On Tuesday, C.J. Spirito, Head of School at Rock Point School in Burlington joined the Senate Education Committee to talk about H.483.

Rock Point is a small independent school with students ranging from “high-flying, college-bound students to kids in the hospital because they can't function or are not getting to school.” They are not competing with public schools or larger schools for students, he noted.

He was there to raise concerns about some of the major provisions in the bill and how they would impact his specialty school. He noted that if they “took any kid without an admissions process,” they would not be able to “protect the space for the kids that are here now” and continue to successfully serve them. The bill would put the school in a difficult place because they would have to deny publicly-tuitioned students that they could help, in order to protect the current students.

Christina Sivret introduced herself to the House Government Operations Committee on Tuesday. She talked about the Vermont Ethics Commission and the service they provide. The majority of their current responsibilities relate to training and providing advice; they have ability to receive complaints but not to investigate them. However, they do oversee that State Code of Ethics.

The concept, she explained, is that the State Code of Ethics should apply to all state employees. She discussed the fact that if there can be additional codes of ethics within a state department that may be more stringent than the statewide code.

On Tuesday, Julia Boles, Health Policy Advisor at Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB), presented a report regarding Prior Authorization (PA) to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. She explained that “Prior Authorization” means the process used by a health plan to determine the medical necessity, medical appropriateness (or both) of otherwise covered drugs. It is also applied to medical procedures, medical tests, and other health care services. Prior authorization is a process by which a medical provider (or the patient, in some scenarios) must obtain approval from a patient's health plan before moving ahead with a particular treatment, procedure, or medication.

Before we dive into this week's update we need to get something unfortunate out of the way. Last week we had reported that the House had gutted the "check-back" provision in S.5 that requires the Public Utility Commission (PUC) to bring the Clean Heat Standard rules back to the legislature for a vote. This was in fact incorrect. The provision in question had been added in the Senate, not by the House Environment & Energy Committee as we had indicated. Our reporter on the bill didn't catch that provision until the walk-through in that Committee and didn't realize it was in the underlying bill, not the amendment being offered by the Committee. Our apologies for this mistake.

That being said, the provision in question is still concerning because it could potentially allow the PUC to skirt the "check-back" provision in the bill. The House did offer an amendment on the floor in an attempt to address this, but we will encourage legislators to strengthen the check-back provision and limit workarounds.

The bill creating the Clean Heat Standard (S.5) passed the House this week 98-46, two votes shy of a veto override. The bill now moves back to the Senate to see if they will agree with the (relatively minor) House changes or if a Committee of Conference will be called for. The Senate was one vote short of being able to sustain an override when they voted on the bill back in March.

On Friday, Oliver Olsen (Former Chair, State Board of Education) joined the Senate Education Committee to speak on H.483 as a parent, former legislator, and community member from Southern Vermont. During his tenure, he oversaw the “significant effort” of updating the rules governing the approval of independent schools.

The bill creating a carbon-pricing scheme, known as the Clean Heat Standard (CHS), reached the House floor on Thursday. Representative Sibilia presented the bill on behalf of the Environment & Energy Committee.

She described the bill as having the Public Utility Commission (PUC) develop the marketplace and rules for implementing the CHS. They will provide the 2025 legislature and Governor with the rules to implement the CHS. That is “all we are voting on today,” she claimed. She continued that “a yes vote today will not increase the cost of Vermonter’s fuel or protect the cost. We are not voting on those things today. We are voting on those things in 2025.”

On Tuesday, the housing bill, S.100, was moved to the House Environment & Energy Committee on the House floor.

On Thursday, the Senate Education Committee heard from Heather Bouchey (Interim Secretary, Agency of Education) and Chris Kane (Interim State Director of Special Education, Agency of Education) on H.483. Bouchey stressed the nature of public process and 2200 rulemaking stakeholder engagement. She believed this needed to be “implemented and experienced” as independent schools engage with that newly developed process.

Christina Sivret (Executive Director, Vermont Ethics Commission) joined the Senate Government Operations Committee to discuss a provision they wanted added to H.125. The underlying bill delt with boards and Commissions, but the Committee had previously indicated that this was a good vehicle for the language she was looking for.

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee heard testimonies on Thursday from various entities concerning H.206. The bill relates to the duties of the Department Vermont Health Access (DVHA), which was initially created in the House Health Care Committee back in February. Subsequently, reviewed by the House Appropriations Committee and then passed House sent to the Senate.