May 5, 2025 Legislative Update

 

Legislative Update, May 5, 2025

Rep. Anne Donahue

It seems odd to not be reporting final, major legislation heading into the second week of May. We’d typically be in the final days of the session. However, it’s been predicted for a while that we will run late this year because of the complex task of laying out the planning for major restructuring of our education system.

The Senate has not yet finalized its proposed revision to the House bill, and only after that will negotiations begin on the differences. The conference committee on the annual budget has begun this week, so that is much closer to the regular schedule. There have been several other significant bills making their way through the process.

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Veteran’s Pension Exemption

The bill exempting some specific income taxes will be on the House floor this week, and with its unanimous vote out of committee, it will likely pass without significant opposition. The Senate will then have to review it.

It includes a compromise version – but with significant progress – on the veteran’s retirement pension exemption. This has primarily always been a critical workforce issue. These veterans, in peak wage-earning years, often fill critical positions that help increase our income tax base. Other states are way ahead of us in exempting such pensions, creating a disincentive for moving here. It’s been a big issue for Norwich in recruitment over the years.

The House proposal will exempt all military retirement pay for residents with incomes less than $125,000 and then scale it up to $175k. There was a $250 credit added for all veterans with incomes under $25k.

The bill also includes an increase in the threshold for partial exemption of Social Security income (another area where we fall well behind other states), an increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit and in eligibility for the Child Tax Credit, and a new tax credit of up to $1,000 for persons providing uncompensated care for a disabled family member.

The total cost of these measures in lost revenue is $13.5m.

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Right To Form Unions

We also moved a constitutional amendment forward that would guarantee the right to organize unions. It has now finished its two-session legislative requirements and will go to a statewide ballot. These rights are firmly established in current Vermont law, but there has been backsliding in other states so it was felt to be important to place it in our constitution to prevent future change.

I did support it, but with some reticence. It includes the right to negotiate a requirement that employees must belong to the union as a condition of being employed there. I get the importance of this. If folks can have a free ride of the benefits without paying dues, it could undermine the ability to unionize.

But I philosophically disagree with forcing union membership in order to get a job at a given place, and this will lock it into our constitution. I do support union organizing, so I voted in favor and leave that balancing to the decision of voters.

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More on Clean Heat

Several efforts have failed in getting a bill through to repeal the Clean Heat standard. As with many of our climate initiatives, it was well-intended but not economically feasible, and the plan to implement it this year no longer has any support and will not be moving forward.

It was controversial enough that repealing the underlying law would make sense for now – we can always come back to a revised effort – but the legislative majority want to keep it in place. It is a reminder that the Democratic majority still controls, despite no longer having a “super-majority” capable of overriding any veto single-handedly. Controversial new legislation can be blocked by a veto with enough votes to sustain it if there is no compromise, but nothing new can be pushed through without Democrats behind it.

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Health Care

Still a bit below the radar is a regulatory overhaul of the health care system to attempt to slow down skyrocketing cost increases. Maintaining the kind of access to services that we currently have may become impossible without (or even with) some major changes, and this bill shapes some of that planning. The House Health Care Committee is working to finish its review of the Senate bill before sending it back.

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Education Proposals

To touch on a few of the current Senate proposed changes to the Education bill:

The Senate draft replaces a work group with an eight-member School District Boundary Task Force (four House, four Senate members) to develop the new, larger districts. The Senate would require the task force to propose at least one school district/supervisory union map and to consider continuing access to independent schools in tuitioning towns. It must also recommend an alternative process if new boundaries are not enacted by Jan. 31, 2026. This is a faster process than the House proposal and could move full implementation from four to three years.

Removed from the House version are the immediate setting of class size minimums, the intent language on school size, the goal of a 4,000-student minimum per district, and the school closure designation provisions. Independent school tuition differences would broaden access compared to the House version.

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Rare Disease Advisory Committee

A special congratulations is in order for Mary Nadon Scott for her public advocacy for the creation of a state advisory committee on rare diseases. My committee passed out the bill to establish it last week, and it will be ready to go for Senate action next January. No new appropriations are needed to support the activities of the committee.

Diseases that affect large numbers of people have organizations to provide guidance and recommendations on public education and to the legislature, and support for individuals. The new committee would facilitate those with rare diseases in combining to gather experts and identify common interests and needs in those same areas.

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Thank you for the honor of representing you. Please reach out any time with feedback or questions to me at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us or Rep. Ken Goslant at kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us.

Education Funding Bill Update

This update is framed in part by a message to Northfield voters who will vote this week, for a second time, on a school budget. That budget decision demonstrates how messed-up our education funding system is, and how urgent the current reform efforts are.

As a Northfield resident, I will be voting “yes” on the Paine Mountain (Northfield-Williamstown) school budget. To do otherwise would be, in effect, to hand over our property tax dollars to other towns. That’s how gummed up the system is.

We know that in the legislature. The urgency of the need for reform efforts after last year’s soaring property tax rates made it a priority for this year and for the bill that passed the House last week. But the public is led to believe that we have local control because we vote on our own budget for our own schools. The reality is that most of the education property taxes go into a big statewide pot of money. Out of that state pot, school districts receive the money that matches what they voted for, whether that budget is high or low, above average or below.

Last year, Northfield’s property tax increase was higher than even the high average statewide increase by several percentage points, despite a major budget cut after a failed first budget, and even though the district is spending less than the statewide average on our schools.

