out your advance directive.)

It now appears that Medicare may begin to require a legal surrogate for admission to hospice, which could create a barrier for care.

In addition, six years ago a new law that clarified the process for end-of-life “do not resuscitate” orders specified that substitute consent could be through an agent, a guardian, or “other individual” – unspecified. Our committee agreed to address that the next year, but hasn’t yet.

So I introduced a bill this year that created a family or close relationship criterion for hospice and DNR consent. It also clarified that agent or other substitutes cannot speak for a patient requesting a “Death with Dignity” prescription to end life early. Our committee decided this past week that we will address hospice, but on two straw polls, 6-4-1, decided to defer the DNR issue yet again, and to not clarify the intent of the Death with Dignity bill from last year.

Budget Policy Input

Our committee is also working on input for the Appropriations Committee regarding policy issues in the budget. The system redesign developed two years ago for mental health services was intended to put more money in community resources and reduce the need for, and costly use of, inpatient care.

Construction of the new hospital in Berlin is progressing beautifully, but we have now learned that its 25 beds will cost as much to run as the former Vermont State Hospital (54 beds), while we also pay additional costs for 20 high-level inpatient beds at the Brattleboro Retreat and in Rutland. The per-person per-day cost at the new Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital will be $2,250 per day, or almost $20 million a year, compared to about $1,450 per day at the Retreat and Rutland. The cost difference adds $5m to the inpatient care budget.

Why so costly? First is the loss of economies of scale created by a 25-bed hospital. Some of us predicted that from the start. Secondly, according to the administration, a much higher staff-to-patient ratio is required by the design of the brand new hospital. (You read that right. Higher.) In my view, as someone who invested a great deal of time helping in that design, the budget is significantly over-staffing a facility that was designed to increase efficiency. However, it is hard for legislators to overrule the “experts” on a subject like this.

It will also be opening without a full electronic health record (due to false starts in planning) and without money set aside to implement one next year; it requires an addition to the budget because furniture costs had been left out; and it faces some likely insurmountable obstacles to fully opening on schedule.

There is no full-time person in the administration overseeing the project, and no one at all with significant experience in running a hospital. Last December I urged my colleagues to address this; we have not, so the process stumbles along. Our committee will be recommending close monitoring.

I look forward to seeing you and hearing from you during the town meeting week break. Thank you for your calls and messages, and please continue to keep me informed about your priorities. My email is counterp@tds.net; home phone, 485-6431; at the state house for messages, 828-2228; and my blog to review past updates is at http:// representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com.

Legislative Update, February 8, 2014

Legislative Update

February 8, 2014

Rep. Anne Donahue

 

This Thursday, February 13, there will be a public hearing on what may become one of the most contentious bills this session: how we respond to the federal mandate that we do more to clean up Lake Champlain.

H. 586 (“Improving the Quality of State Waters”) is under committee review in the House, and focuses on registering farms and strictly controlling manure runoff practices. It proposes to raise money through a fee placed on property taxes, graded based upon how much of your property is developed.

Both the Fish, Wildlife and Natural Resources Committee and the Agriculture Committee are taking testimony, and any tax or fee proposal will have to go to the Ways and Means Committee, all before coming to the House floor and then on to the Senate.

The hearing will be in the House Chamber from 7 to 9 p.m.

Looking at a bill on line used to be the only way the public could access pending legislation, and that isn’t always very helpful, since a bill goes through many changes on its way through the process. We have taken some big leaps into the age of technology, however, and anyone who wants to dig for detail can now get a great deal of it by looking on any committee’s web page.

Documents that are posted include updated bill drafts, related reports, and witness testimony. Both of the committees above have this kind of information available on their committee web pages about H.586. Documents can be sorted by bill number, subject, date, or witness name. (The starting point is always www.leg.state.vt.us, then go to the Standing Committee pages.)

I must confess to being pleasantly surprised by how quickly I have adapted to having all of this on an iPad for the first time this year. This past Friday, leaving my small committee room table, I was suddenly struck by the difference. No more towering piles of paper waiting to be sorted!

