The session stretches on 

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, the longest-serving member of the Vermont House and the chair of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee. 

She’s ready to adjourn for the year and tend to her garden. 

Emmons, who was first elected in 1982 and has been a committee chair for 20 years, said the longest legislative session she remembers ended in the middle of June, during the 1990s. 

“But to go until the end of May is, I hope that’s not going to be our norm,” Emmons said. 

As joint Senate and House committees continue to debate some of the year’s most significant bills — the state budget, education reform, property tax rates — the legislative session has dragged on longer than in years past. 

For Vermont’s part-time Legislature, adjourning late causes practical complications in people’s lives. Many legislators arrange for seasonal housing in Montpelier, like Emmons who said she rents an apartment and lives alongside two other representatives. Although Emmons no longer works full time outside the legislative session, other lawmakers have jobs they planned to return to and childcare arrangements that end soon. 

The Legislature has typically adjourned in the middle of May in recent years, so many lawmakers plan accordingly. 

Last year, the last day of the session was June 16, though most committees finished their work by the end of May.

John Bloomer, secretary of the Senate, said that he thinks of 2020 as one of the most memorable legislative sessions. That year the Legislature didn’t adjourn until September. And because government procedure was so disrupted by the pandemic, lawmakers had to pass multiple short-term budgets, Bloomer said. 

Other lengthy years include 1961, during which the legislature didn’t adjourn until Aug. 1, due to a budget stalemate between the governor and the leader of the Senate. 

Rep. Emilie Krasnow, D-South Burlington, said she collected signatures to run for reelection early this year, anticipating the legislative session might get drawn out. She’s heard from other House members that they have a harder time campaigning against opponents back home when the session draws on. Their opponents may be living closer to voters and have more time to campaign, she said. 

By having a session for only half the year, Vermont’s Legislature is made up of community members with occupations rather than professional politicians. That leaves plenty of room for legislators to have potential conflicts of interest in their area of expertise, or — on the flip side — lack thorough expertise in the committee work they are assigned. But Emmons said she thinks the pros outweigh the cons. 

When legislators have a gaggle of staffers doing work for them, they start to disengage, Emmons said. Whereas in Vermont, legislators are always talking to each other face to face. 

“You’ve got a problem with a piece of legislation that’s coming out of another committee? You go and talk to the members of that committee, you go and talk to the chair,” Emmons said.

In the know

A proposed change to Stowe’s charter that would allow the town to double its local option tax to 2% “will die on the wall” in the Senate Government Operations Committee, the committee’s chair, Rutland Republican Sen. Brian Collamore, said Tuesday.

The committee voted 1-4 against advancing the charter change, which passed the House last week. Only Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, voted for it. 

The proposal, H.954, faced opposition from the outset this year because some lawmakers were concerned that approving it would set off a wave of requests from other towns to boost their own local taxes on meals, rooms and other purchases. Debate over Stowe’s change was further complicated when the House Ways and Means Committee revised the language that town voters approved, altering where some of the newly proposed tax revenue would go. 

Under Ways and Means’ plan, which that committee drafted Friday, half of the newly added 1% in local tax would be deposited into a new, statewide fund for town highway projects. That fund, which would also get revenue from other sources, has been proposed in the Senate’s version of the budget bill, H.951.

Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, called the changes to Stowe’s charter “an appalling precedent” ahead of the vote in Senate Gov Ops on Tuesday.

“We are not raising transportation money on the backs of visitors to Stowe and Stowe residents,” she said.

— Shaun Robinson

The House last week passed a version of the law enforcement masking bill stripped of its provisions penned in the Senate that were supported by anti-ICE activists. Lawmakers Tuesday reviewed a copy of the changed bill, S.208, on the Senate floor. 

Rather than voting on the bill — as changed by the House — legislators agreed to send the bill to a conference committee, made up of lawmakers from both chambers, in an attempt to reach a consensus. 

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, the House had not yet appointed lawmakers to the conference committee. If the House does not appoint members to the committee, or if the committee fails to reach a consensus, the bill will die. 