How could that happen? How could a town’s taxpayers be required to pay more for spending less? It was because other districts were increasing their budgets much more than we were, and we had to contribute to their decisions to spend more.

This year, Northfield can regain a bit of that and make up for some of what was lost last year. The pent-up pressures that are causing its budget increase are higher than other towns’. They got their increases last year. If the Northfield budget passes, the schools will get 15% more for students at a 2% rate increase for property taxpayers. That is because other towns will be contributing to cover Northfield’s budget increase. It will be a bit of a payback for the increase Northfield paid last year.

Northfield will still be spending less per pupil than what the average district spends, but those other districts will refund some of its losses from last year. If it is voted down and the budget is cut,  it will benefit those other districts and hurt Northfield students. That is exactly how gummed up our current funding system.

A key part of the legislature’s efforts to remedy this is through changing from a pool of money that funds what each town decides to spend, into a pool of money that is paid out equally for each student in the state, so that each student has equal opportunities (including an equal amount extra for students who have special challenges in accessing equal learning opportunities.) It also improves the system for equity among what taxpayers in different towns pay in. All of this requires a change to large school districts.

This type of “foundation” funding is used in the major of states; our funding system has been one-of-a-kind. The legislature – both House and Senate – have been fairly unanimous on this change, which was first proposed by the governor as the core to reform. There has been disagreement on some of the further components, such as the size of the larger districts, the role of independent schools and the impact on rural districts, but not on the fundamental concepts.

The House passed its version of the concept in a bill last week. The biggest current flaw is that it won’t go into effect for four years. Four more years of funding inequity, and four more years of voting on (and fighting over) local budgets each year that don’t align with equality for either taxpayers or for students.

Last week, I tried to amend the bill to set a goal of making it happen a year more quickly. It was aspirational: if we are able to pull all the parts together sooner, we should try to do that. I urged that we needed to give the message to our constituents that we wanted, if reasonably possible, to address the funding system crisis with some degree of urgency. Opponents said that it was more important to give the message to school boards, administrators and educators that we were committed to making the changes thoughtfully. The amendment to change the intent language to aim for 2028 instead of 2029 was voted down.

The bill is now in the hands of the Senate. If you want to see faster relief from the inequities created by the current system – and which hurt Northfield so badly last year – contact our three Washington County Senators to urge them to expedite the timeline for reform.

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It is an honor to represent Northfield and Berlin. Please stay in touch with me (adonahue@leg.state.vt) and Ken Goslant (kgoslant@leg.state.vt). We value your input.

 

March 29, 2025 Legislative Update

 

Legislative Update

Rep. Anne Donahue

March 29, 2025

A total of 32 bills were passed by the House over the past two weeks and are enroute to the Senate. There they could be passed, could be abandoned, or could be rewritten and sent back for our reconsideration. So, they are a ways away from reaching the final stage of going to the governor, apart from the controversial budget adjustment act (BAA), which was vetoed and is still in flux.

Many were updates to existing law and not controversial, or were initiatives with broad support. The most prominent included a new BAA (political gamesmanship); next year’s annual budget (104-38 vote after a unanimous bipartisan committee vote); election law changes (a very controversial provision limiting write-in votes was removed); the homestead property tax rate (reduced by injecting added general funds, risking a big spike next year); the capital construction and transportation bills (I raised concern about the new Dog River bridge in Berlin being constructed without a sidewalk); expansion of access to unpaid leave (I pointed our concern for small businesses); protection of personal information of public service employees from data brokers (badly written, but a start; vote was 106-38); and state advertising restriction to use a minimum of 70% in local media organizations (overly prescriptive but also with a huge loophole that will negate its good intent.) Ask me for details on any or all.

Meanwhile, we still await hearing how our Ways and Means Committee will respond to the amendment that proposes a military pension exemption from the state income tax. It’s ironic to me that we were willing to pay out $5,000 in cash to entice folks to move to Vermont a few years ago but haven’t been willing to pay a much lower per person cost to attract this skilled workforce to further their careers (or maintain them) here.

Our House version of initial steps for education and funding transformation is emerging shortly and will be certain to result in a lengthy House-Senate process of attempting to reconcile the significant differences in approach. Predictions are that we will be in session for at least several weeks longer than usual in order to get this done.

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Rather than speculate on the outcomes of these multiple moving targets, I want to use this update to focus on a picture of the kinds of “work behind the scenes” legislators can get pulled into, and that don’t usually make it into news media.

Two years ago, the legislature passed a bill to create “Vermont Saves,” a very positive way to support Vermonters in building retirement savings if they do not have access to an employer-sponsored plan. The way it was set up, employers are required to send the employee information to the state Treasurer, who runs the program. It is promoted as a voluntary program, but in order to help foster participation, it is an “opt-out” rather than “opt-in” program.

That means that anyone can give notice that they do not want to participate, and they will be removed, but silence is consent. If you don’t object, five percent of your net income is deducted from your paycheck and becomes a contribution to a Roth IRA established through the Treasurer’s office.

Obviously, for many wage earners, five percent is a whole lot of money to carve out. Fortunately, they can ask for a lower contribution rate if they prefer. Starting to save for retirement early and regularly is a good move, but some people who are just scraping by simply can’t do it, and we certainly want to preserve their choice in such decisions, right? The problem with any “opt out” system, however, is that someone can only choose to opt out if they receive clear information that they have been automatically enrolled and that they need to take action if they do not want to take part. Otherwise, it’s no longer actually voluntary.