Human Services Committee

The policy bill my committee is reviewing is a further step in providing cigarette smoke-free air for the public and at worksites. The bill, H.217, covers a wide range of proposals, and I think some are better than others. It includes 50 foot zones around state buildings, adds “partially enclosed” areas in the restrictions for places of public access, expands to cover all hotel rooms, adds child care center grounds, and includes designated smoke-free areas in state parks and lands.

I support smoke-free entrance areas as a right of public entry to our state buildings, and a poll from the Department of Health found that public opinion is in sync on this: 72 percent of Vermonters (including smokers) agree; 21 percent are opposed. Even 54 percent of smokers favored a ban for such entrance areas.

A bill I introduced addressing the new Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital under construction in Berlin is now being considered as part of the larger smoking bill.

As awareness of health risks have become more prominent, every single hospital in Vermont has adopted a “smoke-free campus.” It may not be fully enforceable, but it is a public health policy statement of importance.

I think it would be an embarrassment to the state, and a poor example, if our new state-of-the-art hospital broke ranks, and allowed health care staff and visitors to be smoking on the grounds. (Patients are already barred from smoking.)

Unfortunately, this comes up against a bargaining right of the Vermont State Employees Association. In initial testimony this past week, a union representative said the VSEA would likely oppose a smoke-free campus policy for the new hospital.

The hospital itself is on schedule with construction, but I have serious worries about whether staffing and operations planning will be able to keep pace to begin admitting patients by July 1. This is critical to address the crisis in emergency rooms, where patients are waiting for days for a bed.

Last week, I discovered that the hospital will open without a fully functioning electronic health record. After many months pursing a vendor who could not produce what was needed, the administration is only now drafting the documents to seek bids for the project. It is a discouraging prospect, and worse yet, no money has been built into the budget for a now higher-than-expected cost projection.

Budget Targets

We have relied for years on patching money into the budget for extra spending with one-time revenue sources, leaving ourselves without the money to maintain that spending the following year. That means we start each year with a deficit facing us just to stay even.

The governor has called upon school boards to hold spending to a three percent increase at the most, and the Green Mountain Care Board required hospitals to hold budget growth to three percent this year. We should hold ourselves to the same standard. The governor’s proposal is almost double that, and relies on a $14 million tax increase on our health insurance payments.

Keeping a tight budget is not an easy prospect, but it is the job we are here to do on behalf of our taxpayers. My committee has begun its review of the human services sections.

Flood Insurance

The House has passed a resolution I introduced urging Congress to delay implementation of a flood insurance law passed two years ago. The bill itself was sound in principle: it sought to make federal flood insurance self-sustaining (instead of taxpayer supported) by increasing rates to market values. It also required an economic impact study to protect against unanticipated consequences.

The study never happened, the bill is going into effect, and Vermonters are being hit with some unexpected and inequitable consequences. Part of this is caused by federal flood zone remapping. People who bought homes that were not in a flood zone (with a purchase price reflecting that) are now suddenly in a flood zone, and placed under mandates to purchase expensive insurance. The property is suddenly worth less as a result.

Congress is now considering a delay until the review actually occurs.

I have never thought we should put time into “feel good” resolutions that ask our Congressional delegation to do something. But by chance two weeks ago, Peter Welch was in the state house on a visit, and I mentioned the possible resolution.

“Oh, please do it,” he said. “We need it” – apparently to help gain support of other colleagues. So I hope the effort pays off.

Our Teacher of the Year

There was a stirring moment on the House floor when Luke Foley, teacher at the STAR program at Northfield Middle/High School and Vermont’s Teacher of the Year, was introduced and received a standing ovation. He was there for a reading of a resolution honoring his achievement.

I was able to also proudly introduce the students who accompanied him.

Congratulations!

