Chair Cummings explained on Tuesday afternoon that they are expecting several tax bills from the House but, as of yet, none of them address the big question of “the biggest problem we’ve got which is the massive increase in property taxes, which really is coming close to making Vermont unaffordable to most people.”

The Senate Education Committee held a presentation on Tuesday afternoon on the Flexible Pathways Initiative, created by Act 77 of 2013, which encourages and supports the creativity of school districts as they develop and expand high-quality educational experiences that are an integral part of secondary education in the evolving 21^st century classroom. 

Chairman McCarthy opened the House Government Operations Committee meeting on Tuesday morning by saying he was particularly busy visiting with the House Appropriations Committee regarding the grants bill, H.140. He shared with the Committee that he would like to offer an amendment to H.702 to insert the working Group concept from the previous bill into this one.

Chair Conlon and members of the House Education Committee,

The education finance crisis before you today is the gravest in decades and eerily similar to the crisis we faced a decade ago. You have difficult choices ahead of you around overhauling the entire education finance system or making targeted reforms to inject more transparency and accountability into the incentive structure.

Representative Boyden presented H.702 on the House floor on Friday. She told members of the House that, as policy makers, they need to routinely evaluate how well our system is working and ensure that Vermonters are receiving the results they expect and deserve. H.702 is the first step in strengthening this type of government accountability.

The annual housekeeping bill for the Ways and Means Committee, H.546, reached the House floor on Friday. Chairwoman Kornheiser presented the bill to the House. She described the bill as “revenue neutral.”

Representatives Walker and Harrison joined the House Energy and Environment Committee on Thursday to propose an amendment to H.289. The amendment would attempt to target new generation facilities in areas that already have additional distribution capacity. In areas where additional distribution capacity is necessary, the amendment would protect ratepayers from bearing the cost of these upgrades.

On Thursday, Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing and Conservation Board) talked to the House Commerce Committee about his annual report and the pictures and write-ups of all the projects they have been involved in throughout the State. But today they are focusing on housing and workforce development. Seelig mentioned that the Chair had asked him to work with the Career Technical Centers to focus on housing and workforce development in the construction/developer careers. He noted that he and Will Belongia (Executive Director, Vermont Community Loan Fund) had talked to CTE Directors throughout the state to find out what is needed. They said they need more students interested in the construction/housing field.

Brooke Olsen-Farrell (Superintendent, Slate Valley Supervisory Union) shared that their budget failed by a 464-vote margin. Voters in her district seem to “pride themselves on keeping education spending low.” Despite being among the lowest spending in the state and being “advantaged” by Act 127.