I welcome your call into Feedback Friday on WDEV’s Hot Off The Press. We’re on the air from 11:05 – noon. Our phone number is 802-244-1777.

Plenty of hot news today! You can read it all on VermontDailyChronicle.com. 

The Vermont House gave preliminary approval Thursday to H.949, the education finance Yield Bill and its proposed 7% property tax increase, but not before three Republican amendments to cut taxes failed. House Democrats, the majority, voted to:

Opt out of the $1700 federal tax credit for donating to private school scholarships, proposed by Rep. Mike Tagliavia (R-Corinth). Ways & Means spokesperson Charlie Kimbell (D-Woodstock) said the tax credit is out of step with the usual tax deduction for education charitable donations, and said Ways & Means didn’t want to establish funding for a parallel for of education to the public school system. 

Consider a wealth tax on the highest earners ($250K or more filing jointly), after the House approves its education plan. The State of Vermont needs more funding for its many program needs, and concerns about wealthy Vermonters fleeing are unwarranted given the history of other states with wealth taxes, Reps. Monique Priestley (D-Bradford) and Esme Cole (D-Hartford) argued.

Allocate $1.7 million from a local ‘payment in lieu of taxes’ surplus to paying for the statewide reappraisal. The revenue is an outcome of growing local option taxes, into which the state makes payments in lieu of taxes. Municipalities thought they had a deal to allocate that funding to municipal highway funds.

Dems defend the 7% property tax hike as ‘sustainable’ – Majority Leader Lori Houghton says so in a VDC op-ed.

Act 181 will harm working forestry and farms, says former state official and working forester Sam Lincoln. 

And then there are two pieces of legislation verging on ‘unfunded mandate’ territory:

• First, the governor signed a farm and forestry disaster relief bill not pointed out the obvious – it’s unfunded! Where will the money come from?

• House Committee says Pre-K is a RIGHT but funding unclear.