Vermont
Facing ‘precarious’ future, Vermont State Ethics Commission seeks financial lifeline from lawmakers
For the past eight months, municipal officials seeking advice from the Vermont State Ethics Commission have been greeted by an apology on the organization’s website.
“With regret, due to lack of staffing,” the top of the webpage reads, “the State Ethics Commission can no longer provide advisory and complaint services to municipalities.”
In 2024, the Vermont Legislature established a uniform code of ethics for town and city governments, and directed the State Ethics Commission to provide training, advice and guidance on how to uphold it. Lawmakers, however, failed to provide the commission with additional resources to fulfill those duties.
With one part-time executive director and one part-time administrative assistant, commission officials say, providing advice to municipalities has become “an impossibility.” Paul Erlbaum, one of five volunteer state ethics commissioners, told lawmakers this week that the body may disband altogether if lawmakers don’t approve at least $300,000 in additional funding next year for two new staff positions. The commission’s budget this fiscal year is about $250,000.
“The commission staff is just treading water. And frankly we’re going to go down unless we get staff.”
Paul Erlbaum, commissioner, Vermont State Ethics Commission
“The continued existence of the commission is precarious, I’ll put it that way,” Erlbaum told members of the Senate Government Operations Committee. “We know this is a really, really tight budget year — we’re not doubting that. But the commission staff is just treading water. And frankly we’re going to go down unless we get staff.”
The ethics commission came into being in 2018 after government watchdogs routinely panned the state for its lack of any independent oversight apparatus. Lawmakers expanded the commission’s duties dramatically in 2024 by reforming the ethics regulatory landscape for municipalities, and directing the commission to vet complaints and issue advisory opinions.
Will Stevens, another commissioner, said the panel exists not only “to ensure good governance,” but to signal to Vermonters that “our representative form of government is acting in their broad interests.”
With public trust in government at historic lows, Stevens said, the role of the ethics commission is especially important now.
Alex Driehaus
/
Associated Press
“The Legislature, while acting with good intent, created what amounts to an unfunded mandate,” Stevens said. “It’s a time-honored practice to ensure an entity’s failure to give it more to do while limiting their resources.”
Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed the 2024 legislation that expanded the commission’s duties to go into law without his signature. While he welcomed the increased oversight, Scott said at the time, he objected to creating new administrative burdens without additional funding.
Though Scott’s concerns proved prescient, the budget he presented to lawmakers earlier this month does not include additional funding for the commission.
“We had to make difficult choices in this budgetary cycle, knowing the limited amount of resources that we have,” Scott said Wednesday.
That leaves lawmakers to decide, once again, whether to fund the good-governance instrument they created.
“The question has to be raised — is the point just so we can feel good and pat ourselves on the back and say we’re doing something without actually doing anything?”
Chittenden County Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky
Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, a member of the Senate Government Operations Committee, has advocated for increased funding for the commission for years. The Chittenden County Progressive said it’s been tough to make any headway with members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“I think there is often a sense that things are sort of fine. And sure, we should do something, but it can wait,” Vyhovsky said.
Vyhovsky said the commission’s request is small relative to the $9.4 billion state budget. Given the financial strain on the commission now, she said, failure to fund additional staff will raise questions about the Legislature’s commitment to its mission.
“At that point,” Vyhovsky said, “the question has to be raised — is the point just so we can feel good and pat ourselves on the back and say we’re doing something without actually doing anything?”
BRIDGEWATER CORNERS, Vt. (WCAX) – A Vermont brewery is living up to its name to help celebrate the outdoors.
Long Trail Brewing Company is unveiling its “Reallllly Long Trail Ale Pack” in honor of National Trails Day this weekend. They believe it will be the largest single-unit commercially available beer package in the country.
The design for the packaging is 273 centimeters long, reflecting the 273-mile Long Trail that cuts through the length of Vermont. It also holds 168 beers and needs three people just to carry it. The brewery’s Jordan Kellem hopes it can encourage people to, as they say, “Take a Hike!”
“We’ve been brewing beer for a long time, and it’s increasingly more difficult to stand out. And at the end of the day, we have to remind ourselves we’re in the beer industry and it’s a fun industry to be a part of, so we want to have some fun and do what we do,” Kellem said.
They’re also giving back with $15,000 in donations to local trail systems across the state.
National Trails Day is Saturday, June 7.
Copyright 2026 WCAX. All rights reserved.
Kids shouted, stilt-walkers strode and paper-mache puppets swayed above the crowd as a procession snaked through downtown Burlington last week.
What for? Trout.
Sustainability Academy students and their supporters marched across the city to the beat of bucket drummers May 29 for the second annual Trout Parade, a showcase of their conservation efforts for the state’s official cold-water fish.
Their chants and hoisted fish-shaped cutouts served as a send-off to brook trout raised by students as part of a schoolwide science project.
“The Trout Parade was really just our students lining up to say goodbye as we loaded them onto the bus to be released,” said Kestrel Plump, a sustainability coach at the academy.
For about five months this year, the school lobby became a hatchery as students cultivated fish from eggs supplied by regional conservation group Trout Unlimited.
Interim Principal Antony Dennis said the trout would be released in the Huntington River the next day, May 30.
“This is the second year that it’s been this big that we actually got to a point where it went off campus,” Dennis said. “It used to be a small event.”
The parade began for students outside the school as residents set out from The Flynn to join them and continue together to Battery Park.
The school has conducted the project for roughly five years, but this was only its second time partnering with The Flynn and Vermont puppeteers Janice Walrafen and Erik Gillard, or Erok.
The kids thought the jumbo puppets were magical, Walrafen said. “The same with the masks. You put on a mask, and then all of a sudden you get to be transformed as something other than your little self,” she said. “You get to be part of something bigger.”
