Christina Sivret (Executive Director, Vermont Ethics Commission) presented to the Senate Government Operations Committee on Wednesday a proposal to add language to H.429 surrounding candidate financial disclosures and the compliance with such requirements.

Senator Clarkson presented S.42 to the Senate on Tuesday, positioning the bill as a "win-win." She listed a number of individuals that were involved for the bills development, including the Treasurer, the Vermont Pension Investment Committee (VPIC), and several other experts. She cast the bill as the result of "productive negotiations" lead by the Senate Government Operations Committee with with the intent of divesting fossil fuel investments while simultaneously protecting the state's pension funds and Actuarial-Defined Employer Contribution.

The Clean Heat Standard bill (S.5) made a re-appearance this week as the House began to take testimony. Not much of an indication yet of how the Committee will handle the bill, but already there has been more vocal opposition to it than was heard in the Senate.

The independent schools bill was pulled back into the House Education Committee twice this week after they rushed the bill out at the end of last week with a lack of testimony. Some of the language was improved around enrollment for students on public tuition, but is still problematic. Additionally, students will no longer be allowed to use their tuition dollars at schools across the border in Quebec. No testimony on either of these issues was taken by the Committee. Not a good look for those responsible for our public policy supporting Vermont students.

The Senate Education Committee invited two Assistant Directors from Career and Technical Education (CTE) Centers to join them on Friday. The issues they spoke to the Committee about were on a list presented by Jodie Emerson earlier in the week.

Brad James (Finance Manager, Agency of Education) joined the Committee on Tuesday. He informed them that all but three districts have reported their budgets so far and the remaining ones were very small. He noted that if they assumed the remaining districts came in at the statewide average, the overall average spending increase would come out just under 8%.

This week the Senate Natural Resources Committee focused mainly on amendments and wording changes to S.100 and the amendments being offered.  These language changes dealing with definitions of downtown development districts, areas affected by municipal sewers infrastructure and wastewater systems.

Tuesday

Chairman Conlon shared with the House Education Committee on Tuesday that over the weekend some technical changes relating to H.483 came to light.

The Senate Education Committee heard from Senator Hardy on Wednesday about S.66. She described the bill as being about the changing education landscape in light of recent US Supreme Court rulings (Carson v. Makin, etc.). She stated that the bill prioritizes the designation of public schools only for public tuitioning of students (regardless of whether one is within a practical distance).

Senator Vyhovsky provided an overview of S.32 for the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. She noted that the $2M appropriation originally in the bill for the Secretary of States Office (SOS) has been removed. Since the SOS will not be working to implement Rank Choice Voting (RCV) by 2024 that appropriation was no longer needed. There is still a $1k appropriation for a summer study committee tasked with looking at implementing RCV for 2026 for state and federal election. There would also be $100,000 in funding to educate town clerks on how this election system would work for those that chose to do this (a one-time appropriation).