weekly round up #3

Another busy week in the statehouse! Hearings on various topics were held for the public in the evenings. A peaceful demonstration was held on the statehouse steps by Vermonters in favor of single payer health care. Members enjoyed visits from several groups of students visiting the statehouse to learn how government works. It was delightful to see the Middlebury College group accompanied by their instructor, former Governor Jim Douglas.

From the Commerce and Economic Development Committee Rep. Lynn Dickinson from St. Albans Town reports that week number 3 began with a field trip to the Mad River Food Hub Grand Opening. It was a very impressive example of a public/private partnership in the Food to Plate effort. This is a food hub that is private-for profit(as compared to the Hardwick food hub which is a non- profit) and is located in the industrial park in Waitsfield. The committee continued to hear from Bishca personnel about the Bishca Housekeeping Bill, H.512. The majority of H.512 is routine technical corrections, with the exception of the one section dealing with Health Care. This is the section that changes the percentage of sale of hospital assets to a for profit company as a threshold to include oversight by the Attorney General's office. Formerly 40% of the hospital assets triggered Attorney General oversight, and is now being changed to 40% of the affected assets. This change is in response to the proposed sale of the dialysis units that Fletcher Allen ran with several community hospitals around the state. More testimony is expected next week from the hospitals and the AG’s office on this one section. The Committee had a visit from the Captive Insurance representatives. The captive insurance industry is the showcase of Vermont's economic development efforts. Vermont is the gold standard with this industry because of the fine job Vermont does in regulation and support from our state government. Testimony was taken on H. 552, a bill which will create a system for workers compensation to be paid on a electronic payroll card. This is similar to the electronic payroll card system created with legislation a few years ago. Testimony was given by Lawrence Miller, Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development and Susan Donegan, Deputy Commissioner of Insurance from Bishca, on the Insurance Transfer Act, which would allow insurance companies to sell some of their commercial insurance lines to other insurance companies. Lastly, the committee heard about consumer protection from the Attorney General’s office, and lessons learned for Risk Management from Irene. The committee ended on Friday with a recap of the Food to Plate provisions in last year’s Jobs Bill, Act 52.

Rep. Linda Myers of Essex reports that the House Institutions and Corrections Committee concentrated on many of the same topics for the second week in a row. Discussions about the Vermont State Hospital, the Waterbury Complex, and the Capital Bill Budget Adjustment all occurred. Regarding the Vermont State Hospital, testimony was heard from Mental Health Commissioner Patrick Flood, Susan Gretkowski, chair of the Berlin Board of Selectpersons, Bill Duchac, manager of insurance for the Department of Buildings and General Services, Tim Brunett of FEMA, and Stephanie Barrett of Joint Fiscal Office on the financial impact concerning construction and operating costs of the Vermont State Hospital. In addition, the committee spent several hours in committee discussions about the governor’s Vermont State Hospital proposals.Jesse Beck of Freeman French and Freeman, the consultants who will work on coming up with three proposals for the Waterbury Complex. The Capital Bill Budget Adjustment plan from the governor was discussed by the committee, Buildings and General Services Commissioner Michael Obuchowski and Wanda Minoli, principal assistant to the commissioner. Next week the committee will take part in a public hearing on Governor Shumlin’s Plan for Mental Health which will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 24 from 4;30 to 6:30 p.m. in Room 11. Two House and two Senate committees will hear comments from mental health advocates, stakeholders, and citizens.

Rep. Jim Eckhardt from Chittenden reports that the Health Care Committee has been very busy working on H.559, this year’s Health Care Bill. Rep. Eckhardt continues to push for the financing plan to be released and have made some headway as the Joint Fiscal Office has agreed to work out the financing numbers for the Health Care Exchange. This is big news if the work ends up being done in a bipartisan fashion. Other than that next week we start working section by section through the bill and marking it up.

Senator Joe Benning from the Caledonia/Orange Senate District reports the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee passed out H.258, which is labeled as an attempt to allow public participation in environmental enforcement actions. At first blush one would think this is a bill to establish citizen lawsuits. However, it is not. It only allows citizens a chance to comment on actions in which an enforcement proceeding has already been started. They are not granted party status. It also attempts to align state public participation requirements with those required by the feds.In addition Senator Benning reports that the Senate Institutions Committee spent most of the week discussing the Vermont State Hospital. The easy part is that the decision has been made not to go back to the Waterbury complex. The more problematic part is that the Governor's plan spreads out facilities across the state (a good thing) but depends heavily on a network of wrap-around support systems that have not yet been fully established (a bad thing). Eventually the kinks will get ironed out. The objective is to make sure we take care of the most vulnerable patients in a cost-effective manor, while hopefully leveraging as many federal dollars as we can in the process.

