Week 7 - February 13th to February 16th

The Holy Grail

Vermont's Public Education Funding Formula

For six years (since I first ran for office in 2012) I have been haunted by a quest for my personal Holy Grail. That quest was (and is) to really understand Vermont's public education funding formula. I kid you not. Any time I get close to a public forum where I might be expected to respond to a question about the topic I toss and turn at 3:00 AM working through the calculations. With Town Meeting coming up in a couple weeks I renewed my search for this treasure.

PowerPoint of Holy Grail

Last Sunday I thought I had it, but I couldn't quite make the numbers work out. I called my connection at the Joint Fiscal Office Monday morning to see if I was heading in the right direction. He's the expert on Ed Funding in Vermont. One of the advantages of being a Legislator is that he doesn't hang up on me when I ask stupid questions. After about a half hour of back and forth he stated, and I concluded, that I was all wrong. I gave up for most of the week.

But yesterday (Saturday) I attended a small gathering here in Colchester where our Superintendent went over the district budget and how we pay for public education. It reminded me, once again, that I have yet to hear a clear statement on how the system works. I attacked it again during the day and around dinner time I found the key I had overlooked. The numbers worked and the algebra looked tight, I forced Ruth to sit down and concentrate on it with me and she agreed that it made sense. Although, at the end, she asked, "You're not going to go over this in Town Meeting are you?" The answer is no. 

Last night I put together the PowerPoint you see here and sent it off to Mark to see if he agrees. Meanwhile . . .

Weekly Summary

• Tuesday 
• 10:00  On the floor. Some new bills but nothing exciting.
• 10:45 In committee for a vote on H.559 . We took a partial vote on this bill last Friday but needed to pick up the other votes. It was unanimously in favor.  Part of the bill advocated forgiving loans to municipalities when the project documents were lost at the Waterbury Complex as a result of Hurricane Irene. There was also some catchup discussion on various subjects: drones, residential treatment etc.
• Presumptive Parole - H.844 is an implementation of Presumptive Parole. When an inmate has served her/his minimum sentence they are eligible for parole. Currently that means applying to the parole board and convincing them that you deserve to be released (most likely with conditions) into the community. With Presumptive Parole, it is assumed that you deserve parole and the parole board has to be convinced that you do not. The hope is to get more people out on parole.
• 11:27 Accessibility Signs for All Public Buildings - H.697 requires that the international accessibility sign be posted on all public buildings that are, indeed, accessible. It basically went from "may" post an accessibility sign to "shall." This is a big deal in legal lingo and is discussed below.
• Noon - lunch
• 1:15 - Public Democratic Caucus. H.636 will please one of my constituents, as it will make coyote hunting derbies illegal. There are other portions of the bill that may generate some action on the floor when it comes up for 2nd reading. 
• 2:10 - H.718 on creating a Restorative Justice Commission to investigate the pros and cons of having domestic violence cases handled by Community Justice Centers. We heard testimony about this last week, and there was some question about the make up of the study commission. 
• 2:45 - 4:50  H.728 regarding bail reform. This is yet another attempt to get more inmates out of prison and on home detention with electronic monitoring. Last session, when we were talking about whether or not to close the Windsor facility, DOC said that we could save a lot of money by putting people on 24/7 real time electronic monitoring. We jumped at it. But, a year later, there are only 11 individuals on the program and those 11 are not the type of inmate we had hoped would be using it; they are high risk serious crimes people and we intended it for low risk criminal. The Chair suggested we drop the whole Home Detention program. That caused quite a stir, but it might happen.
• Wednesday
• 8:30 Eric Blatt, Director Facilities Engineering Division, DEC tried to testify on the Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund but it took us a while to get going. This day being both Valentine's Day and the Chair's birthday. There was a lot of sugar in the building. It was hard to get into the serious discussion of the $80 million in this fund and how it is used.
• 9:30 - Steffen Flibotte, Correctional Officer, Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA).  One of the Corrections Officers at the Chittenden women's facility testified about the 10 year vision report with the 925 bed corrections campus. He doesn't like it and says the VSEA will not support it. He did have some good insights from the perspective of a front line employee in Corrections.
• 10:00 - Brandon Malschuk, Recovery Center Newport and Mike Lucier, Recovery Coach. Testimony about community recovery services. These are the people that try to work those coming out of Corrections back into the community.
• 10:30 Break
• 10:40 Windsor - The Windsor town manager testified about what the town of Windsor prefers to have done with the now-closed Windsor facility. The administration put out a report about using the facility for Transitional Housing. The Chair is very sensitive to the used of the expression: Transitional Housing. Last year, when we requested the report, it was to look into "Re-entry Services." Not the same thing at all. The town of Windsor does not want unsupervised inmates working in the community. This turned into a rather testy exchange based on a bit of miscommunication. But we survived.
• 11:40 Sarah Buxton back on Technical Education equipment request in the Capital Bill Adjustment. The Dept of Labor wants $500k for this and spoke to us last week. She came back with the information we had requested.
• 12:05 Quick lunch with a constituent - Ruth (my wife), then over to the MMR lobbyist's house in hopes of talking with someone from Champlain Cable. 
• 1:00 On the Floor
• 1:45 - 2:40  Back in Committee to hear from Tom Huebner, President, Rutland Regional Medical Center (RRMC). He implied that Rutland is eager to build a new Secure Residential Treatment Center to replace the one in Middlesex. He is emphatic that hospital emergency rooms are in crisis with mental health patients. He implores us to do something about it.
• 2:40 - 3:05 - More committee discussion about Windsor
• 3:05 - Committee work with Leg Council to write a "strike all" change to H.718 about the Restorative Justice Study.
• 3:16 - 4:15 Discussion of Representative Connor's bill (H.874) on prescription drugs in prisons. He, and we, have been hearing of inmates being taken of prescriptions when they enter a facility. Or the prescription is changed. The bill would require Corrections Facility doctors to follow the recommendations of the inmate's doctor on the outside with regard to prescriptions. This gets messy fast, as you have doctors prescribing meds for people that are not really under their care.
• Thursday