So I was shocked several weeks ago when a constituent sent me the copy of a “Vermont Saves” program notice he had received. It was an email that came from an unknown company and the headline was, “You’re in! Your Vermont Saves account is ready to be set up.” Note in particular the terminology: “ready to be set up,” future tense. It goes on to laud the program, which “puts you in control of your financial future by offering you a safe, secure, and simple way to save for your retirement with every paycheck.”

Some lines further down the page, a boldface bullet point states, “Participation is voluntary” and continues, in regular font, with, “Stay enrolled or opt out…” That’s the very first reference to the auto-enrollment that has already occurred. The account isn’t “ready to be set up.” It is already set up. This isn’t “offering” something. It’s already done, unless you act to stop it.

In today’s world of email scams, I think it’s likely that some folks will see that the email isn’t from the state or their employer, and say, “Wow, I know better than to hit that ‘set up account’ link on this email. I’ll be hacked.” Others will skim the beginning and say, “well, this is an offer I’m not interested in; I’m not going to set up an account to participate.” By appearance, they have not taken up the offer. In reality, they needed to set up access to their account in order to then withdraw from participating. Even when the first paycheck with a deduction arrives, some will see it and just sigh (or curse) over a new payroll tax being imposed, unaware that it is “voluntary.”

Employers didn’t receive transparent information, either. They were told that they were required to send in the information on their employees, but that then their employees would be able to choose whether they wanted to participate. I spoke to one local employer who was absolutely stunned to learn that it required an active opt-out by the employee to prevent automatic payroll deductions.

But it gets worse. The notice announces, “Your paycheck contributions have the potential to grow into big savings over time” – with “have the potential to grow” boldfaced. True. But a Roth IRA is an investment account. It includes the risk of loss as well as the potential of gain. (I think we’ve all seen ads for investment opportunities that specifically state that, in a manner that suggests they are required to do so. Apparently, our Treasurer is not under that requirement… yet.) It makes no reference at all to the difference between a savings account and an investment account.

Last week, I met with our State Treasurer, Mike Pieciak, to share my concerns. He defended the information as being tested and evidence-based by the company contracted to produce it; it runs the same program in other states and uses the same communication with good results. After all, people should be saving for retirement, and this helps people stay on board. That’s the program goal. He agreed the notices might lack some clarity and said he’d talk to the company to see if they could rework some of the placement of information. I was unimpressed by his response.

By coincidence of timing, that same day our 2026 state budget bill was on our House calendar. In reading it, I discovered there was a section about Vermont Saves, which included a change to allow the Treasurer to adjust the automatic annual contribution rate increase by up to 10 percent, instead of the original eight percent. You are not merely automatically enrolled, you also have an automatic increase in your contribution rate each year… unless you give notice that you don’t want it increased. What will the phrasing be like to tell employees about that right?

So I introduced an amendment to the budget bill to put a pause button on that change.The first auto-increase isn’t until next year, so there’s no rush. The Treasurer’s Office objected to the amendment and began giving broad testimony on the purpose of the program and the importance of encouraging savings, including that optimal rates to save for retirement are actually more like 15 percent… so they want to be able to get the deduction up to at least 10 percent of net wages.

As it turned out, the Appropriations Committee had never heard any testimony about the rationale for the proposed change and for including the Treasurer’s language in the budget bill. He had bypassed the process of bringing the issue to the policy committee for review before asking to have it added to the budget. It had then slipped in as a “technical” change almost without being noticed.

The Committee voted 10-1 to support my amendment. The Chair suggested that the Treasurer should go to the Senate Government Operations to make his case in full and enable that policy committee to discuss it, before seeking to add it back into the budget bill during the Senate’s work on it. It was really only a symbolic victory, but what was important was that presenting the amendment on the House floor was an opportunity for me to ring the alarm on the much bigger underlying issue – the misleading communications – to the full body.

I’m not planning to let it end here. I talked with the Chair of House Government Ops and he is going to have me meet with the committee about the need for more transparent communications to the people who are about to have their paychecks raided (for their own benefit, of course…), and how we might address it. I’ve also already given a heads’ up to the Senate Gov Ops chair that I’d like to meet with him to share this same background information. That committee would have the best opportunity to get protective language through the legislative process this late in the session.

How could we have put something like this in motion two years ago? Well-intended, of course, but also passed in the very last week of that legislative year, a time during which bills are passed at dizzying speed, despite the attempts of some of us to be allowed more time to be thorough in our work. We are a citizen legislature with no individual staff and who must rely heavily on the expertise of others.

But if we were going to pass a bill that would automatically deduct money from Vermonter’s paychecks to invest in an IRA, we owed it to Vermonters to have made sure they would get full, clear information about how they could turn the program down. Not everyone is in the place to give up the “as little as $105 a month” that the notice cheerfully uses as an illustration. To some of us, that’s a lot of money.

So now, we need to fix it.

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It is a pleasure to be representing you. Please contact me at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us with questions or concerns, or my district-mate Ken Goslant at kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us. All of my past updates are accessible at representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com

March 2, 2025 Legislative Update

This communication is about my work in and perspectives on the Vermont legislature, not the national or world scene, but this session, they could overlap in unprecedented ways. Because of the “small state minimum” in federal grants, fully one-third of Vermont’s budget revenues come from the federal budget, including more than half of our direct health care spending. If there are significant cuts in the pending federal budget, we will have holes far vaster than anything we could backfill.

