PRESS RELEASE - APRIL 7, 2021

Campaign for Vermont has long been an advocate for pension reform. After nearly a decade of stubbornness, to our surprise, the legislature is now poised to take meaningful action. The pension policy recommendations that emerged from the House Government Operations Committee last week is surprisingly comprehensive despite its 11^th hour appearance. Not surprisingly, the teachers and state employee’s unions have summarily condemned the proposal.

The House and Senate have now passed a combined 92 bills. Several key pieces of legislation have now moved from the House to the Senate and we are keeping track of them. Below are some of the highlights.

We have some clarity now. A number of bills came together to meet the crossover threshold this week. A few more are on the way and will likely be given exceptions because of their importance. We will provide a full list in the next couple days, but here are some of the highlights we have been following.

All will become clear shortly. The last few bills to make crossover will be finalized this week. Last week had some ups and downs. First, the legislature is now expecting to have $200M on hand from the latest round of stimulus funds to put towards broadband buildout. This is nearly a 670% increase over what the state had planned to spend in FY2022. Also on the upside, stronger voices have started testifying on the state of our pension funds. The downside? We can't really tell if they are being taken seriously. Also disappointing, the Senate doesn't seem to be interested in passing an ethics bill this year despite the House sending them a pretty cut-and-dry one.

The legislature was in overdrive this past week as they raced to meet crossover deadlines. The results were surprising. A couple bills that appeared to either not have legs or lacked meaningful change now appear to be positioned to move forward.

We have reached the mid-session break for Legislators. This is a great time to reach out to your Senator or Representative or talk to them a town meeting about issues that you care about and to provide your feedback on their work during the first half of the legislative session. A couple weeks from now will be crossover, a deadline for when the House and Senate need to have voted our their respective bills so the other body can work on them. If a bill is to pass this session it must make the crossover deadline so Committees will be buckling down on must pass issues when they return from the Town Meeting break.

The 2021 legislative season is now in full swing, albeit remotely. A new Speaker of the House, Senate Pro Tempore, and Lieutenant Governor have been sworn in and the difficult task of identifying legislative priorities and lawmaking have begun.

In order to further our goal of advocating for issues that boost working class Vermonters, this year we have decided to survey the Campaign for Vermont followers about what issues impact their daily lives to most, what is most likely to improve the social and financial situation of a family, and what issues people would most like to see the legislature tackle. Here are the results!

We should know in a couple weeks what bills will make it and which won't. Right now though it's not very clear. Many of the legislature's biggest initiatives appear to have either stalled, hit roadblocks, or lack clear direction.

There was some big news this week from the legislature. Some of it positive, some not so much.