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.