Changes started happening rapidly this week as the bulk of the work moved out of committee and onto the House and Senate floors. Nearly every major policy thread of the 2026 session is now being actively reconciled between chambers, and the outcomes of those negotiations will determine whether this session produces durable reform or elegant placeholders. Those negotiations also include the Governor in some instances, such as education reform efforts which were unveiled last night.

Reference-based hospital pricing cleared critical procedural hurdles and is now positioned to become law this session. The property tax yield bill conference committee dug into the mechanics of excess spending exemptions and a one-year renter credit expansion (and the fiscal analysts started raising red flags). The Act 250 conference committee finalized guardrails for accessory on-farm businesses while preserving the road rule repeal. Career technical education reform advanced with unanimous support. And on the Senate floor, a sweeping portfolio of bills moved through final readings, including a permanent ban on crypto kiosks, manufactured housing modernization, and the formal repeal of the Clean Heat Standard's dormant statutory language.

Let's jump in.

Dear Chair Mihaly and Members of the House Committee on General and Housing,

I am writing on behalf of Campaign for Vermont Prosperity to respectfully urge this Committee to insist on the reinstatement of the Off-Site Construction Accelerator pilot program as the House considers the Senate's proposed amendments to H.775.

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.

The bill, S.328, adjusts several state programs and local planning requirements to better support housing development, align services and housing for Vermonters with developmental disabilities, and refine how communities plan for growth and infrastructure, with key topics including municipal planning and zoning, housing finance and credit facilities, common interest communities, service-supported housing, downtown and village center designations, and targeted housing needs assessments.

Vermonters understand the value of balance. We want to protect our forests, fields, rivers, and wildlife. We also want our children and grandchildren to be able to afford a home, find a job, and build a life here. Good public policy should recognize both realities. That is why the debate over Act 181 matters.

The law was intended to strike a grand bargain: encourage more housing and development in designated growth areas while tightening protections for ecologically sensitive parts of the state (conservation more or less). On paper, that sounds reasonable. Direct growth where infrastructure exists. Reduce sprawl. Protect natural resources. Streamline permitting where Vermont wants development to happen.

But as often happens in government, what sounds straight forward in theory can become much messier in practice.

The bill, S.325, makes technical, transitional, and policy changes to Vermont’s land use and regional planning laws to recalibrate implementation of Act 181. In the House proposal of amendment, the bill repeals Act 181’s road-jurisdiction and Tier 3 jurisdiction provisions, delays certain related implementation dates, extends several housing-related exemptions through 2028, and clarifies how Tier 1A and Tier 1B review will work under the new land use planning framework. It also makes changes to regional planning procedures, creates new reporting and oversight requirements, and adds a public engagement process on working lands and natural resource protections.

A bottleneck of bills hit the floor in both chambers this week. The House and Senate floors were busy passing major legislation on homelessness, health care, housing, and the FY27 budget. Meanwhile, the Agency of Education delivered pointed critique's of both chambers' approaches to education reform (color me shocked) and Ways and Means began inventorying the enormous technical to-do list that sits between Act 73 and anything resembling a workable foundation formula.

Let's walk through it.

It was a busy week keeping tabs on the pre-crossover sprint. Vermont's school performance took center stage in Senate Finance's joint hearing on the annual state report card (based on the ESSA accountability dashboard), where Education Secretary Zoie Saunders revealed the stark underperformance in Vermont's schools: no english grades surpassed 60% proficiency, math rarely topped 50%, science ranged in the low 40s, and over half of schools were "not meeting" expectations or declining. Equity gaps widened dramatically with designations nearly doubling for students with disabilities, low-income kids, and English learners. These results prompted the Agency of Education reorganization and initiatives like READ Vermont (Act 139 literacy), COUNT on Vermont (math), and Act 73 graduation standards aim to reverse trends.

The legislative gears are grinding towards crossover, with committees balancing ambitious reforms against practical fiscal and rural realities. This week the House Education Committee grappled with how to move forward on education reform. The Committee appears deeply divided and was looking for solutions to break a stalemate. It was perfect timing for our testimony on Friday. Our research on the efficiencies of replacing supervisory unions with CTE-based Education Service Agencies, we believe, will help inform the Committee's deliberations, by leveraging regional models to capture administrative savings without top-down mandates or the need to buy out collective bargaining agreements.