Onlookers, bicyclists and pedestrians stopped and recorded the spectacle with their phones.
If they had any question about its object, answers came by way of lilting treble chants.
“Tell me what it’s all about!” a parade leader called out over a megaphone.
“Trout!” a chorus of kids chimed back.
They followed their leader in reciting: “We love the trout, but we must let them out!”
The parade concluded with a pageant accompanied by a harpist. The students were sent off with ice cream given out by retired University of Vermont faculty member Patrick Malone.
Asked if students get attached to the aspiring fish or just see them as blobs in a science project, Plump, the school sustainability coach, let a group of girls answer.
“The first one,” one of them said.
And were they happy to see their piscine pals released?
“Quite,” another responded.
Corey Arwood is the Burlington Free Press city reporter and can be reached by email at clarwood@gannett.com.
Vermont
Debate over ICE masking bill complicates, for a moment, end of session in the Vermont House – VTDigger
We’re outta here
That’s all, folks.
The Vermont Legislature adjourned for the year, and for the 2025-26 biennium, Friday night. Senators finished up their work just before 6 p.m., and the House followed suit two hours later. I’m not complaining about the time. I was happy, in fact, to be on the road home with a sliver of daylight left.
The House took longer to finish in part because its adjournment got tangled up in a bill, ultimately doomed, that as originally proposed would have barred federal officers such as ICE agents from wearing masks.
The bill, S.208, emerged from a joint House and Senate conference committee Thursday. In order for the latest version of the legislation to be taken up on the floor so soon after, though, the House needed to suspend its rules. Such a procedural move needs three-quarters approval. And while rules suspensions are common late in the session, when it came to taking up S.208 “for immediate consideration,” that was not the case.
House lawmakers voted 81-51 in favor of expediting the bill’s timeline, falling 18 short of the 99 needed to meet the threshold to cast aside the chamber’s rules.
After that, the House took up and passed, with no debate, this year’s budget bill, H.951. Then, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, in her last floor session holding the gavel, brought up the last thing lawmakers had to approve for the year: a resolution formally dictating the terms of adjournment.
But some lawmakers weren’t ready to be done with S.208. Rep. Brian Cina, P/D-Burlington, stood and asked for a roll call vote on the adjournment resolution itself, “due to the important impact of S.208 on our open democracy.”
His comments mirrored those of several senators earlier in the night who had lamented on the chamber floor how the bill was falling by the wayside. The Senate also adjourned without taking any floor action on the compromise version of S.208.
Ultimately, 15 other House members joined Cina voting against the adjournment resolution in a vote of 114-16. After it was approved, the rest of the formalities of adjournment played out, including a requisite speech from Gov. Phil Scott.
“I’m going to try and make this brief,” the governor said at the outset of his remarks. “I guarantee it’ll take less time than it did to roll call the adjournment address.”
Beyond debate over S.208, adjournment in both chambers was marked by emotional farewell remarks from Krowinski, D-Burlington, and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, both of whom aren’t seeking reelection.
Krowinski said her favorite memories from her 14 years in the House have been “the quieter moments most Vermonters never witness,” such as “members helping one another through difficult days, offering support regardless of politics and members coming together to support a colleague through a rough time.”
Baruth at times teared up as he recounted his 16 years in the Senate. And the English professor closed his speech with a nod to some of his favorite literature.
“It will hurt not to find my seat when the bell rings next session,” Baruth said. “But even Frodo Baggins — and you know that ‘The Lord of the Rings’ means everything to me — even Frodo Baggins knew when it was time to follow Bilbo to the Grey Havens.”
OK, our turn now
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VTDigger reporters fanned out this session to bring you the news from Montpelier. Clockwise from top left, Shaun Robinson, Ethan Weinstein, Charlotte Oliver and Corey McDonald. File photos by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerBefore we go, some thanks are in order.
Putting together an originally-reported newsletter every day of the session — on top of the traditional news stories our readers expect — is no easy task. While you’re used to seeing my byline, and that of our fearless Statehouse Bureau Chief, Ethan Weinstein, there are a host of others who make this work possible.
Several other VTDigger reporters took the lead on issues of Final Reading this year, including Charlotte Oliver, Olivia Gieger, Theo Wells-Spackman and Corey McDonald. Meanwhile, ace photographer Glenn Russell captured many of the moments — like this one — that defined this year’s session.
Chad Lorenz, contributing editor on the politics desk, and Ruth Hare, VTDigger’s managing editor, brought their decades of experience and watchful eyes to each day’s newsletter. Noel Clark, VTDigger’s digital editor, and Night Editor Nathan Allen turned the plain text of a Google Doc into the email that landed in your inbox every night. Taylor Haynes, the newsroom’s audience and product director, made sure that email looked as good as it did.
And of course, we’re grateful to all of you — almost 8,000 subscribers — who turned to this newsletter, and do so year after year, to stay on top of the news under the Golden Dome.
If Final Reading has helped you cut through the noise and understand our government better, please consider supporting VTDigger in an amount that works for you.
This week, every donation helps fund our reporting and provides a new book to a Vermont child through the Children’s Literacy Foundation.
Reliable information matters. So does helping young readers discover the power of reading. Today you can support both with one donation. Pretty cool!
— VTD editors
While we’re gone
Even though the legislative session lasts just five months, our coverage of state government and politics is year-round. Your tips and pitches help us find the stories readers care about and that need to be brought to light. So don’t be a stranger, even if it’s just a little harder to reach us than flagging us down in the Statehouse hallways.
Reach me at srobinson@vtdigger.org and Ethan at eweinstein@vtdigger.org. You can send a secure tip on our website here, and find other reporters’ contact information here.
Until next year!
— Shaun Robinson
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