This week has that stretch of the session where the clock forces decisions. Senate Education and Senate Finance continued to wrestle with the most consequential education bill of the session, House Ways & Means dove deep into the mechanics of property tax yields and the excess spending adjustment that will shape education finance for years to come, and multiple committees advanced housing production tools while grappling with whether Vermont's housing targets are built on solid ground.

Meanwhile, the House quietly concurred on a chronic absenteeism bill that represents a genuine shift in how Vermont approaches school attendance policy, and S.325 (the Act 181 fix) is headed to a conference committee that will determine the future of Act 250 jurisdiction.

Let's dig in.

Let’s pause for a second and look at 50 years of Act 250 from the perspective of a Vermont professional civil engineer, and Act 250 Land Use Consultant. I did my first land use project in 1973.

The first question, what went wrong in the first 50 years? My opinion, Act 250 killed housing and precluded most of Vermont from having a chance for a vibrant economy.

This week the Legislature continued its race against the clock, but the action shifted noticeably from the high level policy debates of recent weeks toward implementation details, technical fixes, and the quieter but consequential decisions that determine whether ambitious legislation actually works on the ground. The Senate pumped the brakes on proposed changes to its new housing finance tool (CHIP), the House heard about a promising geothermal pilot program that could reshape how Vermont delivers clean and affordable energy, and Senate Education weighed in on whether to terminate or fund the state's school PCB testing program.

Meanwhile, the education reform debate continues to simmer in Senate Education as the clock ticks toward adjournment. What appears to be taking shape is a more coherent, democratic, and data-informed bill than what emerged from the House. If it doesn't fall apart at the 10-yard line...

Let's dig in.

Dear Chairman Collamore and Members of the Senate Government Operations Committee,

I am writing today regarding S.298 and the ongoing discussion about candidate financial disclosure forms and the role of the Vermont State Ethics Commission. Our message is straightforward: Vermont's ethics framework can only succeed if it is given the resources to match its responsibilities.

Good Evening Chair Kornheiser and Members of the House Ways & Means Committee,

Thank you for your work in the yield bill (H.949) to try to get Vermont out of the cycle of using one-time funds to buy down property taxes.

As you know, the use of these funds creates funding cliffs in the following years that require further expenditure of one-time funds to fill and undermines the trust of taxpayers who see predictions of massive tax increases unless something is done… eventually there will be no one-time monies available and these predictions will come true. This is a cruel game of musical chairs.

Campaign for Vermont fought hard to get ethics legislation passed in 2017 (Act 79). Not even a decade later it is feeling like the legislature is dismantling the ethics and transparency framework in the state... and it's coming from all sides.

In 2024, the legislature passed Act 171, which was intended to build on Act 79 by giving the Ethics Commission more oversight and (finally) enforcement powers. Unfortunately, Act 44 last year paused the enforcement powers (the House version of that bill would have scrapped them completely if we hadn't stepped in on the Senate side). More importantly, the Commission, overwhelmed with requests from the public, stressed the need for additional staff. State budget-writers denied that request last year — leaving the Commission under-resourced.

This week the Legislature grappled with the fundamental tension between ambition and fiscal reality. House Ways & Means moved deeper into the mechanics of its income tax overhaul. Meanwhile, the Senate quietly narrowed its flagship housing production bill after the Administration conceded it lacked the capacity to run a key pilot program, and a technical drafting flaw nearly undermined Vermont's municipal financing toolkit. Also, the Senate now finds themselves at the center of the session-defining debate over education reform.

The week's hearings make clear the Legislature is racing against the clock, trying to assemble complex policy packages (and making consequential tradeoffs in the process) before time runs out.

Off to the races.

Act 126 (formerly S.298) creates a new Vermont voter protections framework aimed at protecting access to voting and election administration, while also updating rules on voter checklist use, candidate disclosures, campaign-related security expenses, election intimidation, voting rights enforcement, and candidate compliance procedures.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
4/27/2026
Contact: Ben Kinsley
[email protected] | (802) 210-1271 

Fix Ethics System Capacity, Don’t Scapegoat Staff

Montpelier, VT – Campaign for Vermont Prosperity today responded to partisan calls for the Executive Director of the Vermont State Ethics Commission to step down over confusion around candidate financial disclosure forms.