— Charlotte Oliver

On the move

The House on Tuesday passed S.71, a data privacy bill, after a landslide 129-3 vote. 

“This legislation limits what data can be collected, requires full transparency with consumers about how their data is used, increases protections for sensitive information, and bans manipulative data practices designed to exploit consumers,” House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said in a statement. “Most importantly, it gives Vermonters real tools to fight back; the right to correct their data, opt out of collection, obtain a personal copy, and know exactly which third parties have received their data.”  

Two years ago, Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a more stringent data privacy bill, with supporters of the bill blaming tech industry lobbyists for spreading misinformation about it. 

Some of the House’s strongest data privacy proponents blamed a similar lobbying push for weakening this year’s bill. The amended bill now heads to the Senate for further consideration. 

— Ethan Weinstein

Dog days

What’s the end of a legislative session without some shenanigans?

As of Wednesday, there’s a new portrait up on the Statehouse walls — and it features not a historic leader but rather Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky’s dog, Laika. 

Vyhovsky brought her 13-year-old Samoyed to the Statehouse last Wednesday night, and captured the photo, which shows Laika seated dutifully at the Senate dais, to prove, should she ever be asked, how her dog “was acting lieutenant governor for about 10 minutes.”

What was supposed to be a clandestine transfer of power, however, turned out to be anything but. Laika left white hair all over the LG’s chair, Vyhovsky said — so much so that upon seeing it the next day, Vyhovsky explained, Lt. Gov. John Rodgers remarked that it looked as if “a sheep had died” there.

Investigation by Senate staff, including a review of security camera footage, soon exposed the two Vyhovskys as the culprits. Staff then had to lint-roll the chair and, apparently, shampoo it as well — two things Vyhosky said she never meant to happen.

“I have since apologized to the lieutenant governor for forgetting a lint roller,” she said. 

Vyhovsky said the LG was amused by the story, however, and asked for a framed version of her photo as penance for the hairy inconvenience. The photo was tacked up, in a well-appointed gold frame, in the Statehouse on Wednesday. Vyhovsky hopes the location will stay a secret, until The Powers That Be find out.

In exchange for this hot scoop, VTDigger agreed not to reveal its location and spoil the fun.

Here’s one hint, though: “I just have fun trolling John Bloomer,” Vyhovsky said.

— Shaun Robinson

Department of corrections

Yesterday’s newsletter misstated which chamber Tim Ashe led. He was, of course, the Senate pro tem. It’s been a long session …

The Vermont Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved an education-reform bill that calls for voluntary school district mergers — leaving the House to weigh in on the compromise legislation that could potentially resolve the biggest issue of the session.

The 27-2 vote in favor of the plan — which lawmakers fine-tuned last week in close consultation with the administration of Gov. Phil Scott — signaled that the legislature and the governor have settled many of their differences about the future of education in Vermont.

The House voted late Tuesday afternoon to form a conference committee to try to quickly work through differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, including class-size minimums and school-construction aid. If the negotiations go smoothly, the stage could be set for adjournment of the legislature this week.

Tuesday’s development signals that a long-predicted standoff between the governor and the legislature appeared to have been averted.

The governor had advocated for months for mandatory school district mergers, even threatening to keep the legislature in session until it complied with his demand. Lawmakers objected to forced mergers, and instead insisted on local decision-making around consolidation.

Scott ultimately backed down on his ultimatum.

“The governor made a major concession in the context of good-faith negotiations,” Sen. Seth Bongartz (D-Bennington) said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “That showed a willingness to listen and to work with the legislature to achieve something positive for Vermont taxpayers and for Vermont’s children.”

The version of H.955 passed by the Senate Tuesday has the same framework as the bill passed by the House in April, with some notable changes.

It creates seven cooperative education service agencies, or CESAs, regional entities that allow districts to share resources. Within those CESAs, committees would be formed to consider voluntary school district mergers. The bill also calls for a new education funding formula that allots the average student the same base dollar amount rather than leaving spending decisions to local voters.

