faces property tax increases, safe injection sites, post-flood Act 250 reform
By Guy Page
Tomorrow, Wednesday January 3, the Vermont House and Senate will reconvene at 10 AM for the first day of the 2024 Session. Thursday Jan. 4 at 2 PM, Gov. Phil Scott will deliver his State of the State address.
In the coming days and weeks, Vermonters can expect the Legislature to grapple with the 18% property tax increase predicted by the Scott administration last month, due to spending measures adopted by recent Legislatures.
One element of the Legislature – as shown in an op-ed by Reps. Erin Brady (D-Williston), former Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe (D-Windsor/Orange), and Monique Priestley (D-Orange-2) – says the crisis requires a state-level response not only in school funding but in health care and housing costs. In particular, they want more state oversight of private schools.
“The projected education property tax increases are driven by a projected 12% increase in school budgets statewide,” the lawmakers said in a recent op-ed. “We hope to work with the Governor to tackle state level drivers of that education spending….Many of the factors behind growing school budgets are out of the control of boards, including skyrocketing health insurance costs, our housing crisis, and cost shifting from state to local budgets for a host of human services. We would add use of public school budgets for what amounts to private benefits.”
Another group of lawmakers – led by Rep. Seth Bongartz of Manchester – publicly refuted the first group with its own op-ed. They dispute the need for more state control of private schools, which they argue are quality-controlled by both the state and the free market. “In addition to complying with stringent regulations, Vermont’s independent schools are held accountable to the highest standards of all – the need for the support of families and local school districts. Independent schools survive only when they deliver high quality education, for the simple fact that families can exercise a choice of where to send their children,” Bongartz and Reps. Scott Beck (R – St. Johnsbury), Michelle Bos-Lyn (D – Westminster), Bobby Felice-Rubio (D – Barnet), Robin Chestnut-Tangerman (D – Middletown Springs), and Mike Rice (D – Dorset) said.
A bill establishing safe injection sites has been fast-tracked. In an apparent response to the fentanyl epidemic overwhelming the state’s courts and substance abuse treatment infrastructure and contributing to the homelessness crisis, legislative leaders are pushing the most recent draft of H.72, approving so-called ‘safe injection sites’ and needle exchange centers where drug users could consume illegal drugs without fear of arrest. Although the House Appropriations Committee was told December 19 that the Scott administration is ‘softening’ towards the idea, Gov. Scott himself said at a subsequent press conference he hasn’t softened at all.
The latest draft of the bill, passed in May by House Human Services, doesn’t contain the hard drug decriminalization language featured when the bill was introduced by Reps. Taylor Small (P-Winooski) and other Progressives and left-leaning Democrats last year. Scott noted this language could be added back in.
The Legislature also will grapple with housing policy and Act 250 reform in the post-flood era. With many lawmakers questioning the idea of concentrating new housing construction in flood-prone downtown areas (Barre, Montpelier, Waterbury, among others), an Act 250 study committee has developed a new formula for housing development oversight. VDC will provide more details in the weeks to come.
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Categories: Legislation
The Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey is back under the big top, and true to P.T. Barnum’s often quoted business mantra, “There’s a sucker born every minute” those disingenuous “representatives” of “We the People”, will be looking to fleece our pockets again this year. Hold fast to that which they would flush down the commode oruse to subjugate us ! I wish us all good luck in the up coming Legislative season.
Oh no! 😱
The Supermajority Democrats will continue to violate the liberty and destroy the prosperity of Vermonters and in November they will be re-elected with great celebration. Not sure how or why.
Oh but it’s for the good of the collective !
when your over the target/// five trespasser signs will appear///sticks and stones will break my bones/// but words will never hurt me///but will hurt me is to violate my rights/// we are headed for a new year/// never fear/// v.d.c. will right the wrongs// /// i think they will///what do you think//
“Safe” injection sites – a place in which to inject the final dose of desecration and destruction to VT after which there will be no possibilty of revival.
How about term limits for our legislators.
How about the firing line once they are duly convicted of treason?
Must be no one in the legislature can see what Oregon is going through after decriminalizing hard drugs.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/09/18/oregon-drug-decriminalization-lack-treatment-substance-use-heroin-meth-cocaine/70796961007/
Wait, said every fool ever…they just don’t know how to do it properly, kind of like communism.
see/// tom heneghan explosive intelligence briefings/// december 28 2023/// these people believe al gore is the president of the united states/// fact or fiction/// got to say it is interesting, but so other web sight/// time will tell where the truth begin and ends//
tel/// lie/// vision breaks the news on epstein//sorry this should have been news four years ago/// big media are part of this problem///
As of January 2, 2024, the national debt is now $34 Trillion – per taxpayer, we owe $264,090. Federal debt to GDP is 122.28%. The corporaton of the United States is insolvent. In turn, the corporation of Vermont is insolvent as well. The foreign money that once kept it all afloat is drying up. US Treasury bonds are junk and no one wants to buy our debt, except the Fed through the back door. The shipping lanes are seizing up. Maersk just announced they suspended shipping through the Red Sea indefinately. At the Southern and Northern borders, illegal immigrants are pouring in and overwhelming sanctuary cities who are now crying out “uncle.”
While the Vermont Legislature and Scott Administration continue chicken dancing, gaslighting, and pretending they will address issues with more of our worthless fiat money, the USA Titanic is slipping into the abyss. The choice is theirs to make. As the gavel drops, the final acts in their theater of the absurd will play out to a catacliysmic conclusion. I urge people to brace for impact and prepare like your life depends on it – because it does! The real numbers don’t lie. Spoiler alert: God Wins!
Instead of giving drug users more places to use hard drugs, maybe the legislature could try to keep drugs and drug dealers out of Vermont? It’s an idea!
Or give them a safe place to shootup IN the Statehouse instead of outside around it .
term limits for Governors too.
Getting that impulse again to ask them to just leave us alone.
There have to be other ways to tackle this education system. The infrastructure is horrendously expensive and the organizations involved untrustworthy, socially disruptive and ill-effective, doing it the old fashioned way.
Serious re-imagining needed.