Chachka

• 8:00 Meeting with the Chair and another committee member to talk about a topics that might be discussed at Town Meetings. Unfortunately, at this time, I was supposed to be in another meeting of a committee to which I have been assigned: the IT Advisory Committee. I had gone through some trouble to get everyone else on the committee to attend, and then blew it off myself. Not good, but a reminder that I really need to keep track of all these commitments.
• 8:30 In Committee with Gus Seelig testifying about the bonded dollars we provide the Vermont Conservation and Housing Board (VHCB). These are good works providing affordable housing and conservation efforts. I can't say I really understand why those two are tied together, but the VHCB has been very good about leveraging Vermont dollars to get more from the Feds or other sources.
• 9:45 Break
• 9:50 Vermont Fairs & Field Days Association came in to thank us for the funds we have provided in the past for their projects. They hope we will continue. The free Cheese Curds and Maple Syrup they distribute may help their cause. 
• 10:30 On the floor for a House/Senate joint session to vote for candidates running for  positions on the board of trustees of the Vermont State Colleges Corporation.
• 11:00 Back in committee - Heard from Chris Cockran from the Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) 's Downtown Transportation Fund about their projects using bonded dollars
• 11:20 Committee Discussion. The Chair and Vice Chair reported to us about their meeting with various other high upty-ups (Secretary of Human Services, Commissioner of FOC and Mental Health etc. etc.) about a forensic mental health unit. This is an issue in constant turmoil. The current plan is to renovate and modify a portion of the NorthWest State Correction Facility for this population. At the end of the discussion we decided to email the Secretary of Human Services requesting, in writing, some basic information about the proposed facility. We hoped to have an answer by the end of the day, but it came Friday.
• 11:45 - Break for lunch
• 12:15 - Representative Connor and I met with two members of the Agriculture Committee about Clean Water projects.
• 1:00 - On the floor for consideration of bills
• H.294 - Disclosing Salary History - resulted in a roll-call vote with Yes = 137 and No = 0. 
• H.624 - Removing some personal data from the voter checklist. This was somewhat political as it is in response to Trump's commission on election fraud and requests for data from the feds. Turned into a roll-call vote: Yes = 93, No = 47. I voted Yes.
• H.764 - Having to do with DataBrokers who sell data. The bill would have them register and disclose a bunch of information about what they do with the data. This had some lively debate on an amendment submitted by Representative Browning. She's another one that I always listen to carefully. She often has good ideas. This amendment resulted in another roll-call vote:56 Yes to amend the bill and 84 no's. I voted No, which was the committee recommendation. After the failed amendment the vote was taken to see if the bill should pass this reading and again it was a roll-cal with 92 to pass and 46 not to. I voted to pass it on for third reading. I think it will come up again.
• Done on the floor at 3:52 - all these roll-call votes take time.
• 4:00 - Back in committee to hear testimony on H.777 - which wants to allow the State's Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund to make loans to private entities.  
• 4:55 - Done in Committee
• 5;10 - 5:45 Met with some others to talk about issues.
• Friday
• 8:30 - All the Valentine's Day sugar has worn off and the chair wants to get to work right away with testimony from Karen Mittelman, the new Executive  Director, of the Vermont Council of the Arts (VCA). She testified about their projects and the new directions she would like to take. The VCA has been a bit of a problem for our committee as the previous director seemed to spend too much money on fancy receptions and such. The State was giving them a break on their lease of state space and that did not go over well with some. But we we were impressed with this new director. No decision made.
• 9:30 - On the floor for more bills
• H.582 on Connectivity. The bill raises a fee used to provide internet service to more areas of Vermont. This turned political as the governor has promised to not raise any fees or taxes. So this is a tough one for the Republicans. After much debate a roll-call vote resulted in 109 yes and 27 no to pass it for third reading. 
• H.582 another Connectivity bill but not as interesting. Passed on voice vote
• 11:55 - H.843 - Five minutes before the time we usually adjourn for lunch or for the day, this 150 page bill came up for consideration. Everyone was tired after the debate and roll-call and wanted to adjourn. The presenter of the bill was Rep. Harrison who, several days before has risen to speak against a bill that came out of his committee with a recommendation to pass. You're not supposed to do that. If you don't like a bill, you argue against it in committee and vote against it in committee, but when you come to the floor you are supposed to support your committee decision. Everyone knows that, including Rep. Harrison. The result of such an action is that you get to defend a 150 page bill on the House floor. He avoided the whole thing by saying there were only spelling and technical changes, nothing substantive, and let's vote this through and go to lunch. We did that. But it will come up again.
• 12:05 Adjourned for the week - and lunch
• 12:30 Met with the Vice Chair to go over our notes on what Forensic means.
• 12:45 In committee to take testimony from Katie McLinn, Legislative Counsel,