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You can reach me to discuss this update, or any other subjects of concern, by calling me at home (485-6431) or by message at the legislature (828-2228), or by my home (counterp@tds.net) or legislative (adonahue@leg.state.vt.us) email. I welcome your input. This and past updates can be found at http://representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com.

 

 

 

 

Legislative Update, January 25, 2014

Rep. Anne Donahue

Legislative Update

January 25, 2014

 

Last week we voted on the mid-year budget adjustment act. The budget adjustment is intended to allow for shifts in allocations from last year based upon unanticipated up or down trends in different parts of the budget.

As usual this year it was mostly up, but because revenues were also up over projections, it didn’t unbalance the budget. As a result, the majority seemed not to mind.

Most of the increases appeared justified on the surface. For example, there were a number of Irene-relocated offices where rent now must be paid by the state because the FEMA support has ended.

There was also “backfill” in several areas where federal sequestration cuts had hit, and a big increase -- $2.5 million – because of a shortfall in the emergency housing budget. It has been pretty cold out lately.

But wait.

Didn’t we know last year the FEMA money was going to end, and plan for those rents when the budget was developed?

Are we going to always just assume we put the funding in when the feds cut, without assessing the long-term budget impact?

The reason for the emergency housing budget gap was fairly clear, and also speaks to poor advance planning.

We had slipped into an atrocious bottomless pit through well intentioned efforts to keep people from being homeless in our streets. It’s atrocious in part because it uses hotels as the emergency shelter system.

The increase in cost has gone from $1.4 million in fiscal year 2011, to $2.8 in 2012, to $4.3 in 2013.

Last year, the legislature said, “enough,” and shifted much of that money into addressing longer-term housing solutions. We told the administration to create a priority list for need, and we cut the fiscal year 2014 emergency housing budget back to $1.5 million.

That isn’t a level of change that can happen in a single year. If the prior trend had not been curbed at all, this year’s spending would have hit $6 million. With efforts at change underway, the administration says the spending will be held to $4 million. That $4 million is $2.5 million more than budgeted, which is where the $2.5 million budget adjustment line item comes in.

(The priority list itself is under attack. Our committee was staggered to see that being a disabled veteran gets you one point of the four needed to qualify, which is exactly the same as being an individual on probation or parole with a recent release from prison.)

When we create a budget based upon planning that is overly optimistic, and put the “savings” from that optimism into other spending, then the overall budget can appear to be reasonable in terms of its increases, as last year’s did. When the bills come due, however, we’re in the red.

We have to pump new revenue into the holes, instead of having held the original budget to its more conservative estimates.

These may be hard projections to make, but it’s clear we have to do a better job, so that we don’t end up every winter with what amounts to a much bigger budget increase for the year than what we passed the prior spring.

For that reason, I voted against the increase in the current year’s bottom line. It passed on a 110-33 vote, and now heads to the Senate.

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Next Year’s Budget

The details take a while to seep from the spreadsheets, but I’ve never heard a budget speech yet (either party) that didn’t promise to be balanced without raising taxes, while also offering new initiatives.

One part of the governor’s proposal for fiscal year 2015, however, has already raised some eyebrows. To help fill the gap between new spending and income without raising any “broad-based” taxes, he proposes raising $14 million by increasing a tax on insurance claim payments.

Who pays those? All of us who pay for health insurance – we’ll see it in our rates. At the exact same time, he is pushing a health reform plan that is supposed to rein in the costs of health insurance. When the rates go up next year to pay the $14 million, it will be more “evidence” of the out-of-control cost of insurance.

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Who Pays for Mistakes?

One of the issues my committee took up this week was the ongoing failure of the state to bring down a nationally-highest error rate in processing food stamp applications. The food stamp program now had the federal acronym, SNAP, and the Vermont name, 3 Squares. (I perpetually misstate this as “4 Squares” – what square has three in it?)

This year, our error rate has exceeded nine percent, and we face another half-million or so in federal fines. Since food stamps are paid for completely by the federal government, it doesn’t look kindly on the overspending. In addition, it wants the money back that was given out in error.