For now, we carry on in developing the state budget based on the current status quo. The House is in the final weeks of work on its budget for the year ahead and at the end of last week, committees provided their perspectives on the governor’s proposed budget. In my Human Services Committee, we look at what the ideal would be to fully support our network of social supports, and then list the priority areas that, “to the extent funds allow,” we recommend that the Appropriations committee add.

Our biggest concern this year was that while the governor’s budget included basic inflation increases for government-run services so that they can maintain current functions, the government services that are contracted to be provided by community agencies were level-funded. If income stays level in the face of inflation, balancing the budget means cutting back, not maintaining the same services. So, a major disparity is created among different services.

One of the largest gaps – which I discussed in my previous update about the budget adjustment bill – is in addressing our crisis in providing temporary shelter to those who homeless in light of a crisis in available housing. People cannot move out of homelessness if there are no places to move to.

The week after town meeting, as we reach the half-way point of the session, is the deadline for bills to be voted out of committees in order to cross from House to Senate or vice-versa if they are to be passed this year. The major bill from my committee will be a proposal for restructuring the emergency housing program.

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The Big Five

The crossover deadline means that we will be getting the first look at concrete proposals to address our major pressures. Often, we start a session with a “headliner” top issue. This year, there are five that are competing in urgency: Education, Housing, Climate; Public Safety; Health Care. The Governor has presented proposals for the first four of those issues. They are getting a mixed reception. The proposals are summarized below.  

Education

The most attention thus far has been on the major restructuring proposal for K-12 education. The legislature is charting its course to revise some pieces and reject others, but the majority appears inclined to move more slowly than the governor’s two-year phase-in.

The Speaker’s Office has issued a public input site, which can be accessed at: https://bit.ly/VoiceVermontEducation. Much of it is free-form response to very open-ended questions, not check boxes. This avoids the inevitable bias of the wording of questions but will present a real challenge in compiling responses into an intelligible and accurate document of the opinion of Vermonters. Results will be shared with districts, so I will report on Northfield and Berlin responses.

The governor’s plan includes a base grant per child to each district, adjusted for particular types of student need, in order to ensure equal resources for all students regardless of town. The statewide tax rate will be uniform, but with income-based deductions for homesteads. Much larger districts (maybe as few as five) are proposed to achieve common standards, including state oversight of maximum class sizes and graduation standards. Vermont has the smallest classes sizes in the country while not performing as well, so significant costs might be saved there. Reinvestment would go into teacher salaries. There is also a school choice component that has produced some strong objections and is not likely to survive the legislative process.

The initial proposal sets the base grant at about the current average per-child spending in the state. For context, Northfield’s current district is below that spending level, though if this year’s budget passes, it will come closer to the average. Berlin’s current district is a bit higher than the average.

Housing

There is consensus about continuing to invest heavily in housing, though the amounts available to spend will be debated. There is no question that, despite major funding over the past several years, we are not on track to meet needs. The Governor’s proposal include targeted funds for local infrastructure to support housing growth. The governor wants to see more progress on easing red tape that increases construction costs, such as standards for local appeals, as well as adjustments to last year’s three “tiers” that revised Act 250 review.

Climate

The “Clean Heat Standard” from last year appears to have died an untimely death. Once firmer numbers were assessed, it turned out that the naysayers were right: the potential benefits were far outweighed by the clear drawbacks and high costs. But the Global Warming Solutions Act (passed in 2020) remains law, so achieving its targets in other ways remains ahead of us. The law was passed in 2020 and it includes binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

Looking back a few years, the transportation sector goals of the Act rested heavily on our collaboration in the Northeast Regional Transportation Initiative, in which 12 states looked at reducing carbon emissions by addressing the fossil fuel market collaboratively. That failed because other states backed out, not Vermont. I don’t believe these types of initiatives are ever feasible by a single small state – it’s why the Clean Heat Standard never had a chance. As the Senate Pro-Tem Tim Ashe said about the transportation initiative in 2019, “banding together with the entire Northeast region all the way down to the mid-Atlantic protects us from a go-it-alone strategy."

So, we’ve had two well-intended, major efforts that have not met hopes or expectations. Meanwhile, the clock has kept ticking. Staying locked into targets on an unchanged timeline that is no longer achievable seems like making false assurances, particularly since we granted the right for anyone to sue the state for failure. I think we need to maintain the goals of the Act, but not at levels that we cannot now achieve. We need to also consider some of the governor’s proposals for better management of the process.

Public Safety

Public safety debates have focused on bail reform for repeat offenders and repealing the “Raise-the-Age” law that would add 19-year-olds to the definition of a child for juvenile court purposes. The House Judiciary Committee did vote Friday to defer that step for another two years. We have also passed a number of laws that fully erase criminal records after set periods of time. The governor is pushing back to have them in a “sealed” status instead, which would make them confidential but still allow access for law enforcement purposes.

In the category of, “NewSpeak,” a bill was introduced last week that sets out when a person who was convicted of a crime is “eligible to recidivate.” This is on top of inmates no longer being released from prison; an inmate “releases” from prison. It’s in line with another change that annoys me, in health care. You are no longer discharged from a hospital; you “discharge.” Maybe I’m getting too set in my ways.

