Town meeting season has begun

Pomfret’s informational town meeting was held Saturday, Feb. 22 – kicking off Town Meeting season. I always hope to attend as many of the 25 town gatherings as possible. Still, it is a challenge as the vast majority are held during three periods: Saturday morning, March 1, Monday evening, March 3, and Tuesday, March 4. So, the fact that Pomfret’s meeting came early was helpful, and I doubt any other Town Meeting will have the benefit of Alice Lamson’s delicious homemade doughnuts that all of us were treated to in Pomfret.

As the Vermont Legislature only meets from January through mid-May, Town Meeting marks just shy of our halfway point. Usually, by this time, we have a sense of how major priorities are shaping up. This year, not so much. One of our top priorities has been education property tax reform. I hoped that by this time, we’d have made more significant progress on this. To his credit, the governor and his administration have presented a proposal on transforming Vermont’s education system. This proposal is bold and big and not entirely fleshed out. For the Legislature to act on any of these proposals – governance restructuring, funding and financing, school scale, and rules and regulations — we need details. We need draft legislation to work from, and we need to agree that we are all moving in the same direction. We all want a sustainable education system that is sustainably funded. But we need a more detailed map to get there.

My sense is that we’ll find a way to education tax relief this year. It is what our constituents cried out for. It may not be the final education financing reform that will make the system sustainable over time – but what is clear is that this bold a revisioning of our education system will take us all, working together, more time to get it right.

I have a clearer sense of the bills that will be making it out of Senate Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs by cross-over. I expect we will pass out three committee bills: Housing, Economic Development, and Labor – each with several elements. Our Housing bill builds on several successful programs established to increase housing: VHIP – the Vermont Housing Improvement Program, which provides grants or loans to bring back online vacant, blighted, non-code compliant buildings and to build ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units). With inflation as high as it is in the construction

world and not enough workforce – these are cost-efficient ways to create more housing units.

The bill will include a funding mechanism to support building water and sewer infrastructure in our village centers, a key precursor to building new housing. It also addresses further Brownfield clean-up, which will help accelerate re-development. This bill has continued support for Renters and Homeownership opportunities, including manufactured home renovations, developing ‘off-site’ housing construction, and supportive housing for our developmentally disabled.

Our Senate Economic Development bill this session is focused on supporting Vermont’s small businesses by funding resources critical to their growth and success (legal services, business advice & counsel, expanding training programs), establishing a trade office in Asia, creating resources for our growing film and media sectors, further supporting our outdoor recreation sector, and establishing a Task Force to explore how the State can help businesses access the capital they need to grow.

The Labor bill our committee is working on eliminates the sub-minimum wage for disabled workers and creates a minimum wage and overtime rules for agricultural workers. And we are exploring a range of issues from ‘good cause’ termination to giving more Vermont workers (judiciary supervisors and assistant attorney generals) the right to organize and collectively bargain.

Alison Clarkson can be reached by email: aclarkson@leg.state.vt.us or by phone at the Statehouse (Tues-Fri) (802) 828-2228 or at home (Sat-Mon) (802) 457-4627. 

For more information on the Vermont Legislature and the bills that have been proposed and passed, visit: legislature.vermont.gov.