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.

Jody Emerson (Director, Central Vermont Career Center) submitted a list of ‘wants’ to the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday on behalf of the Directors of Vermont’s Career & Technical Education (CTE) Centers. Chairman Campion asked members to review this and evaluate the status of each of the suggested ideas and identify those already being worked on, those that could potentially be pursued, and those that would take much more time than is available at this point in the legislative session.

The House Appropriations Committee met to review H.480 on Wednesday. The bill proposes to remove municipalities from the property reappraisal process and require instead that the Division of Property Valuation and Review within the Department of Taxes conduct full and statistical reappraisals on behalf of all municipalities in the State.

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).

The workforce development bill, H.484, was presented to House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. The makes several appropriations for programs that educate, train, and help businesses hire and retain workers. It also includes appropriations for forgivable loan programs, scholarships, degree and certification programs, assistance to businesses and other miscellaneous proposals to enhance workforce and economic development opportunities in the state.

On Tuesday the House Environment & Energy Committee began taking background testimony on S.5, beginning with Representative Sibilia providing a recap of what happened with H.715 (The Clean Heat Standard bill vetoed by the Governor) last year, and passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). The GWSA created the Climate Council which in turn created a Climate Action Plan. She emphasized that Vermont needs to reduce emissions from the thermal sector, and one recommendation was for a Clean Heat Standard. It did not quite make it last year, but a lot of work went into it, and here we are again with an “improved” bill.

Representative McCarthy was introduced to the Senate Government Operations Committee on Tuesday by Chairwoman Hardy. Out of the gate she wanted to advise everyone they would be hearing from lots of others on H.429 and passage was not likely to occur soon. She acknowledged lots of media attention and outreach to her and other members about the bill.

Two more problematic bills moved out of committee this week. The first was a bill tightening restrictions on independent schools who receive public tuition dollars under Vermont's historic town tuitioning system. We have been following this bill for quite a while and, although duplicative, the bill was generally acceptable until a new provision was added the day before the Committee was set to vote on it... That provision would disallow any sort of normal application processes to play out before schools make enrollment decisions. Current rules prevent discriminatory behavior, but schools still saw value in bringing students in for site visits before enrollment so they could begin planning how to best meet their needs. The bill would prevent this as well as other criteria such as program alignment. This was particularly concerning for students ability to use their tuition dollars at specialty schools like ski academies, which were not given an opportunity to comment on the bill. We are hopeful that this language will be fixed by a House floor amendment or by the Senate.

Tuesday

The House Commerce Committee pivoted on Tuesday and took up draft bill 23-0991, which deals with enhancing workforce and economic development opportunities, a topic they had not previously covered in earnest. The bill appears to be a replacement for H.452.