So picture this: a struggling, working family, barely making ends meet. After applying for food stamps, the family is told that it is eligible for $200 a month in benefits.

They spend this. They buy food each month. It isn’t enough to cover the whole grocery bill, but it helps a lot.

A year goes by. Then they get a letter from the state telling them there was an error – absolutely no fault of the family. But actually, they were only eligible for $150 per month. So they get a bill for $50 times 12 months: $600.

Where exactly is that money supposed to come from? Stop the next oil delivery, maybe? Skip a month’s rent payment?

This is fundamentally unjust. The administration has failed to resolve its own errors, so low- income families have to pay to make up for it?

My committee is looking into ways to address this. If our own state budget has to be tapped to protect innocent victims, that will be one budget increase I will support.

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Voice of the People

Our Constitution assures the people of the right to petition its government, and I frequently urge all of you to contact me with questions or concerns. Many of you do, and I appreciate that.  Sometimes, that information is very sensitive, such as when a constituent is seeking help with struggles with a state agency.

We are a citizen’s legislature, without any assigned staff, although with the help of legislative counsel for turning ideas in to bills.

We often seek input from advocates for various interests. Ideas are brainstormed via email. I enter into discussions about potential legislation with other legislators and members of the public. This kind of dialogue – and the ability to have a free flow of ideas – is critical to our process.

And thus, “freedom of deliberation” in the legislature is also a privilege protected under our Constitution. The interest in being able to have a confidential communication process among citizen legislators, legislative staff and members of the public is vital to the process.

If those communications were deemed to all be “public records,” I can only imagine the chilling effect it would have on the flow of ideas. How many citizens might become apprehensive about discussing concerns – or even just venting – if they knew anyone could request copies of the emails they sent?

How many legislators would feel unable to gain the benefit of seeking input from others, when ideas are still in the formative stage, and might evolve into something very different before being developed into a bill for introduction? I know that when I try to think of best outcomes, my own views benefits tremendously when critiqued or explored with me by others. If that thinking process was an open book, would I still feel able to share those early ideas freely?

For all those reasons, and the integrity of the very process of the workings of a citizen’s legislature, last week I formally refused a public records request by a mental health advocate. The request was for all email exchanges that I had this fall and winter with other legislators and with advocates from the hospital association related to legislation addressing the involuntary legal process sometimes used in mental health treatment.

I was served with the records request along with two Senators, and although we each came to our own decision after extended conversations with legislative counsel, we ended up in the same place. I had nothing specific in those particular emails that I feared disclosing, but the principle itself was too important to not take a clear stand.

That decision will no doubt come under criticism. I have long defended the importance of transparency in government, and that belief has not changed.

What is different here is that it involves the confidence of the public in the ability to access their legislators, and the ability of legislators to feel free to do initial exploration of ideas with others. Once bills are introduced and public debate has begun, every aspect of that legislative process must be open to full public scrutiny.

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You can reach me to discuss this update, or any other subjects of concern, by calling me at home (485-6431) or by message at the legislature (828-2228), or by my home (counterp@tds.net) or legislative (adonahue@leg.state.vt.us) email. I welcome your input. This and past updates can be found at http://representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com.

 

 

Legislative Update, January 10, 2014

Rep. Anne Donahue, Legislative Update, January 10, 2014

There was no time wasted starting the 2014 session. On day two, we heard the governor call for response to a public health crisis of opiate addiction, and the next morning my committee (House Human Services) held a joint hearing with House Judiciary and our Senate counterparts on the administration’s new pretrial services proposal.

Other first week updates in this report: budget pressures, the House vote on campaign finance reform, and bills introduced to clarify the end-of-life by physician prescription bill that became law last spring.

Pretrial Addiction Services

The pretrial services proposal, already drafted as a Senate bill, would insert a risk assessment and needs screening after arrest but before a person’s first court appearance. Based on the outcome, a prosecutor could choose to allow diversion into a pre-charge drug treatment program, and if treatment is completed, no charge would be filed.