Health Care

Speaking of health care, it seems to be the fifth wheel despite how it cuts across all sectors. Vermont has risen to having some of the highest costs in the nation. It isn’t just about an aging population, because an increasing need for care does not mean that each episode of care needs to cost more. The University of Vermont Health Network says they are being forced to cut services because the Green Mountain Care Board has required them to stay within their revenue cap. They assert that volume (the people needing care) is what is driving the increase in revenue, so to cut revenue they must cut volume by cutting services. But revenue is the combination of volume plus price. The Green Mountain Care Board is telling the Network that it must reign in prices, not cut services. There are no clear proposals emerging yet for alternatives on how to stem the trajectory of cost increases.

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A Note on Advocacy

Persistence pays. Northfield’s Mary Nadon Scott was back in the Human Services Committee lobbying for a Vermont Rare Disease Advisory Council last week, and was there to hear the committee chair say that we will be taking up the bill later this year.

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Words from the Governor

If you didn’t see it elsewhere, I’m pleased to share the comment that Governor Scott made on the third anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine:

“On February 24, 2022, Russian military forces crossed the eastern border of Ukraine. Russia’s unprovoked aggression escalated a years-long conflict into outright war, threatening the sovereignty of a free nation, and the hard-won peace of the European continent.

“These are facts, and it’s important to repeat them when the truth is threatened. Three years later Vermonters still stand with Ukraine. We still hope for peace and a just end to this senseless war. We still hold fast to the most American of ideals: liberty, self-determination and the restoration, preservation, and expansion of freedom around the world.”

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Thank you for the honor of representing you. Please stay in touch with me (adonahue@leg.state.vt.us) and with Rep. Ken Goslant (kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us). We welcome your input.

February 9, 2025 Legislative Update

 

For starters, a reminder: almost none of the news you hear early in the legislative session is actually the final word on a topic. Interesting bills that make good headlines won’t necessarily even be taken up in a committee. Proposals, even from leadership folks or the governor’s office, are still just that… proposals. Even if they move forward, it will likely be in a very changed form. For major subjects (education reform, as one example), the various proposals are a part of a discussion that will likely not be resolved – if at all – until the session nears its end in early May.

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Sanctity of a Vote

One topic did reach finality this past week. Under the constitution, only the legislature has the authority to determine validity of a member’s qualification, so our House vote to validate the House member from the Bennington-1 district was final.

There was a serious foul-up. About 50 or so voters (literally on the “wrong side of the street”) received ballots for a different district, in error. It was a close election, so those votes could have made a difference. Clearly, there were voters who were denied their right to vote for their state representative. The problem was the inability to create a solution that would not deny others in the district their right to vote, because of unavoidable byproducts of attempting to hold a new, special election. The sanctity of each vote is crucial, but two wrongs can’t make a right. I voted to keep the status quo; the overall vote was 91-42. There is now a plan to develop a law that will directly address issues like these.

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Budget Adjustment

We also voted on the mid-year adjustment of last year’s budget. It now goes to the Senate for consideration. In theory, this annual bill permits shifting money from areas of underspending into those that had shortfalls. This year, higher than expected revenues provided greater leeway to add funding where needed. But anything spent now cuts into meeting new goals for the year ahead.

There ended up being only one area of dispute. The House is proposing to backpedal on its compromise with the Senate from last year regarding putting restrictions on the emergency motel program for homeless Vermonters. Those eligible for a room are primarily households with a child under 19, age 65 or older, or with a disability, and who lack adequate housing, when there is no shelter space available. Under the current budget, an 80-day annual limit for access to a motel voucher does not apply during a “winter housing” exemption that ends on March 31.

Last fall, some households lost coverage for exceeding 80 days during the time before the winter exemption started, and Vermonters watched with concern as some ended up without shelter during that time. The revision proposes that the current winter exemption be extended through the end of the budget year (June 30) so that no one would lose shelter while we continue to try to agree on longer-term solutions. Surely, we did not want to repeat last year’s crisis when we reach April 1?

As I tried to articulate on the House floor, this misconstrues the nature of the dilemma. We cannot create motel rooms that don’t exist. As a result, some of these eligible households are currently still being turned away for lack of capacity even though they are eligible within the current rules. Being eligible as “homeless” is defined as not having an “adequate” place to live. It includes, for example, families who have to double up and those without a stable address. “Unsheltered homelessness” means the subset of those who are homeless who have no place to spend the night that is considered fit for human habitation.

The current rules make no distinction, so there is no priority for those who are completely without shelter. If those already in a motel can now remain longer, there will be more of those who are newly homeless – including those with no shelter at all -- left out, because of lack of capacity. Extending the “winter exemption” so that there is no cap on the length of stay does not increase motel capacity or ensure shelter. It only creates a priority for those who are already there.

Members made statements of compassion on the House floor that ignored that impact altogether: “I voted yes because every child we fail today is a lost opportunity for Vermont’s future;” “If we look outside, we see weather no one should be unhoused in. With climate chaos, harsh weather is possible anytime of year;” and, “There are many issues involving homelessness that this body must solve, in the long term. Kicking people into the cold solves none of them and would cost lives, in the short term.”

I explained my vote against the change in the bill, stating, “Extending the length of stay for some people, resulting in cutting off access to shelter for others, is not the right way to support those most in need. It actually turns our backs on them.” The overall bill passed, 87-51, and is now in the Senate’s hands.

