Special Session - The Ball in the Senate's Court

For the most up-to-date reporting from me on the impending Shutdown, go to the Special Session page of my website: www.ct4vt.com

June 20th - The Special Session Continues

Scheduling Chaos

I never know from one week to the next what is required of me. This can be frustrating as I try to make plans.

I have been regularly updating my Special Session page of my website. That is he best source of information about what I'm doing and my perspective on what has transpired. Posts to this blog will be sporadic for a while.

One thing I should make clear is that even though it has been 28 days since the Special Session began I have only been paid for about 4 or 5 of those days. We are only paid for the days we actually attend and my presence is not often required (sad to say). Several of the committees have been working and those Legislators are paid, but the rest of us just appear on the days we actually meet on the floor and move legislation along. So it's not as if there are 180 legislators (House 150, Senate 30) standing around collecting money from the state. The number that are getting paid varies from day to day depending on what work is required.

Work on the Capitol Dome progresses

Message from Montpelier - The Veto Over-ride Vote

As published in the Colchester Sun - June 21st, 2018

Colchester High School Graduation

As a Colchester School Board member, I attended the Colchester High School graduation last Saturday. A picture-perfect summer day in Vermont. Student speeches by Megan Lagerquist and Jacob Dell were impressive; well thought-out and well delivered. These students are neither naive nor cynical, showing instead a guarded optimism toward the future. Retiring Assistant Principal Tim Emery’s speech reminded me again of the dedication and sincere commitment to educating Colchester’s youth that so many of the district’s teachers and administrators evidence. Colchester is indeed a great place to live and raise children.

What has happened in Montpelier since that CHS graduation? You tell me. I hammered out this article last Sunday morning. On Tuesday the legislature met, but I have no idea what happened. It hasn’t happened yet. The governor vetoed the General Assembly’s compromise budget. Word is that there will be a veto over-ride vote on Tuesday? Was there? If so and it passed, several Republicans have voted against their governor; a hard thing to do. If an over-ride failed, we are still without a budget and closer yet to July 1st and a government shutdown. Concerned Vermonters are either relieved or biting their nails. If you’re curious about what happened, go to the Special Session page of my website: CT4VT.com. I’ll update that before you have a chance to read this.

After the graduation exercise I stopped in at a neighbor’s graduate reception. In the shade of a backyard tent, neighbors talked, laughed, and ate a fine dinner of salads and grilled meats. Several high school students tossed frisbees.  Our neighbor’s daughter is going on to college.  I did the same at that age. It was not until after college that I turned to being a farm hand and sawmill worker. Depending on her resources, she may have the freedom I had to sample many occupations. Or she may be faced with the burdens of student loans, health insurance, and the lack of affordable housing. When I left the reception the grad’s father called after me with a smile, “Just keep my taxes low.” I replied that I am trying.

Back to the future. I, no doubt, voted to over-ride the governor’s veto. Yes, the result will probably be a tax increase. For Colchester that’s true regardless of how I voted. No, I did not ignore my neighbor’s call. The best way to keep taxes low, or reduce them, is to make careful and responsible long-term financial decisions. A surprise gift, like a graduation card with a check enclosed, should be used to reduce future on-going expenses; one-time money to reduce the state’s pension obligations. I trust Colchester High School graduates will not learn that the hard way.

June 1st 2018 - Another week of Special Session

Fire drills, Bats, and Compromises?

A day of delays and just weird stuff. See my 2018 Special Section page of my website for the details. And note the scaffolding going up on the roof for restoration of the Capitol Dome.

We're back Tuesday of next week to see what progress can be made toward funding the state and avoiding a shutdown.

May 26th 2018 - Primary Candidates Announce

The Special Session Begins

The Special Session began on Wednesday, When will it end? No one knows. The first session on the floor lasted 35 minutes. Four bills were introduced and shunted off to committees, and that was it. Done for the day.

The committees that received the bills worked for the rest of the day and came in on Thursday and Friday as well. The rest of us stayed home and saved the beleaguered Vermont tax payers some money. We meet again this coming Wednesday to see what has been accomplished.

This page on my website explains what a Special Session is and what we are doing. I'll update is fairly regularly.

The Primary Election

May 31st, this coming Thursday, is the deadline for submitting petitions to get a candidate's name on the August primary ballots. There were some interesting turns this week as more Colchester candidates filed their petitions.

Colchester is divided into two voting districts (CH-9-1 and CH-9-2). Here's a map that roughly shows the two districts. One (CH-9-1) is referred to as the The Village. The other is referred to as The Bay. They are each two-seat districts, meaning they each send two representatives to the House. The current Representatives are:

• The Village
• Me. Curt Taylor (Democrat)
• Jim Condon (Democrat)
• The Bay
• Pat Brennan (Republican)
• Maureen Dakin (Democrat)

Both Maureen Dakin and Jim Condon are not seeking re-election. Pat Brennan and myself are. The question, for the last month or so, has been: Who else might run?

The Secretary of State website has a button for downloading a spreadsheet to see who has filed petitions. Currently there are the following for these two districts.