If the prosecutor did not offer diversion, the assessment would be used in deciding upon conditions of pre-trial release. That release could include a treatment referral, and if completed successfully, the prosecutor could choose to drop the charges. Alternatively, after a conviction, the treatment outcome could be used to inform sentencing decisions.

I think we will have to keep very close watch on two aspects:

The greater that any system allows for more personalized approaches and for using discretion to affect what happens to a person, the risk increases that there will be injustice resulting from benefits going to some persons and not others.

Under this proposal, how a person is treated could vary dramatically based upon the new risk assessment tool, and we are a long way from having fool-proof ways of predicting who will succeed or not.

Every time we use the words, “a prosecutor could choose,” we create the danger of personal biases entering the justice system. There is both potential for good and potential for bad.

Second is the question of cost. The math always looks good when we project future savings through current investments. Money spent on creating this new system could easily be regained and more, when we save on the costs of future increases in addiction and crime, as well as the cost of locking people up in prison.

It’s rare, though, that we can actually put a finger on those savings in later years. We say the same about investments in preventive health care, education, and early intervention with troubled families. But we can really only speculate about what the increased costs might otherwise have been, if we had not spent the up-front money.

These are all about educated gambles, not sure-fire returns on investment. While the social benefits are clearer, the cost-benefits are less so.

Housing

My committee began reviewing two other big money issues in our first week: emergency housing for the homeless, and how to increase successful outcomes for families on Reach-Up (support to needy families.) Testimony came with pleas for new investments for future savings.

In just the past few years, we have almost quadrupled the budget for emergency housing: from $1.4 to $2.4 million in fiscal year 2012, to $4.35 million in fy 13. This includes a cold weather policy, which allows for housing everyone who asks if it is under 32 degrees and snowing, or under 20 and dry. (That has been 28 of the 31 days in December.)

This relief, however, comes mostly in the form of hotel vouchers, which doesn’t make much sense as public policy.

Last year, we tried to address this by shifting two-thirds of the money into developing longer-term housing solutions, and authorizing a priority system for emergencies. The system that resulted drew fire over the people being turned away (having a child age 6 or under grants a pass in the door, but there is no guarantee for a 7-year-old).

Despite that, the program is still running at almost the same as last year (projected at about $4 million), and the administration is requesting a budget adjustment to fill the $2.5 million gap. Without the change that created limits by priority groups, we would be spending $6 million this year on emergency housing.

Advocates urged an expansion of rent subsidies to making housing more affordable and help prevent homelessness. That begs the question: who becomes eligible for a subsidy? Every low income family struggles with the cost of housing. How much “prevention” can we afford, and be fair to all?

Support for Needy Families

We also reviewed a Reach-Up work group report on ways to develop greater personal responsibility among recipients and more effective support from the state in getting off the program.

Last year we placed a 5-year cap on benefits, even if a family had been following its development plan. (It allows for continuing benefits for those unable to find jobs if they provide equivalent community service work.)  There is no real money saved, but hopefully progress in overcoming the cycle of poverty.

The report came back with one core message: Caseworkers have such high caseloads that they often cannot even see the families that they are supposed to be supervising. Advocates are urging an increase in staff in order to achieve long term success.

Invest more now with the hope to save money and improve the quality of life for all, in the future? The War on Poverty celebrates its 50^th birthday this year, and has yet to see that aim achieved.

In a year where we already face a projected $70 million budget shortfall if everything stays the same, all the talk of the need for new programs and program expansions should be enough to send a chill down any taxpayer’s spine.

Next Year’s Budget

This coming week, we will hear the governor’s budget address on how the administration proposes to address the gap. There are many concerns that are less emotionally appealing that the needs of struggling Vermonters, but that create significant future burdens if they are not addressed now.

We heard a presentation last month about the ongoing problem with the annual underfunding of the state pension fund. We are not even close to putting enough money in the budget each year to meet the minimum amount required so that the fund can pay out its obligations in the future. If your bank allowed you to underpay your mortgage every year, interest would build and the amount you would have to pay in the future would be hugely increased.