In the House Government Operations Committee Rep. Mark Higley of Lowell reports that the committee worked all week on the redistricting map. After much time and effort the committee worked its way around Vermont and came up with 151 districts. The committee attempted to collapse a district in parts of Vermont with districts in the negative numbers to get back to 150. These attempts proved difficult to say the least and if possible, would require much shuffling and splitting of towns. Many other road blocks too numerous to mention, were encountered.

Rep. Vicki Strong from Albany reported from the House Judiciary Committee that testimony was heard concerning H.413, An Act Creating a civil action against those who abuse, neglect, or exploit a vulnerable adult. This bill relates to adults in nursing homes, or other care home facilities, who have been harmed by either another resident in the home or an employee of the home. The committee heard that overall Vermont has outstanding quality care in its 42 nursing homes in Vermont. The committee heard an updated report concerning ignition interlock devices and how well they are working as a deterrent to keeping drunk drivers from being able to start their cars. The Dept. of Motor Vehicles is pleased with the program and with the results that they are seeing so far. The Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, Patrick Flood, came into committee to discuss the current plan for supplying our state with much needed facilities and beds since Hurricane Irene closed the Waterbury Hospital on Aug. 29th . He explained the forensic evaluations procedures used for deciding what kind of care a patient needs and where they would be best housed while they need in-patient care. Right now some patients are being housed in the Windsor Correctional Facility due to shortage of beds in the Brattleboro Retreat and other facilities. The committee finished up the week with an exciting time of going through H.403- Foreclosures of Mortgages. Due to the increase in mortgage foreclosures during this recession, we are updating language and the concepts in the bill in order to facilitate the process of foreclosures for businesses and residential properties.

From the House Agriculture Committee Rep. Norm McAllister from Highgate reports most of the this past week was spent reviewing and taking testimony on H.496,An Act Relating to Working Landscape. On Wednesday night there was a hearing in the statehouse for members of the public to voice opinions about the bill. The hearing was very well attended. The committee spoke briefly about a bill that would ban the use of formaldehyde on farms in Vermont because of illness to neighbors in close proximity . The product is used to help maintain hoof health in dairy cattle.

Rep. Bob Bouchard from Colchester told about work done in the General Housing and Military Affairs Committee. Testimony was taken on H. 239, An Act Relating to Public Sector Fair Share Agency Fees. This is the bill that would mandate the payment of fees, not dues, by persons who do not belong to a union, but receive pay and benefits bargained by the union. These fees are estimated at 80-85% of the full dues.
More testimony and discussion occurred on H. 216, An Act Relating to Preserve Federally Assisted Affordable Housing. If passed, this bill would allow fair housing organizations to have the first chance to buy these properties so they can be kept affordable. The bill is currently being rewritten with proposed changes, and will be reviewed next week. Additionally H. 59, An Act Relating to Unfair Housing Practices was approved by the committee, 8 votes yes, 0 votes no and 0 votes absent.

Rep. Carolyn Branagan reported on a bill passed unanimously out of the Ways and Means Committee. The bill was designed to help solve the problem of the shortfall in the General Fund transfer into the Education Fund. The bill was written by Rep. Oliver Olsen from Jamaica. The problem started when school districts were supposed to reduced their spending by $23million last year as part of the challenges for change. Some were able to reduce their spending, but most schools in the state did not. The new administration decided not to insist on making the spending reductions mandatory, but instead chose to reduce the General Fund transfer by the same amount and to make that reduction permanent by reducing the General Fund transfer base. So the General Fund transfer last year was reduced by $23million and the General Fund transfer base was reset with the statutory transfer for FY2013 less than what it would have been otherwise. The $23million reduction was made in lieu of the cuts in education spending that school districts were supposed to make as part of the challenges for change legislation. In years when there is a 'waterfall' at the end of the fiscal year, normally the legislature makes a wish list of needs to fund with extra money. Waterfall money is money above the estimated revenue and above the amount needed to replenish statutory reserves. The plan unanimously approved by the House last week sends half of all waterfall money into the Education Fund and the same amount will be used to increase the size of the base transfer for future years. The remaining half of the waterfall money can be used as the legislature designates. This continues whenever there is a waterfall until the transfer is back up where it should be. The change brings us back to original Act 60 calculations and restores the commitment made to Vermont property taxpayers. The expectation is that the Education Fund Transfer will be completely restored using this method. Let's see what the Senate does with the idea.