No local control option in state ethics bill

By Guy Page

The House Tuesday April 2 approved a state ethics bill after refusing a local-control amendment. 

H.875 expands the duties of the State Ethics Commission and mandates towns model their employee/volunteer ethics policies after the state code of ethics and report annually to the state. 

Rep. Pat Brennan (R-Colchester) said the bill takes power away from municipalities.

“Control,” Brennan said. “It takes away local control. We always seem to be stumping for local control – but not in this case.”

Brennan represents Colchester, where former Democratic (Maureen Dakin) and Republican (Inge Schaefer) lawmakers asked the Government Operations Committee last month to allow local ethics commissions with policies as robust or more so than the state policy. 

The Colchester-led plan was rejected in committee. Two floor amendments, both proposed by Brennan, failed on a mostly party-line vote. Brennan was the only one of Colchester’s four House members to vote for either amendment.

Brennan worries that the bill explicitly gives the right of civil action – aka suing – over infractions, not only against employees but also volunteers. 

The bill passed by the House includes no funding for a planned full-time litigator/investigator and other staff.

Emergency housing program expanded, made law – the House Tuesday April 2 approved H.879, expanding and making permanent the state’s emergency housing program.

By a 105-37 roll call vote, the House made the pandemic-era state emergency housing program (sometimes known as the ‘homeless hotel’ program) permanent in statute, and expanded its services.

The bill, if it becomes law, would expand the dates for Adverse Weather qualification for emergency housing from November 15 to April 15. The current ‘end of winter’ date is March 15. 

The bill reads: “To the extent funding and capacity exists and notwithstanding any provisions of this chapter to the contrary, the Department shall provide shelter to households lacking a fixed, regular, adequate, nighttime residence during adverse weather conditions between November 15 and April 15. If there is inadequate community-based shelter space available within the Agency of Human Services district in which the household presents itself, the household shall be provided shelter in a hotel or motel within the district, if available, until adequate community-based shelter space becomes available in the district.”

The added services would be paid for by allocating the first $20 million of any budget surplus. That sum would be added to the existing $24 million for the temporary housing program included in the governor’s budget. 

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