In its most direct terms, every dollar that we continue to fail to put into the fund means three dollars more that we will have to pay in the future. That’s not just an educated gamble about return on current investments. It’s hard financial fact.

We are also facing an estimated seven cent increase in the education tax rate for the second year in a row, in part from spending and in part from flat property values.

Our reliance on federal funds increased from 30 to 35 percent of our $5.2 billion budget this year, at a time when federal funding amounts are facing great uncertainty. Federal cuts are an enormous risk to our general fund and state tax burden.

We “spend” another one billion (16  percent of the entire $6.23 billion ball of wax) on money that we exempt from taxes to support another purpose, for example, the income-sensitivity provisions and current use program of the property tax.

The biggest chunks of that entire sum are K-12 education (27 percent), health care (24 percent), tax expenditures (16 percent), and transportation (9 percent).  All of the other categories, from social services to public safety to corrections to general government, have slices smaller than five percent.

The governor’s “State of the State” speech this week did not refer to any of these money issues, so it will bear careful listening in the budget address in the coming week.

Campaign Finance Reform

Last year, both the House and Senate had passed reform bills, and a conference committee was working out the differences. The final product came before the House this past week.

The bill will increase transparency – public access to the information on who is making contributions to whom – significantly. It also sets limits on how much money can be given to a candidate, varying based upon the different offices.

There were those who believe the limits are still too high for Vermont, and can still create undue influence on candidates by a single person or group. We have been to the United States Supreme Court and back on this issue, over a 1997 law that was deemed far too restrictive.

I think the most critical issue is the ability to know where the money is flowing, a point that Rep. Tom Koch of Barre made last year in his challenge to all of us to finally pass new reform legislation this year. The House passed the conference committee recommendation on a 124 to 15 roll call vote. Once passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, we will have finally achieved that.

End-of-Life Law

In the final days of the 2013 session, we passed a law permitting a doctor to prescribe lethal medication to a person with a terminal diagnosis of six months of less who wants the ability to end life before the final stages of the disease.

In the final negotiations to win votes, the original bill was stripped down, dropping many parts that had been included from the beginning and that were the basis for assertions that it included all of the protections against abuse that Oregon has. (It has permitted this practice for years.)

Several bills have already been introduced to address some of the unresolved issues. The law only gives immunity to doctors who act in compliance with its protocols. Rep. George Till, himself a doctor, has introduced a bill that would include pharmacists and consulting doctors, who had been included until the final version that passed last year.

I do not support the far reaches of this new law. We could have addressed the final days of life in better ways, without sanctioning doctors to write a prescription intended to cause death.

But given what we now have, I have introduced two bills to restore two other elements that were removed – or left in doubt – when the final bill was revised.

One would make it explicit that the request for and use of such a prescription must be by the individual themselves, and not through a guardian, agent, or other surrogate decision-maker. Vermont law is explicit in recognizing agents, in particular, as having the right to make any medical decision once the individual has lost decision-making capacity.

I don’t think we intended that to include prescriptions to bring about death, but that  clarification was removed from the bill last year.

Similarly, we have existing law that requires doctors to give full information to patients about the support options available to them when they are diagnosed with a terminal illness. It includes, for example, the right to hospice care and pain management. The new law includes a life-ending prescription as one of those support options.

That means doctors, even if not asked, must tell every such patient that a prescription to cause an early death is one of the options now available to them. It makes it sound like a suggestion.

Although this may have been intended by some proponents, I do not believe a majority in the legislature (or among Vermonters) would want that mandate placed on doctors. My bill would clarify that such information is mandated only if it has been requested.

Your comments and questions are welcome. Please keep in touch: email at counterp@tds.net, phone (485-6431), or message at the statehouse (828-2228.) This and past issue discussions can be found on my blog, http://repannedonahue.blogspot.com/