  

  Accessibility Symbol

  about H.697 requiring the posting of the international accessibility sign if your public building is compliant. 
• 1:20 or so - We received a response from the Secretary of Human Services to our email requesting information about the proposed Forensic Mental Health Unit at NorthWest Corrections Facility. This turned into a long and convoluted discussion that was beginning to get frustrating. Committee members were tired, looking to long drives home, and wanting to leave.
• 2:15 Done for the week

May or Shall

The change in the bill involving the  accessibility symbol is very simple. It changes one word: may to shall. Here's the way the whole bill reads:

An act relating to notification of public building accessibility

It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont: 

Sec. 1. 20 V.S.A. § 2905 is amended to read:

§ 2905. ACCESSIBILITY; MARKINGS

All public buildings which that comply with the standards adopted under this chapter may shall be marked with the international symbol of access. 

Sec. 2. EFFECTIVE DATE This act shall take effect on July 1, 2018

The strike-through and underline means one replaces the other.

Anytime someone starts with "This is a simple bill." you know you're in trouble. Nothing is ever simple.  The presenter of this bill just wanted to make sure people know when a building is accessible, so change may to shall. What could be simpler?

Two problems arose during our discussion:

1. I wondered if, when you have to post a sign, someone will eventually question whether the sign you posted was big enough, or at the correct location. As long as it is may, no one could really object. As soon as it becomes shall, it seemed to me, you need to be very specific as to what is required.
2. The vice Chair wondered what happens if the building is only partially accessible; there is a ramp for wheelchairs, but the bathroom is too small. Does one still have to show the symbol? 

There was much discussion about both of these.

Finally we decided to not deal with the bill. Just let it die on the wall. At least I think that's what we decided.

Next Week

More bills will come up for votes on the floor as we close in on the deadline for getting bills to the Senate. Since the shootings in Florida there is, again, more talk of gun violence legislation.