• The Village
• Me (Democrat) FaceBook Page, Website
• Deserae Morin (Republican) FaceBook Page, Website
• The Bay
• Pat Brennan (Republican) 
• Herb Downing (Democrat)
• Sarita Austin (Democrat)
• John Nagel III (Republican)

Unless something changes by Thursday, there will be no real race in my district as both Deserae Morin and myself will be on the November ballot and voters will then send both of us to Montpelier. There will be a real race in November on the Bay Side. Herb Downing is a well known Select Board member and Sarita Austin is a motivated member of the Colchester Planning Commission. As things stand, all four will progress to the November ballot where voters will select any two to represent The Bay.

Guns

It appears that the legislation of gun has inspired several of the candidates to run. All the Republicans on the ballot were strongly apposed to the legislation we passed, and the governor signed into law, during this session. I am not clear where Herb Downing and Sarita Austin stand on this issue.

Next Week

The special session continues and the deadline for candidate petitions arrives. Should be interesting

May 19th 2018 - The Endless Session

A Short Vacation

The Coast of Maine

I'm in Maine for a short vacation. Back in Vermont the political struggles continue. The General Assembly (House and Senate) voted out the budget and the education spending bill last week. We're done. All the governor has to do is sign the bills and Vermont can continue on its merry way into a glorious summer. But the governor has threatened to veto at least one of those bills and bring us back for a special session to work something out. This is basically a threat to shut down the state government. We went through this same thing last year. It's not a good way to do legislation.

The Issue

The big issue seems to be $35 million in the Education Fund (some say it's actually $58 million - depends on what you're counting). The Ed Fund is used to fill all the local school budgets in the state. Predictions of revenue and expenses show it coming up that much short . There's money to plug that hole. The controversy is around just how to do it.

The Ed Funding bill we passed raised the average Homestead Property taxes for the state 2.6 cents for every $100 dollars of property value (from $1.50 to $1.526). That's the average for the state. Colchester's rate will go up more because of local issues. One can argue that the legislature raises taxes in order to plug that $35 million hole. The governor has pledged not to raise taxes so he wants to plug the hole by using one-time money from other sources, essentially buying down the tax rate.

What's wrong with one-time money?

We did this last year and perhaps we have learned. One-time money means you're not identifying a long term revenue source for these funds. One-time money should be used for one-time expenses like an emergency situation or to plug a temporary hole. The trouble is that when you use it to fund school budgets you are funding programs and salaries that will be there again next year and will need plugging then as well. It only delays the problem and perhaps makes it worse.

The Two Sides

The governor's plan is to plug the hole this year and put in place cost saving measures that will reduce next year's budget by enough to cover the cost. He proposed a 5-year plan to do this. Unfortunately the Joint Fiscal Office (JFO) looked into the plan, found some problems and did not respond favorably.

The legislature wants to keep the increase in the property taxes and use the extra money to restore reserves and pay down some of the debt liability in the Teacher Pension Fund. That proposal will save the tax payers $100 million "over time." They say over time because it actually a pretty long time. Like ten or twenty years.

Where we are now?

The governor has called a special session of the General Assembly in order to work out the differences. As of today he has not vetoed the budget or the education funding bill. He only received the bills this week. We've been told to report for work Wednesday, May 23rd at 10:00 am. Thursday and Friday some committees will meet, but most of us will stay home. Then, the week after, we will return to finalize whatever is agreed upon.

Hanging over all of this is the brinkmanship of a state shutdown. The budget and the education funding bill really need to be passed and signed by the governor before July 1st, the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Week 19 - May 7th to May 12th

The Last Week . . . 

A Scrum at the Podium

The House Journal for Saturday, May 12th ends with:

Adjournment

At twelve o'clock and eighteen minutes in the evening, on motion of Rep. Donahue of Northfield, the House adjourned pursuant to the provisions of J.R. 60.

That's 12:18 as in midnight plus eighteen minutes. I was home in Colchester at 1:30 am. The day, the week, the session, the biennium have all ended. During Saturday's work the two most important bills came out of conference committees for approval by both the House and Senate. They were:

• H.911 An act relating to changes in Vermont’s personal income tax and education financing system. 
• H.924 An act relating to making appropriations for the support of government.

Without those two bills the government can't function very well after July 1st, the beginning of the new fiscal year. In addition to that deadline there was the deadline of the week's end, and the session end. By then everyone wanted to go home. Summer is upon us and legislators start thinking about their other priorities: jobs, vacations, kids, wives and such. No one wanted to come back the following week. That's why we worked Monday as well as Saturday.

Suspending Rules

In order for a bill to become law there are a number of steps it has to go through. Some of those steps are designed to slow the process down. It's all part of the rules set up by the General Assemble. But in the last days of the session people want things to move fast so there is a little trick called: "suspending the rules." By voting to suspend the rules, bills can be cranked through the process more quickly. But suspending the rules requires a three-quarters vote. This gives Vermont's Republican minority a little injection of power in the waning days of the session. If the Republican caucus wants some last minute change to a bill or to have a bill killed, they can refuse to suspend the rules and thereby bring the whole process to its usual slow pace and keep the session going into next week.

