Saturday, February 15, 2020

Legislative Update, February 15, 2020


We’re approaching the major shift when the detailed work of committees begins to emerge as proposed bills to be debated on the House floor to send on to the Senate. (Per the old saying: it is not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.)
This means that the thinking on some of the big priorities for this year are becoming visible; in particular this past week, the responses to climate change.
The first stage of budget review in the Appropriations Committee is also ending. The committee has walked through all of the governor’s proposals and identified the gaps and areas for discussion and potential disagreement.
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Budget Issues
In the opinion of the Appropriations Committee, the legislature has not been presented with a balanced budget proposal. That response is pretty typical in any given year.
When the “squishy” numbers involved in trying to get to a bottom line are removed, revenues and expenditures don’t align. Ultimately, what we pass will have squishy numbers of our own, with a budget partially based on hoped-for outcomes.
Each committee evaluates the portions of the budget within its policy domain, and what the budget gap means at this stage is that House Democratic leadership is telling committee chairs that their recommendations back to Appropriations in response to the governor’s proposals need to identify priorities (meaning, what they least object to being cut.)
Committees also cannot be asking for their own new projects unless they identify an existing source of revenue, such as eliminating a currently existing budget item.
Within those constraints are embedded the money that House leadership believes needs to be reserved for its own priorities. (See climate change bill discussion, below.)
In my Health Care Committee, there are only a few new budget proposals we have to review, but it will be tough to not be able to tell Appropriations that each one is equally essential, because they all directly relate to the state’s mental health crisis and rising rates of suicide.
They include further investments (about $400,000) in education and training within the health care system for identification and response to suicidality under a program that has proven to be highly effective when implemented in other states, and which has already been initiated in three Vermont counties.
They also include the start of a mobile response program for families in crisis in Rutland County (at a cost of $600,000) which, if successful, would be rolled out in other counties in future years.
We have two committee priorities of our own. First is to keep chipping away at the subgroups of Vermonters who face the greatest barriers and inequities to health access.
We’d like to invest some money for just a small amount in premium support for the “cliff” that occurs when low-moderate income working families who must buy their own insurance are just over the financial threshold for eligibility for any assistance.
These are folks who are paying more than $5,000 per person for policies that have deductibles of more than $6,000, amounting to more than 20 percent of their income.
I just needed cataract surgery; the successful surgery has restored my ability to read normal size print. The bill will exceed $5,000 but my out-of-pocket cap is $1,350.
That’s still a lot to come up with, but if I had to pay for the whole thing, I’m not sure if I could have swung it without taking it out of retirement savings.
That makes me pretty lucky, and even as a low-moderate income person I’m willing to chip in for those who don’t have that level of access.
We are also working together with the Commerce and Economic Development Committee on mechanisms to help bring more health care workforce to Vermont.
We have a growing shortfall in all levels of nursing and in rural primary care doctors, and must compete with states that have strong incentive programs such as educational loan repayments.
That takes money. But we don’t do it, it increasingly raises our health care costs, such as the need for hospitals to use high-cost “temp agency” providers.
We are working on several bills that may help in ways that don’t cost money, by expanding access to tele-health, increasing the scope of practice for providers like physician assistants, and easing the barriers for licensure for those already licensed in other states.
In the coming weeks we’ll see the wish lists from other committees, and it’s likely that none of them will be frivolous – whether childcare, afterschool programs, tourism development (i.e., investments to bolster state revenues), or state support for local roads and bridges, just as a sampling.
One investment recommended by the governor that is not getting much legislative traction is a particular frustration for me, because I’ve been pushing for it for so long. That’s the tax break for veteran pensions.
It is an investment because anything that reduces state revenue is, in reality, something that costs the same money as if it was a new appropriation, yet it is highly likely that it will raise more revenue than what it may cost.
Retired military are a middle-aged, skilled workforce with families that are still young. They are exactly the folks we desperately need to attract to Vermont to reverse our sharply aging demographics. The taxes they will pay on the income they make in their new jobs will increase state revenues.
