U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., was back in his old digs.

Vermont’s junior senator, who spent more than a dozen years in the state Senate — including stints as president pro tempore — paid a visit to the Statehouse Thursday to give his take to the Senate Appropriations Committee on, well, everything going on down in Washington, D.C.

“It’s so good to see you guys,” Welch said, taking a seat in the committee’s witness chair. He started to tell the senators he had “such fond memories of serving” with them, though quickly cut himself off. “Well, I never made it to this committee. I was across the hall,” Welch corrected, drawing laughs as he pointed toward the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee’s room.

Welch told Senate Approps that, along with many other proposals, he’s deeply worried about the downstream impacts that cuts to Medicaid — which Republican leaders in D.C. have been weighing to fund President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda, including major tax cuts — could have on state budgets in Vermont and elsewhere.  

Recent Trump-led cuts to other federal programs and grant funding could also leave states scrambling to make up the difference, he said, adding that he wished he could give legislators a clearer picture of what to expect. Trump adviser Elon Musk, and Musk’s “government efficiency” department, have seemed to make sweeping cuts almost entirely at random, Welch said. 

“There’s going to be a level of uncertainty that you’re just going to have to deal with,” he said in response to a question from Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, whom he called “Richie.” “We can give you the information we have as soon as we have it — but it’s not as soon as you need it.”

Vermont’s House and Senate budget writers are in the process of drafting the state’s spending plan for the 2026 fiscal year, which starts in July, with the House Appropriations Committee expected to take a preliminary vote on their version on Friday. (Meanwhile, lawmakers are still working out a sharp dispute with Gov. Phil Scott’s administration over how to adjust spending for the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends in June.)

Welch also took a spin around the building Thursday, shaking hands and slapping backs with some of his former colleagues. Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden-Southeast, suggested the cordiality was a far cry from the nation’s capital — though Welch joked about at least one distinction he has noticed.

On the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, which Welch sits on, “the chair is not as tough on me as Ann Cummings was,” he said, referring to the Washington County senator and longtime chair of Vermont’s finance panel.

— Shaun Robinson

In the know

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education. 

What exactly that means for the country — and Vermont — is an open question. 

Through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the state receives more than $68 million annually from the feds, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provides another $37.5 million for Vermont’s schools, Anne Bordonaro, who leads the Vermont Agency of Education’s work on federal education programs, told lawmakers last week. Overall, the agency received about $490 million in federal dollars in fiscal year 2024, more than 90% of which it passed on as grants. 

Read more about what we know and don’t know yet here. 

— Ethan Weinstein

On the move

The Senate on Thursday passed S.59, a bill that would make a handful of tweaks to the state’s laws on open meetings. Among other changes, the bill would require officials to include “sufficient details” about matters they discussed during a meeting in their minutes and add a new reason to the list of why officials could enter into an executive session — to discuss “interest rates for publicly financed loans.”

The bill now heads to the House for its consideration.

— Shaun Robinson 

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