Week 11 - March 13th to March 16th

Another Forced March Week

Two Days in the Capitol Plaza Parking Lot

Another snow storm. Nearly a foot of snow on the ground kept me in Montpelier overnight three times this week instead of my usual two. It was a good thing. We were busy. We were desperately trying to finish working on the Capital Budget Adjustment Bill. That bill needs to get to the Appropriations Committee as soon as possible so they can get their work done on it and get it to the floor and out of the House. We have a two-year budget for how bonded dollars are spent. That budget was put together last session and spending began July 1st. Now we look at how the spending has gone and see if there needs to be adjustments. The Governor wants to spend $5 million on School Safety upgrades. No one suspected that request last winter when we were putting together the budget, so now we look for ways to shift money from delayed or no longer needed projects. We also received $10 million in bond premiums that we can now spend on things like the Governor's Work Force training initiative or the state's need for more mental health beds to alleviate pressure on hospital emergency rooms. All this means a lot of discussion, testimony, writing, proof reading, double checking, clarifying  and finally . . .  decision making.

The Chair started the week by telling us that it would be a rough one and that we might be working in the evenings. It's hard to get Committee work done when there's action on the floor. The weekly summary will illustrate. We were fortunate in that there were not a lot of controversial bills on the floor, but somehow, even the most straightforward bill can become controversial.

Tuesday I presented H.487 on the floor. I had the speech well prepared and cleared with the Chair over the weekend it was no big deal. Just read it clearly and slowly.

Weekly Summary

• Tuesday 



Reporting the Bill

• 10:00 On the floor. No real debate or issues with bills. I could see, by the calendar that I would be reporting my bill sometime before noon depending on what else happened. There was one long unimportant presentation that was bringing us close to 11:00, when the chair came by and said the Committee would meet at 11:00
• 11:00 In committee for markup of the capital bill. It's always awkward for me to leave the floor while there's still things being done. I feel like I should be in both places at the same time: in committee and on the floor.
• 11:20 Back on the floor, as we were told that my bill was next. This is not actually my bill. It's just that I was chosen to report it out of committee. When the time came it went fairly well. I'm still too nervous but getting better.
• 11:35 Back in Committee to start working our way through the spreadsheet that details how the money will be spent. At this time I think the Democrats were in caucus so I missed that.
• Noon to 1:00 break for lunch
• 1:00 Back in Committee while action on the floor started up again. We needed to consider two new proposals: one that would create a grant system to help schools design physical changes needed in schools that are consolidating, the other was part of the governor's request for $5 million to go to School Safety. Both presentations lacked details and were not received well. We don't just hand out money unless we really know where and how it is being used.
• 2:00 Back to the spreadsheet until . . . 
• 3:15 Bells rang announcing a roll-call vote. Now this was interesting. I had no idea what bill was up for a vote. I had heard none of the explanation or debate, but for some reason someone had asked for a roll-call, which usually means it's controversial. How should I vote? My seat mate gave me a quick explanation of what the bill was about and the roll-call began. I could see pretty quickly that it was not going to be close and that my vote would not matter much so I voted as recommended by the committee that reported the bill. I voted - yes. I think there were 4 no votes. But this would not be fun if it was a bill that really mattered.
• 3:40 Back in Committee - The discussion got confused when we hit funds for Clean Water projects. There are too many different agencies doing too many things. In order to do this right we really have to know what everyone else is doing.
• 5:30 - Done for the day.
• Wednesday - About a foot of new snow on the ground in Montpelier.
• 8:30 Working our way through the Capital Bill adjustment. Discussions about 108 Cherry Street garage and offices in Burlington. The garage needs serious repair. Do we sell it or fix it up? 

  