The bill that will attempt to develop a longer-term solution is currently under review in my Human Services committee. Whatever it ends up proposing, however, won’t take effect until July of 2026, which means the struggle over interim funding and motel use will continue for the budget that begins this July. The governor’s proposed budget includes $30 million in motel vouchers, which extends the current program but it does not re-expand it to the new budget adjustment bill proposal.

I strongly believe our focus is both far too broad and far too narrow. We want to do optimal things, even when it leaves many people at highest risk behind. I think we should always do everything possible to provide a roof over the head over those who have none, who are unsheltered. Right now, we only do that – even under the “winter exemption” – for those in the defined “vulnerable population.” But that roof may not mean private hotel rooms and should not give priority to those who do have other options, even if they are not optimal.

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Establishing Fair Payment

The governor’s budget presented in January noted the significant costs in simply “keeping the lights on” for existing government programs. Inflationary pressures, including health care costs, mean it costs more to maintain the same services. Thus, he said, there will not be much to spare even with our improved revenues. He hopes to use some to reduce any increase in property taxes while reforms in education spending roll out.

This recognizes the fact that if something is level-funded as costs rise, the service is actually cut. That is the reality of portions of the proposed budget, however, because the many government services that are funded through payment rates or grants to private, non-profit agencies are not receiving any increases to offset cost pressures. That includes community mental health agencies and the home- and community-based services provided by home health care, as examples. Every year, we hear from advocates for these services begging for sustainable funding that would maintain their work. We have to react based upon trying to assess disparate needs and to balance the budget.

This year, my committee is working on a bill that would create a more objective standard for assessing budget needs. It would require the Agency of Human Services to do regular Medicaid rate payment reviews using objective standards that result in rates that are “reasonable and adequate to achieve the required outcomes,” including a cost adjustment factor to reflect inflation and labor market dynamics. That would not mean those would be the actual payment rates that ended up in the state budget. What it would do would be to level the playing field in assessing what we can and cannot afford. If we can’t afford it, we need to acknowledge it, not pretend we are paying for it. In many areas, we currently have no objective way of telling whether we are paying 50 or 75 or 90% of what full funding would be. Budget choices end up being inequitably-informed choices.

The Agency itself has testified in support of the proposed new requirement for regular rate reviews, though it was not quite willing to acknowledge that we currently are operating on a double standard in what we pay for state-run services versus those funded by state rates. It is a myth to tell ourselves that we are actually providing a service if the service-provider isn’t being paid enough to do the job and has to cut what it is providing.

The issue of Medicaid underpayment is better known in the realm of hospital care, and that is coming to the forefront in its own way. Historically, hospitals make up the difference through “cost-shifting” and using higher private insurance rates to make up the deficit. Our increasing insurance premiums reflect the increases in costs being charged for the services, but also, in effect, include a “surcharge” for covering government underpayment.

It can result in perverse outcomes. For example, inpatient psychiatric care is one of the few services that private insurance underpays for, part of historic bias and lack of parity in mental health care. Hospitals therefore can’t cost-shift, and they lose money. That’s why Central Vermont Medical Center eliminated inpatient psychiatry altogether at the end of January. Faced with a need to cut the level of growth in its budget, it cut the money-loser – a straightforward financial decision, irrespective of any balancing of impacts on the health of its patient population.

Unsustainable health care costs are high on the legislative agenda this year, but where those conversations will go is hard to predict. There is finger-pointing in all directions, despite an urgent need to put heads together collaboratively.

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Please keep in contact to share your opinions and concerns; Rep. Ken Goslant and I both welcome your input. You can reach us at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us and kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us. A full archive of my legislative updates can be found at representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com

Legislative Update, January 26, 2025

 

Several key initiatives are underway already as this year’s legislature looks to address high priority items on education funding, housing, and criminal justice, with proposals on the table from the governor. His full budget proposal will be presented in a speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday.

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Education Funding

It takes a lot to build enough pressure to completely reshape a system created 25 years ago, but there may be momentum this year to do it. To meet a 1997 Vermont Supreme Court decision on equity, we have been funding our schools through a statewide pot of money. The court said our kids should not have the adequacy of funding for their schools be based on the town they happen to live in. A child in a town with a low tax base should have an equal access to education as one in a wealthy town.

But when we turned to creating a statewide fund, the structure tried to protect the concept of “local control.” Towns could still run their own schools and set their own budgets. The budgets were then sent to the state so that a statewide tax rate could raise the money to meet those budgets. We have learned the hard way that this is a combination that doesn’t work. Having each town decide on what it needs to spend, and then having all towns chip in to pay whatever the grand total turns out to be, means everyone has to contribute in paying higher property taxes for the sake of towns that vote for high budgets.

That isn’t actual local control. It is a local town being held hostage to the spending decisions of other school districts around the state.

There are three major pieces to the governor’s proposal:

First is that a budget adequate for quality education needs to be set at the state level for allocation to districts. This kind of a formula is the mechanism used by the majority of states. You can see the details on this type of system – compared to ours – in the very readable report put out by the Department of Education in November. This kind of foundation formula would allow for a single, state-wide tax rate [thus no more need for a “common level of appraisal” to equalize towns], still keeping deductions for lower income homeowners.