After the Senate Education and Finance committees failed to produce a bill that leaders deemed suitable, a small group of senators moved into closed-door meetings with several House members and representatives from Gov. Phil Scott’s administration to hammer out a “consensus amendment” that was brought to the floor on Tuesday.

Sen. Ruth Hardy (D-Addison), Senate minority leader Scott Beck (R-Caledonia), Education chair Sen. Seth Bongartz (D-Bennington) and Finance chair Sen. Ann Cummings (D-Washington) worked on the amendment with House committee chairs Rep. Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (D-Brattleboro), Rep. Pattie McCoy (R-Rutland).

Hardy said in an interview on Monday that legislators told the administration last week that there was no legislative support — in either the Democratic or Republican caucuses — for mandatory school district mergers. Ultimately, Hardy said, Scott’s team accepted the idea of voluntary mergers and the legislators conceded to a shorter timeline for voluntary town votes on school district mergers and the implementation of the new funding formula.

The Senate amendment largely preserves the process laid out in the House bill by which school districts would consider voluntary mergers. Study committees made up of school board members from different districts would be required to take part in facilitated meetings to contemplate mergers into districts of at least 2,000 students. Because merging will not be mandatory, some of those committees might decide to merge while others may not. Some of Vermont’s larger districts may not even have to contemplate merging because they’re already big enough.

Under the Senate’s amendment, merger committees are required to meet by October and finalize their recommendations by September 1, 2027. Voters would then weigh in on mergers on Town Meeting Day 2028, eight months earlier than the November 2028 vote called for in the House bill.

The amendment also puts a nine-year moratorium on towns petitioning to withdraw from school districts, which might happen if residents fear their school would be closed in a bigger district.

“It was mostly just to keep the process from getting too chaotic,” Hardy said.

The amendment also includes language to prevent small districts from being left out of the merger process. Agency of Education officials said last week that could create isolated or “orphan” districts that would be too small to operate efficiently under the new funding formula. Hardy likened such districts to ones that “nobody picked … for the kickball team.”

By November 2029, the State Board of Education must submit a report to the legislature naming school districts with fewer than 750 students that have not successfully merged. Another process laid out in the amendment allows isolated districts to appeal to the legislature in order to merge with a neighboring district.

The amendment also bumps up by one year the date by which the new funding formula would be implemented, to July 1, 2029 — the same date that new school districts and new property tax classifications would formally go into effect. Some smaller districts would likely merge because they wouldn’t be financially viable under the foundation formula unless they achieve greater scale, Hardy said. School districts that merge, or already have 2,000 students, would also be prioritized for school construction aid.

A number of things would have to happen before the new funding formula goes into effect. Those include decisions related to funding for career and technical education, special education, sparse schools, high schools, geographic cost differences, prekindergarten and transportation. A report commissioned by the legislature that will shed more light on those issues is due at the end of this year. The governor wanted to remove those contingencies, Hardy said on the Senate floor on Tuesday, but legislators advocated to keep them.

Not everyone thought that was a good idea.

Sen. Russ Ingalls (R-Essex), one of two Republican senators who voted against the bill, noted that the funding formula was years away from being put into place, and he expressed doubt it would ever come to fruition.

Sen. Russ Ingalls (R-Essex) Credit: Kevin McCallum

“We keep talking about a foundation formula,” Ingalls said. “I’m pretty sure we’re gonna see Bigfoot before we see one of those.”

The bill is silent on the role of tuitioning students to independent schools.

“Because the whole private-school thing kind of took over last year’s conversation, I think people this year tried to not make it about private schools,” Hardy said. School choice will be something that has to be addressed at the local level during merger-committee discussions.

Hardy pointed out that the final version of the bill reflects the recommendations of the
redistricting task force that met over the summer and fall to consider drawing a map with consolidated school districts, only to end up rejecting the proposition in favor of a more measured, democratic approach. Gov. Scott previously said that the task force failed to do its job.