All this happens behind the scenes. The Speaker and the majority party never requested a suspension of the rules that failed. That would look bad. Instead there are negotiations ahead of time such that it's agreed to suspend before the vote is taken. The vote is just a legal formality. This is why, for a good deal of Friday and Saturday, we had no idea whether we would be ending the session Saturday or not. This is also why there were a number of long recesses while leadership negotiated or while we waited for bills to come back from the Senate. Both the House and Senate suspended rules to facilitate the movement of bills back and forth and out of conference committees.

H.924 Committee of Conference

Late Friday night the committee of conference for the Appropriations bill (H.924) finished their work. Saturday afternoon we heard the details. Saturday night we approved all changes with a remarkable 117 to 14 vote and sent the bill on to the governor. Saturday we also passed the Taxing bill (H.911) 89 to 43 and sent that on as well. At close to midnight the Governor closed the session with a short speech that basically said he would veto those two bills and we would all get together again soon to work it out. We'll see.

Later this week I'll be putting together a website page listing what was accomplished during the session. There has been quite a bit of good work done. For those who are interested in only the bottom line, here it is:

• Spending went up .5%  which is incredible! There are a number of ways to measure growth of spending but no matter how you do it, this looks very good.
• School budgets state-wide went up 1.8% which is also incredible.
• The state-wide average homestead property taxes is $1.526 for each $100 of property value. That's an increase of 2.6 cents over last year (FY18) and a decrease of .1 cent over FY2017.
• The state-wide non-homestead property tax is $1.59 and increase from $1.535.
• The average household income tax rate (income sensitivity) is 2.53%, that's down from last year's 2.55%

Paid Family Leave

When the Paid Family Leave bill first came up early in the session, I voted against it. It came back from the Senate with some changes. Prior to the vote this week, leadership asked me how I would vote and I told them to expect a "No."  In the course of debate and clarification of some of the changes I changed my mind and voted "Yes". Here's a link to my write-up of the bill and my vote.

Weekly Summary

We had a little bit of Capital Bill work at the beginning of the week, but basically, our work was done. For much of the week we we were either on the floor debating and voting or walking around, passing rumors, and/or wasting time. The weather was beautiful, so I was able to take several long walks at mid-day and after the day's work.

• Monday 
• 10:00 in committee for Capital Bill (H.923) review - some behind the scenes negotiating with Senate Institutions.
• 11:30 lunch break
• 1:00 On the floor - Clean Water Bill (H.260)
• 5:20 Committee vote on Capital Bill changes. Approved. We're done with it!
• 6:30 Done for the day
• Tuesday
• 9:00 In Committee for quick vote on H.777 regarding the State Clean Water Revolving Loan fund.
• 10:00 On the floor
• 11:10 Capital Bill approved and on it's way to the Senater
• 11:15 Minimum Wage (S.40)
• 12:00 Caucus on Minimum Wage
• 3:10 start Vote on Minimum Wage - It passed 77 to 69. I voted "No"
• 5:58 Adjourn
• Wednesday
• 10:00 On the floor. with various bills
• 11:26 Recess until 2:30
• 3:00 Back on the floor
• 3:30 I was on a quick conference committee
• 5:18 Recess after complaint of things moving too fast without everyone knowing where we are and seeing what we're voting on
• 6:30 Done
• Thursday
• 9:00 In committee for presentation on battery backup for the State House.
• 10:10 On the floor for various bills
• 11:30 Recess until 1:30
• 2:35 Back for public caucus
• 3:44 On the floor
• 4:00 break 
• 4:23 Done with Misc. Education Bill
• 5:30 Done for the day
• Friday
• 9:30 On the floor
• 10:17 Started Paid Family Leave bill (H.196) 
• 11:45 Roll-call on Paid Family Leave - it passed 90 to 53. I voted "Yes"
• 12:02 Done with Paid Family Leave
• 12:15 Lunch
• 1:33 Back on the floor
• 3:30 Break
• 5:30  Back to the floor
• 7:15 Adjourn for the day
• Saturday
• 1:30 pm - On the floor for recess
• 2:42 Started orders of the day
• Caucus of the whole. Everyone hearing about Budget Bill and Education Funding
• 5:10 Public Democratic caucus
• 5:47 Break for dinner
• 7:02 Back on the floor for S.260 - Clean Water Funding
• H.928 (The Pay Act) - Roll-call on an amendment that would have kept everyone's pay the same in case there was a veto of the Budget. Roll-call vote failed. I voted "No"
• H.696  - Individual Mandate bill making it mandatory that one have health insurance. Roll-call vote pass 116 to 16. I voted "Yes"
• H.911 - Education Tax Bill - Roll-call vote. It passed 89 to 43. I voted "Yes"
• H.924 - The Big Bill - Roll-call vote passed 117 to 14. I voted "Yes"
• 12:00 (About) - Governor called in to address the House and end the session
• 12:18 Adjourn

What's Next

Our work is done. The General Assembly adjourned. However, the governor is expected to veto at least on of the must-pass bills. Leadership says we will not call a veto session, so it will be up to the governor to call a special section to have us prevent a state shut down.