The problem is that nearly every other state gives tax breaks on their pensions. Why would they move (or stay) here, in the face of that?
Compare that investment to our current scheme of offering $10,000 to remote workers willing to relocate here. Yet it’s perceived as something that will be a benefit to higher income earners, which doesn’t sell well.
It’s a real issue for recruitment for Norwich, and I’ve convinced the chair of the Commerce Committee to hear testimony from several Northfield families to explain its importance.
My hope is that if that committee “gets it,” it will push the Ways and Means (tax) Committee to be more receptive. Right now, it remains a very uphill battle.
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Every Vote Counts
If anyone doubted the importance of every legislator’s vote, it was proven last week in the single vote that sustained the governor’s veto of paid family leave. (The coming vote on the minimum wage supplemental increase will be equally close.)
Democrats were not able to rally all of their members in support of a veto override, which was what made the difference. There were some ugly public statements made, unfortunately, by party leadership about one of their own who stuck to her opposition to the bill despite a good deal of pressure from them.
The thing that has enabled me to stay a Republican in the face of the pretty horrible national scene has been that in our caucus here, I have never faced approbation when I have voted my own conscience contrary to a party position.
It’s a commitment of our leadership that has always held true. I am not lock step on every issue, and when my views differ, they are respected by my peers.
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Climate Change
That segues well into the climate change bill, where I may well find myself at odds with many Republicans.
The first major bill has come out from the Energy and Technology Committee, titled the “Vermont Global Warming Solutions Act.”
“Solution” is undoubtably an exaggeration, but some will still find it quite overbearing. It changes our greenhouse gas reduction goals from goals to mandates and creates a Vermont Climate Council that will create an action plan to reach them. The Agency of Natural Resources would be empowered to adopt rules to enforce the plan.
That last piece is worrisome to me. Delegating major decision-making powers that are usually the responsibility of the elected legislature into the hands of an administrative agency threatens to disenfranchise the public.
On the other hand, such a statute isn’t written in stone, because no law ever is. If an agency ran amuck, a future legislature could change the law. But it’s harder to reign something back in once it’s been let loose.
The two Republicans on the 9-member committee voted against it; the one Independent, one Progressive, and five Democrats voted for it.
It includes almost one million in new appropriations to implement, so it has been sent to the Appropriations Committee to be vetted before coming to the floor.
That is one of the new money items that will push others off the table. (See budget discussion, above.)
Incidentally, if you sometimes worry about the quality of education today, you should see the set of letters I received from Northfield students who recently took a marine biology course and learned about impacts of pollution and climate change.
They thanked me for last year’s vote for the plastic bag ban and asked me to support climate change legislation this year.
They were thoughtful, articulate, well-written, respectful letters that showed independent thinking skills. They were obviously part of a class assignment, but so much the better; they are being taught how to make use of their voices in a democracy.
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And One Tidbit
I’m getting a lot of reaction to a brief bill I just introduced that would require car rental companies to place prominent notices on contracts if they ban use of their cars on dirt roads – reaction from folks saying, “Is this an issue in Vermont?”
Yup; I’ll bet you didn’t know it either. It’s in part of the tiny print on those multi-page contracts: no driving on dirt roads. On cars being rented in Vermont?!! The fact that they aren’t equipped with snow tires is a related issue.
Within a day I got a visit from the lobbyist for Enterprise (and the bill doesn’t even demand that they allow driving on dirt roads; it’s just a notice as a consumer protection issue.)
I explained the issue; she is going back to discuss it with her client; fingers crossed that it may be one of those bills that won’t even have to be taken up because the mere threat of it solves the problem.
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Feel free to get in touch any time during the session with Rep. Goslant and me. There is a lot going on, so if you have questions about something – ask. We are buried in committee work and don’t always know what is happening in other committees, but we can find out for you. It is an honor to serve you. (kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us; adonahue@leg.state.vt.us)

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