  Hanks and Weeks, Stanley and Wasson

• 9:10 More Building and General Services (BGS) issues. This time it's Waterbury and what to do about the Hanks and Weeks buildings in the complex. Weeks and Hanks are being renovated and may be able to take people from the Cherry Street in building Burlington but there are several other options. Stanley and Wasson are two other buildings in the complex. They are empty, but are still being heated (barely) and sorta maintained at a cost of some $30k a year. The plan seems to be to move Wasson and tear down Stanley. These are multi-million dollar projects.
• 9:30 Break
• 9:44 Back in Committee for Clean Water lines in the Capital Bill adjustment.  There's about $25 million of bonded money invested in Clean Water projects. At the end of last session we had $11 million for FY19 that we sent to the Clean Water Fund Board to look at and give recommendations on. Now we're considering those recommendations and any other adjustment. It's very messy and hard to keep track of. I need to spend the summer writing up a manual for Clean Water Funding. Maybe when I've finished my School Funding manual I can do that.
• 11:30 - Switched to Mental Health lines and whether or not to do that 12-bed forensic mental health unit up in St. Albans. We heard from the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Health Care.
• 12:00 I had promised a constituent that I would attend a lunch at the Capitol Plaza. It part of a day's lobbying by children services people.
• 1:00 On the floor - for bills etc.
• 1:48 Pulled from the floor into committee to make progress on the Capital Bill and discussion of funds to go to Lake Carmi.
• 1:52 Sargent at Arms in to talk about a new sound system for the House and Senate chambers. The existing sound system is dying and it's getting to be hard to find parts. That's one of the problems with working in a museum. 
• 2:15 - Called to the floor for a roll-call vote. No idea what bill is being voted. I checked with my seatmate and watched the votes leading up to mine. Ended up voting as the committee recommended and as people who I usually vote with voted. This vote showed overwhelming approval so I didn't worry much about mine.
• 2:37 - Back in Committee with more talk of Clean Water funding. Representative Brennan spoke a little about Transportation projects and who's funding what.
• 2:57 Break
• 3:25 Back to BGS capital projects. A $600k retaining wall project in Springfield has gone sour. An excavator with its shovel down 13 feet hit an old wooden pipe that was used to take crud from a dye factory to the river. Testing found mercury, lead and arsenic in and around the pipe. Now they have to dig it all up to find the extent of the pollution. That means more money.
• 4:10 Another roll-call vote. This dragged as one member asked for a "time out" so he could read up on the bill. There really is no such thing as a "time out." After a little confusion, a caucus was called and while that was going on we returned to Committee to get some work done.
• 4:27 Switched to consideration of School Safety money. This is a couple million to be made available for grants to school districts so they can improve their school safety infrastructure. This is the $5 million the Governor wanted. We knocked it down to $2 million because there is supposed to be some Homeland Security money available as well.
• 4:45 Back on the floor for a roll-call. Again I had no idea what the bill was about, but was briefed quickly. This one had to do with designating Lake Carmi as a Lake in Crisis. That makes it available for some special funding, This turned out to be a fairly close vote, so I wish I had heard the discussion.
• 5:25 Done on the floor and done in Committee. Done for the day.
• Thursday



Counting the Votes for Judges

• 8:00 Meeting of the IT Advisory Committee
• 9:00 In Committee with Sarah Buxton to hear more about the money she wants for Workforce Training Grants to Tech Ed Center to buy equipment. She really took some hits because the chair is getting disgusted  with people coming to the committee looking for money without firm plans on how it will be spent. I've been impressed with Sarah's work and think she'll do it right, so it was a little unfortunate. The chair apologized but it is an indication of the building pressure to get this bill done.
• 9:45 One of the lawyers form Legislative council started going over the language of the Adjustment Bill. We picked through each change. 
• 10:30 Joint session, House and Senate, to vote on Judges. Every year there are a couple judges or magistrates whose terms need to be renewed. Generally, it's just a formality with votes on judges with no opposition candidates. But it takes time.
• 11:15 Back in Committee for the Capital Bill
• 12:45 Break for Lunch
• 1:00 On the Floor for Lakes In Crisis bill and one on Beer Franchises. 
• From 1:00 until about 3:35 we went back and forth from the Committee to the Floor working on the Capital Bill but then being pulled to the floor for a roll-call vote.
• 3:35 Working with Buildings and General Services on what to do about the State building at 108 Cherry Street in Burlington. That building has been a money pit for some time.
• 6:00 Done for the day having made one pass through the Capital Bill language. That gives Legislative Council a bunch of work to do with re-writes.
• Friday
• 9:00 - In Committee for Capital Bill. My notes for this day are limited. The House was in session from 9:00 to 12:00, but we were only there for roll-call votes on bills about which I heard very little. I don't like not hearing the floor discussion, but again, in this case, the votes were pretty lopsided and not controversial. If it were a subject of real importance I would leave the committee for the floor. We were in Committee until about 5:30 in the afternoon when we finally took a formal vote on the Capital Bill Adjustment. The vote was 9 - 0 - 2. Which mean nine of us approved of it, zero objected and two were absent. The Chair was happy. We were all glad to be done with it.

Guns and Education Funding on the Horizon

Next week should bring two controversial bills out of Committee and to the floor for debate and vote. 

One is H.911 modifying Vermont's public education funding formula. I've put some time this week into writing up my explanation of how that works. It's a sort of Idiot's Guide to Ed Funding. I hope to finish it this weekend. I also need to look closely at this bill before School Board meeting on Monday. And there are rumors of amendments, including the infamous Beck Amendment to move teacher health care negotiations to the State level. Last session I voted twice on that amendment: once Yes, and once No.

The other is a bill coming out of the Judiciary Committee is regarding guns. It's the Senate bill S.55 about which I have been getting a lot of emails. I have been ignoring it as there have been many rumors about what it will contain or not contain: back ground check, AR-15 ban, age limits, high capacity magazines and such. Judiciary should wrap it up early and the week and move it to the floor. That will be a long, but interesting, day.