Second is that the quality of our education system needs to be enhanced by stronger consistency and leadership by unifying into five large, geographic districts. There are a lot of rationales for doing this, both financial and to benefit student opportunities. Declining assessment scores in Vermont schools is a real concern, and there are many disparities in what students can access.

Finally, there are expanded roles for state support and oversight. Currently, even graduation requirements differ among districts.

The intended outcomes of the plan are stated as education quality (“better educational outcomes for all Vermont students and better support for schools to achieve our shared goals”); equitable funding (“students with similar needs, receive the same resources and funding regardless of geography”); and efficient use of resources (“more consistent and sustainable use of resources to support innovation, personalization and quality”). You can watch the presentation to the legislature at education.vermont.gov/news/aoe-presents-stronger-schools-stronger-students-education-transformation-proposal

Putting a proposal out on the table is a way to draw out a lot of criticism, but it’s also the best way to start generating serious discussion about the options to be considered. That discussion will now continue in the education and the tax committees in both the House and the Senate in the weeks to come.

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Housing

The governor is seeking further revisions to last year’s work on easing regulatory barriers to the construction of new housing, in particular, the current broad appeal rights that can add costs and delays. His proposals include extending last year’s limited waiver of Act 250 review for construction to more areas where sewer and water infrastructure already exist.

Significant to our local towns is a proposal that would help fund extending that kind of infrastructure in smaller towns that can’t afford to do it. One example came up during recent resident input in Northfield, where the Falls was noted as having areas that could be ideal for housing expansion but would require expensive sewer lines.

The proposed new program would allow municipalities and developers to borrow funding for infrastructure upgrades needed to build a new housing project against its future value.

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Criminal Justice

The proposal from the governor would address bail, reversing some changes that allow release without bail, when a person has been accused of repeat offenses while awaiting a determination on a first one. It also would repeal the next phase of the “raise-the-age” law passed several years ago. That law turned 18-year-olds into juveniles for Family Court purposes, and the pending next step is extending juvenile status to 19-years-olds. (It does not include the top 14 most violent crimes.)

The bail issue is always a tough one, because bail has a fundamental flaw that challenges equal justice: Some people end up in jail waiting for their cases to be heard while others, although facing identical charges, can be free on the street purely based on having more financial resources. A person may end up sentenced to, “time served,” meaning the time they’ve already been waiting in jail is included. But that means the same jail time is also being served by the person who has been waiting and is not convicted.

Something clearly does need to be done to address those who are released until a case is heard and yet are being re-arrested on more charges in the meantime. We need to address it in a way that upholds the principle that is the foundation of our justice system: these people are, at this point, still innocent of the crimes they’re accused of.

The second topic will likely face major legislative pushback because the momentum in the legislature for treating young adults as children has been strong in recent years. My Human Services Committee joined with the Judiciary Committee for hearings on “raise-the-age” this past week.

When I was first in the legislature two decades ago, Vermont was one of only two states (Alabama was the other) that treated 16- and 17-year-olds as adults, with their arrests starting in adult court before being considered for a possible move to Family Court. I fought to raise that age so that the presumption was the opposite and those cases start in Family Court.

Now we’re at the other extreme with a highly convoluted system based on multiple age and crime categories that result in juvenile status, youthful offender status, or adult status. Some, but not others, can start in one court and then be switched.

The argument is the growing knowledge about brain development that shows those in their early 20s are still more prone to impetuous decision-making and risk-taking that should be considered in addressing criminal activities that they will likely outgrow. There is also research that indicates that when treated as adults, these young adults are more likely to continue criminal involvement rather than to outgrow it.

I support the use of transfer to youthful offender status to address these realities, but not the wholesale expansion of Family Court to take on cases for those 18 years old and above by redefining them as children.

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Bill Introductions

I’ve signed on again to the effort to have an income tax exclusion for military retirement income to put us in line with almost every other state. It is a key workforce issue. I’ve also reintroduced the right-to-repair bill, which almost made it to the finish line last year, until time ran out to resolve House and Senate differences.

An amusing closing note: Last week I reintroduced a bill to protect the right of consumers to pay cash. This week, I received a formal letter of support from… drumroll… the National Armored Car Association in Reston, Virginia. It’s amazing how some organizations track every piece of legislation that could affect their industry, in every state legislature!

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Please keep in contact to share your opinions and concerns; Rep. Ken Goslant and I both welcome your input. You can reach us at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us and kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us. My archive of legislative updates can be found at representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com

2025 Pre-Session Update

 

The 2025 Session

Rep. Anne Donahue

Dec. 18, 2024

 

Hello, all, and best wishes for the holidays you celebrate and for the new year ahead.

Before the start of each session, the Times Argus asks legislators to share what they see as the priorities and challenges, as well as their approaches to bipartisanship work, what constituent concerns are, and “what will be a win” for the session.

These are the answers I submitted:

Priorities

Just to upend the headliner conversation: addressing property tax increases should not be our highest priority. Framed that way, it is a deceptive goal that would allow for a narrow solution and fail to address any real problem – in fact, could make it worse. That is because property taxes can be reduced by simply shifting education costs into a different revenue source, like income tax. Those taxes, instead, could shoot up. Lack of affordability is then unchanged; it only shuffles the deck.

The real problem goes to the entire failed funding system and, at its heart, to the ever-increasing costs of education and the need to find out the multiple reasons, and which can be addressed. We have a confluence of deeply intertwined crises of affordability and access in education, housing, workforce and health care. One of the biggest underlying drivers – and least able to be changed by local school boards – is the cost of health care.

Our health experts say a primary necessary intervention for that is to enhance housing access. Lack of housing impacts people’s health and impairs workforce recruitment; workforce costs then drive both health and education costs; but investments in taxpayer-supported housing hit back on affordability, driving away potential new workforce.

Health care costs and access are a greater crisis with a far worse current trajectory than education. Yet, if connected to education spending, the impact there is clear. To use simple sample numbers, if 90% of your budget is personnel and 20% of personnel costs are health insurance and health insurance costs go up 15% a year… you’ve got a budget problem that squeezes out any other needs. That hits school budgets, but also municipal budgets, business expenses, and health care costs themselves.

Here are the dire facts:

Community hospitals have a steady decline in days of cash on hand over the past 10 years, going below recommended sustainability. Community health centers are starting to operate at losses – clearly not sustainable. A November national hospital finance report projects 705 hospitals at risk of closing, eight of them in Vermont. Four in Vermont are deemed at risk of closing in the next 2-3 years.

But for payers… a plan with an out-of-pocket maximum going to $18,000 for a family of four costs $38,000 per year. Yet insurers are also at increasing financial risk with their required margins dropping. The average payments for care made by Blue Cross Blue Shield per person went from a rate of $6,300 per year in January of 2020 to $10,080 in June of 2024. Those comparison numbers do not include the year of the COVID drop and do not include the additional consumers payments in out-of-pocket costs in copays and deductibles.

At the same time, consumers are facing longer and longer waits for access to care. The choice to close the CVMC inpatient psychiatric unit will drive new ER waiting room crises and deny the highest level of necessary care, right at a time that needs are increasing. It was a short-sighted, discriminatory and political reaction to being required to cut costs.

But some types of changes in how services are delivered will be necessary in the near future.

The reasons that set Vermont apart, with costs higher and rising faster than elsewhere in the country, is our demographics. Our working age population is shrinking and our age 65+ population is growing. That means less in premium revenues coming in, and significant increases in services being utilized. Older folks need a lot more health care. We’ve known this demographic trajectory for years, and failed to plan for it, spending money on new programs instead. Now we have to come to grips with it.

It means looking at more specialty services being regionalized, and inefficient ones being cut – steps Gifford Hospital recently started moving on. We also have to stop forcing commercial payers to subsidize government health programs.

Thus, my highest priority is new health reform actions, integrated into the entire cross-sectionality of our economic and demographic drivers.

The Biggest Challenge

Right now, our economy is strong, although facing some uncertainties over the next several years. However, our revenues are growing more slowly than the spending pressures. Our budgets have increased above the rate of inflation for years. For valuable detail on the economic and budget picture, you can see our fiscal experts’ projections at: ljfo.vermont.gov/assets/Publications/All-Legislative-Briefing-December-4-2024/December-2024-Legislative-Economic-Review.pdf, and ljfo.vermont.gov/assets/Publications/All-Legislative-Briefing-December-4-2024/JFO-Posting.pdf

The bottom line is that we cannot keep trying to get everything we want and yet also curb the growth of cost burdens. The challenge in facing these crises this year will be whether a non-partisan majority will be willing to make unpopular choices for the long-term benefit of Vermont. Most of us are willing to say, “yes, cut excess spending… except, not that.” And we all have a different, “not that.” We need to focus on what the smart choices are, not necessarily the popular ones, and that will be the biggest challenge.

The other challenge will be the amount of turnover, which will slow the start of the session, plus the decision of Democrats to consolidate leadership in Chittenden County. Fully one third of the House will be turning over, with 51 freshmen out of 150 members. Democratic representatives, who still hold the chamber majority, elected two members from Essex Junction as their Majority Leader and Assistant Majority Leader and nominated the current Speaker, Jill Krowinski of Burlington for election as Speaker in January. The Senate Democrats have also placed leadership into Chittenden County members. This presents challenges for the interests of all Vermonters outside of Chittenden County, where needs and economies differ.

Bipartisanship

I became an Independent this year in the effort to shed some of the increasing divisiveness that has crept into our statehouse in more recent years. Labels seem to matter more that our common priorities.

We have the opportunity at a fresh start because voters rejected having a supermajority of one party. The supermajority created an attitude of not needing to listen to anyone else’s ideas.

My hope is that we will embrace that change by electing an Independent Speaker, challenger Laura Sibilia, rather than reinstating past Speaker Krowinski, who remains grounded in the attitudes of a supermajority.

If we are all committed to best outcomes for Vermonters, we will be willing to listen openly to all ideas before coming to agreements – or even agreeing to disagree – in the end results. I am committed to continuing to do that. Most of all, my mantra should be – though I hate to quote from Facebook posts, I just saw this one and think it is right on – “Be teachable. You don’t know everything and you’re not always right.”

Constituent Concerns

Across the board, the major concern I hear from constituents is about affordability, and not restricted to property taxes. It includes areas such as fees, housing costs, and the potential of heating cost increases in order to make Vermont a leader on carbon emissions. I hear a lot of consensus on doing our part to address climate change, but not to think we can change a world trajectory by taking on more than our share of that burden.

What Will Be a Win?

It would be a win if we leave without creating a single new study that simply kicks “solutions” to our urgent and crippling problems to another year. I want to see us do the hard work of making very specific progress on health care and education spending, revenue, and quality outcomes.